insects of unusual sizes

I can do ants. I've warmed up just fine to the fact that geckos crawl all over my wall, and I've learned to deal with all the little jumping spiders.

What I do not appreciate, and feel I never will, are the jumbo sized insects that I seem to be finding more and more these days. Why are bugs so much bigger in India?
Oh- and the mice, who apparently think this is their lovely new home.

Last month I saw a HUGE spider crawl across my bedroom floor. Tried to kill it (sort of) but didn't make it to my shoe fast enough and it ran under my door out into the unknown. It was dark and everyone else was asleep, so I just jumped in my bed and prayed it would stay wherever it was and not re-enter my room and eat me while I was sleeping. The next night while I was at home with the boys, I came across the same guy while cleaning the kitchen….chased it around for a while, honestly kinda scared to smash it. Eventually he crawled into the corner of the tile and I took a match and lit him on fire. Seemed less risky then smashing him.

So anyways, that took care of him, and I didn't see any more big bugs like that for a while. I started to believe maybe I wouldn't.

Wrong.

Here's the guy I found in my bathroom last week. Took this while standing on the toilet. Never in my life have I seen a cockroach this big…the pic honestly doesn't really do it justice. At all.

Um, yeah, no thanks.


Here's the bucket he sat trapped under for about 4 days til he died cause I was too chicken to just kill it.



Two nights ago was the worst. Once again I was babysitting….for some reason I keep coming across things when Dave isn't home to kill them for me. How inconvenient.
First of all I found this guy….

I think he’s the little cousin to the poor guy I fried.


THEN, later, I went to go put some of Micah and Levi's laundry away. I opened the door to their wardrobe, started sticking clothes in, and something moves real fast, jumps out, lands ON MY FOOT, and runs off. It was one our mice friends. Grossness!
The first one started out in my room last week, (ran across my floor, hid, and stayed there a couple nights) but apparently they've spread now. I think I'd prefer to not know how many we have.


I think it's safe to say I'm now paranoid . Every time I see anything move out of the corner of my eye, I jump.

I would certainly prefer to just not have any of these unwelcome guests, but since I know that's not likely, I've decided I'll settle to just at least get rid of the mice. We've been told we can get mouse traps…still haven't found them anywhere yet though. We do have rat poisoning, but it doesn't seem to be working. We ended up going and getting that in the rain on the scooter at 10pm one night last week, after Mel and I had been having a discussion in the kitchen...about mice no less.

I was in the kitchen, she was in the living room, and we were having a discussion about the mouse that had been in my room. Mel says- "yeah, since that 1st mouse I feel like I'm seeing them everywhere, but I can't decide if I really am, or if my mind is just making them all up. I said - "I know! I think our minds are just playing tricks on us." As the words are coming out of my mouth Mel gets a horrified look on her face and starts saying "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
AS we had been talking about it, a mouse ran clear across the kitchen and went under the fridge. I didn't even know what was going on, but I saw the look on her face and just reacted. She was standing on the couch, and I was standing on the kitchen counter within about 0.2 seconds. It was then that we decided to go to Rajpur and find something, anything, to try and get rid of the stupid things.

I'm praying we find traps soon. It's not the best feeling to crawl into bed every night knowing you may have visitors who decide to sleep with you.