Are the bugs really this bad in Seattle?

[Gambit]

Ripped from Penny Arcade (and cleaned up a bit):
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Gather round, kids, and let Uncle Gabe tell you a story. I was maybe eight or nine years old and living with my family in Spokane. The house we lived in was constantly invaded by large black beetles. As a young boy I was never keen on disposing of them in a reasonable fashion. So I would take my mother's Tupperware bowls and simple cover the little bastards up. When my father would come home from work he would find the bowls and get rid of the offending insects while discouraging me from ever doing that again. One day apparently sick of my antics my dad simply moved the bowl a few feet towards my bed. I returned to my room to find the bowl in a different spot and immediately attributed it to the massive strength of the bug contained within. Its choice of direction and distance covered not only implied that he knew where I slept but that he would reach it in short order. Needless to say I was scarred for life. Flash forward 13 years. In every marriage there needs to be one person who accepts the role of bug killer. Kara and I discovered early in our marriage that neither one of us can stand insects. Mere weeks after our glorious union we sat huddled on the couch cursing and shaking our fists at a tiny spider who had somehow managed his way into our home. As we looked at each other we realized that we had no bug killer. “I just assumed you would kill them” she said. “Well I just assumed you would kill them” I retorted. As the years went by I unwillingly took up the mantle of exterminator. I was eventually able to handle all the various bugs Spokane could throw at me. It wasn’t until we moved here to Seattle that I was once again reduced to a blubbering fool huddled on the couch, too scared to even move. These spiders are huge. I’m talking Land of the #$%^#$ Lost huge. This is some serious science fiction %^#$ I’m dealing with here. I sucked one up with the vacuum cleaner and then backed away from it slowly. I looked at Kara and she told me to throw the vacuum away and we would just buy another one. Immediately I made my way with it to the dumpster. As I went, though, I calculated the expenses associated with purchasing a new vacuum cleaner each and every time we saw a spider. At the rate we were encountering these mutant arachnids we would spend the rest of our life in debt to Target. It was then that we made the decision to have our apartment filled with poisonous gas.
The next few days were like a vacation. We were walking around barefoot again like we were on some kind of tropical beach. Then I found a note scrawled on a piece of notebook paper left near my bedside table. It said in shaky handwriting as if written during the agonizing moments before death,

“This is not over.”
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And the accompanying strip:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020607l.gif

[Cerberus]

probably saw a HOBOspider. they are about the size of a silver dollar and yes their bite hurts like a sum bitch.

[Spinning Hat]

That's funny.. When I lived in AZ I was constantly seeing Black Widow Spiders.... I got real used to devising ways to kill those little bastards with whatever was around. I'm just glad I never got close enough to be bit by one.

[Ghryphen]

Haha, yeah there are efen huge ass spiders here. Every once in a while, more often in the summer, we can find these bastards in our tub, or on the wall. One night I was laying in bed and looks across the room at the ceiling and thought, how efen big is that spider that I can see it even in the dark. I then flipped on the light, grabbed about 30 feet of toilet paper grab the thing and ran to the toilet screeming like a school girl. When I hit the flusher, the damn thing crawled out from under the tp and got on top of its spinning tp island. As it went down I went into convulsions.

GAhhhhh I hate bugs, *shiver*

Hobo Spider

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

HOBO spiders can kill, and leave very nasty, painful wounds. They aren't native to washington, either...I think they came from britain.


The big brown fuzzy spiders that we get are mostly harmless. But they scare the hell out of you if you wake up to one on your chest looking down at you.
When I was younger, I caught a small version of one of those brown ones (scooped it up with my bare hands). Then I tossed it in a mayonaise jar and fed it termites and carpenter ants, while keeping it in the garage. It got so huge...probably about as big as my hand across. My dad didn't realize what I had done, until he went into the garage to grab some wood and some tools, when he went to look at what was in the jar, he said that he hadn't seen a spider that big around here ever. (He was born in Seattle, and raised in Yakima.)

Out of all the times that I handled a spider, I only was bitten once while handling one. The damn thing was about the size of a dime, and was reddish-black. Hurt like hell, but it didn't inject any venom (that hurt me anyways). The other time I was bitten, was on my knee, and the bite was painless, but it destroyed all the tissue about the size of a quarter and as deep as the muscle goes. Had to go to the doctors to get it cut and drained and to remove the neurotoxin that was killing my cells. Pretty gruesome, but totally painless (the flesh was dead).

[Gambit]

They always inject venom - whether or not it affects you is the question.

The one that got your knee sounds like a brown recluse. If I recall correctly, their poison does that; just rots the flesh away. Black widows affect the nervous system more directly.

Those hobos aren't listed as a fatal species, but I suppose one can have an allergic reaction to anything.

[Cerberus]

that is a life size pic of the hobo. BTW, hobo spiders also cause similar tissue damage to the Brn Recluse occasionally.

[Ghryphen]

life size depending on your resolution and monitor size

[Aluscia]

I see it as 2.2"x1.3"... am I close? Those spiders ARE SCARY!!!! AHHHHHH!!!! If I ever saw one of those buggers, I'd never sleep again... I'ma lready looking around my room, making sure there aren't any waiting for me....

[Jode]

thats funny..I'm glad Rob is the designated bug killer
Although Abby is getting pretty good at stomping on things!

[Cerberus]

did you know that twice a year, a spider crawls in and out of your mouth while you are asleep. on average.... that is.

[Gambit]

There's a number of them that actually get EATEN when that happens - but I don't remember the number.

Sweet dreams.

[Spinning Hat]

I heard it was like the average person eats 5 a year or something.... It's very disgusting to think about.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Tasty!!

[XRogue]

Yah, he's real good at spitting out such facts at just the time you'd rather not hear about it. Like when you're already creeped out.