I am being plagued by Daddy Long Legs.  There are zillions of them here. Its like some kind of spindly legged nightmare. I open the window to get one out and twenty fly in - straight up to my bedroom. There was actually one in bed with me the night before last. They are all breeding on the lawn and they fly up my trouser legs when I walk out the door. Jon was killing about 25 of them last night and there were legs and bodies going everywhere, and in my hormonal state I was promptly sick

So, I need to commit mass DDL murder. Any thoughts on how to do it? I need something to spray on the lawn itself cos all their vile eggs are eating the grass seed and there'll be nothing left next year!

I'm with you kiddo - personally don't think you can beat a flame thrower :D :D :D   (you can always re-turf next year ;) )

LOL. I'll go round with a match stick and set each one alight I think :D Time consuming but strangely satisfying.

I close all the windows before dusk, gets a bit warm, but I would rather that then the Daddy Long Legs, still get the odd one, can't think how they get in!

Hubby is away at the moment, I have to sit in the lounge with the hoover ready and plugged in, hose at the ready for any spiders.........I hate this time of year.

Do chickens eat them? Mollie is having a couple of ex battery hens for her birthday next week... they are going to live free range in the field in their new ickle henhouse - but I guess I could relocate them to the lawn for some serious spider sorting?

Daughter assures me that the evil flying spiders are carriers of the most venomous poison known to man (must be true, Ricky Gervais said it :rolleyes: :D ) but they don't have any teeth to administer it ....... but if they get bitten  

OK, since hens don't have much in the way of teeth either, get the DLLs with the flame thrower and let the hens feast on their roasted remains :D

Cool - a teeny tiny spidey barbeque :D We'll sing songs and roast spidies. Brill - are you coming over? :D

Oooh luckily ive got a Weimaraner that loves a bit of DDL meat :D

Yep - see ya soon :D  Seeing it's a spidey BBQ, will do it Aussie style (giant Pavlova and a bucket load of beers :D )

Hmmm...I think you lot are strangely weird!!!(and worrying!!!) :P

Okay hijacking the thread here, sorry! We have another problem here and it is EVER so annoying. Millions of tiny BEETLES. They all seem to come in via the kitchen window, and really I cannot close it as it is still too warm for that and with the big dogs sleeping in the kitchen it would smell if it was closed. I literally spray and kill four to five times a day and each time collect about a hundred dead ones from the window sill and work surfaces -awful! Any suggestions on how to get rid of them once and for all? I've never seen it like this before. Wost thing is, they are getting into everything! The dog food bags for a start, but yesterday I sat down to have a bowl of cereal, packet was new, just opened a couple of days earlier, started eating, reading the paper, had a few mouthfuls -then saw two beetles swimming in the milk! YUCK !!!!!!!!!!!!!

EEUGH EEUGH EEUGH Marianne that is yukky indeed!

We too have been plagued by DLL the last few days - Angus has been stalking them but so far has not managed to catch any - useless Gordon Setter puppy!!

I went to put some corn flour in something the other day and noticed lots and lots of teeny tiny bugs. They were only in the corn flour. Anyone know what they could have been? I'd not seen anything like them before! Ive now put the cornflour in a sandwich box to stop this happening again!

>Ive now put the cornflour in a sandwich box to stop this happening again

Not the same one I hope :P :D

Probably mealy bugs, which can be found in any flour and will have been present in the cornflour when you bought it.

(Tracey turns green at thought of previous gravy's additional protein content ... :D)

M.

Already present? How why and are they always there? Im not kidding the bottom of the packet was just a matt of bugs! EWWWWW Maybe thats why I havent had a cold yet because these bugs are eating the cold bugs?? :D

Now I might be wrong on this but they can develop in old flour that has been sitting around so not necessarily there when you buy it.

It's just a case of checking any old flour packets before you use them!  So don't panic you haven't been eating mealy bugs every time you use flour :)

as to why and when and how etc. - NO IDEA   just remember being told to check old flour before using it!

You probably bought the flour with the eggs in ... and when the temperature/time was right, out they hatched. :D

Google would suggest they're actually weevils, rather than mealy bugs, I must have been brought up on the wrong terminology.

M.

Oh we got a whole basket full of freebies years back after finding some weevils in a packet of a well known manufacturers rolls :)  We took them back to the shop, really just wanting them exchanged for ones without livestock but our address was taken and a rep brought round a pile of cakes etc! Apparently they are usually found in grain or flour - presumably 'our' ones weren't baked in but got in aferwards.

My Angus (16 month old GR) eats them!

Oh NOOOOOOOOooooooooo - recylced cheesecake anyone?    :D

Just as well you're selling up honey!

Well, I just took a shower with one! It was in there - washing its hair!! How its got in I have no idea...

We're just getting over a clothes moth infestation. The landlord was storing old carpets in the hallway cupboard and that's where they took up residence- d'oh! Had to boil all my clothes and call in the exterminator! In Edinburgh we have lots of problems with carpet beetles- they fly in the window mostly and then start to breed like crazy! Plus the tenements are full of mice anyway. Beasties everywhere!

But yeah, with regards to the beetles, while it may be slightly more expensive I would call in an exterminator rather than spray endless cans of bug spray. They have stronger chemicals for specific pests. Normal "Raid" type stuff doesn't seem to kill clothes moths. We had the exterminator in and he sprayed strong stuff. It takes a little while to dry (so I'd take dogs and cats out of the house so they can't lick the floor or absorb it through their paw pads) but after that it lasts for months and months and stops them breeding. Be sure and mention on the phone if you have pets or young children in the house and they'll tell you what to do. Good luck getting rid of them. I know how annoying beasties can be. Just ask my best wool jumper!

My little pusskins is a great DDL killer, it's the only time I ever see her active is come evening and the DDL's float in!

Salukipup I didn't know you were in Edinburgh - if you fancy going for a borzoi walk one day before you decide on your new dog you'd be very welcome :)

Teri - your daughter is probably meaning the non flying variety of daddy long legs which is in fact a spider (or opilione depending on the specific species)  The flying 'version' we are discussing here is merely a crane fly - the adult version of the leather jacket!!  The field where I walk the dogs has little pot holes in it and all the adult flys are emerging after their pupation period....Yes, I do need a life :D :D
Sarah

Yes chickens do eat DLL! - and very funny they look too doing the high jump trying to catch them :D

Yvonne

Brill - thanks! :)

Urrrgh Daddy Long Legs, I hate them! There are loads around at the moment. My bedroom window is now permanently closed!
When I'm walking the dogs through the fields they all fly up with every step I take... I'm not really scared of them when they're outside though. If there's one inside the house I will lock myself in a room (not the same room!) and I wont venture out until it's gone!
Last week my parents went out for a meal and as I was taking my little sister to bed I saw one... and we both ran away and locked ourselves in our bedrooms for the rest of the night :D I have some bug spray now, so I will be armed and ready for them next time! :D

Got a great DDL killer here, disguised as Molly :P
I've never seen her so enthusiastic about catching them all - Good Girl :)

Have you noticed though, you can be sitting minding your own business, and they hovver up and aim directly to your face! I was freaked out last night sitting on the loo, there were 3 of them in there with me and only the loo brush to keep them at bay
Yuk hate the darn things. I came home from a friends the other night and there must have been at least 50  well, ok, 10  on the front door so I had to shoo them off before I could get in!

Yep Harley  is another dedicated DLL catcher - at the moment they are keeping him amused for hours. He is also great at catching beetles Goldmali so perhaps you could borrow him :D.

We always know when there is a resident spider as he will lie and huff under the skirting boards. A 45kg Golden Retriever trying to squash himself down a crack in the floorboards is a sight to behold :D :D :D

Still trying to train him to leave the wasps and bees alone  but as far as he is concerned if it's buzzing or scuttling around in HIS house or garden it's fair game.

When I was a child...... erm quite a while ago now, I used to be scared of these as I would tap on my bedroom window and they would not fly off, just sit there staring in at me, I found them really unnerving.

Now I just let the dog/s and cats have a good feast on them and of course this is proberbly the main reason for the onslaught of spiders just about now, ready for Daddy Long Leg season. They are a darn nuscience I agree, but don't know what to do either, they will be gone soon. :-P

I keep getting the hoover out for spiders and daddy long legs,our late chihuahua Toby used to eat them too!

We are plagued by the damn things too.  I want my friends CKCS Bailey to move in he is great at catching them :D.  Jazz just looks at them as if to say"what are you doing here?".  Can I join the DLL barbeque? :D

DDL's have been out and about here in Lincs for MONTHS ..we started getting them in April and they have just carried on ..but they have had a population explosion in the past week or so :(

I hate the durned things

Oh and spiders STILL!!! Have had to remove 6 MASSIVE house spiders in the past 5 days and the garden is still covered with massive garden spider webs every morning. There was a news item on BBC a week or so ago saying that the very warm Summer and general weather conditions means that the spider population has increased enormously

I'm in Lincs too Melodysk, I haven't really noticed the DLL until a couple of weeks ago.

Agree with you on the spider front though, we had one the other night and it looked like it had a rucksack on it was HUGE, and run fast I have never seen anything like it.

Must just be were we are then ...this is the first year that we have had them through the whole Summer!

Everytime I open the door to let the dog out a billion flailing legs on wings enter.  I don't like them but they are preferable to their predators - spiders - yuk yuk yuk.  I could see a big spider on the wall in my bedroom last night and it kept me awake for ages and then I kept waking up and looking for it.

Jon killed a mahooosive spider last night. It was huge - one of those that sits on the wall just DARING you to touch it LOL. It was the biggest spider I ever saw - you could count the hairs on its legs it was so big (get the picture lol). Anyway, he bashed it with mum slipper, then put it inside ready for mum to put her foot in....

She walked around with its body stuck to her big toe and its legs entwined within the confines of her slipper for 4 hours before I let her in the secret LOL

Oh Carla, that is wicked !

you naughty girl

It was SO funny. She ripped the slipper off and ran screaming rund the room, scattering spidey legs everywhere. I nearly wet myself LOL

If my son did that to me I would die, but probably not before him!

The DDL's  are infesting Norfolk too.  We're also suffering from a fly invasion as well...  Poor Earl spends a lot of his day leaping around trying to catch them, he's shattered by 11am; and Mia has the screaming heebee geebees everytime one comes close to her.  I'm off to buy some fly papers today - hope they catch the DDL's too.

Roll on the first good frost to kill the beggars off.

Learnt today that the adult crane fly (DLL to me and you!) only lives for up to 2 days?  and doesn't eat - what is the purpose of the crane fly - doesn't eat and just flies around light!  Then dies in two days if not eating by dog / cat!  Hope I don't come back as a DLL!

This year we invested in an electric fly swat! :D  I have to say I'm quite impressed, we don't use chemical sprays for killing flies and this does the job perfectly AND you hear a satisfying ZAP when you get one! (insert devilish smiley here). It's just like playing badminton but with nothing to return! *Wanders off to practice backhand* LOL

Debs

Oh that sounds fun Debs  :D    Off to seacrh on ebay for one of them......

A couple of years ago, my beautifal black cat sorcha,pulled a DDL from my hair just after I had got in bed,God I love that cat.

Oh heck, I'm all itchy now after reading this thread! .....and furtively scanning the floor and walls for beasties!

Sorry it was in the paper because of the weather we will have more DLL than normal I think I may invest in frogs and toads.  Would they be so scary if they were pink with purple spots?