What insects can live in an apartment: 18 unwanted neighbors

10 January 2022 15:29

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Do you know all your neighbors? Sure? Some of them are so small that you simply can’t see them. Insects live in almost every home. This is a fact: even if you don’t see them, this almost always means that the “roommates” are simply hiding very successfully. In some cases, insects in an apartment are absolutely harmless, but some of their species pose a serious danger not only to food and things, but also to the person himself. In general, get acquainted!

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For thousands of years, people have sought shelter, starting with the first cave, then building shelters from tree branches and leaves, and making tents from animal skins. As time passed and additional tools were developed, humanity began to build houses from strong wood and stone, and houses appeared. And always, from the very first home, various insects lived next to a person. Today we see them as uninvited guests and prefer to live without them. But if you think about it, they were before us, and they will be after us. For your consideration, here is a list of 15 small creatures with whom you may share your home. They are also called synanthropes (non-domesticated plants and microorganisms whose lifestyle is associated with humans and their homes, for example, cockroaches, house flies, house mice, bed bugs).

Spiders

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Spiders are probably one of the most common creatures with which we share our homes, and some of these arachnids will appear on this list more than once. There is a great variety of spiders in nature, more than 45,000 different species. Overall, modern spiders have spread throughout the world over the past 200 million years, which is largely responsible for their wide distribution and diversity. The spider does not do anything bad in the house, sometimes it even does good - it catches flies. Our ancestors had a huge number of signs associated with spiders, mostly positive. They say spiders are harbingers of good things to come. But, probably, if you trust signs too much, you will be completely covered in cobwebs.

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Ground beetles

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Just like spiders, beetles are very ancient and well-adapted creatures for survival. There are more than 40,000 species of ground beetles alone in the world, and these insects come to our homes uninvited. The most common is the bread ground beetle. They usually cause damage to crops in fields, but are increasingly found in ordinary apartments. The bread ground beetle crawls into the apartment only if it likes the living conditions. As soon as the insect gets into the house, when darkness falls, it goes to look for food (crumbs, food left on the table, cereals). Ground beetles interfere with sleep, rustle, fall from the ceiling onto the bed or directly onto you. And if they have found food, then the next step will be their reproduction. So, if a ground beetle appears in the house, you need to take immediate action.

Bedbugs are harmful blood suckers

Bed bugs belong to the group of blood suckers and can cause significant harm to humans. The insect is easy to recognize by its characteristic features:

• body length ranges from 4 to 8 mm;
• shell color – light yellow or dark brown;
• active after dark;
• the only food product is blood.

Parasites live on average up to one year. You can easily find them in old pillows, mattresses, as well as between floorboards, under linoleum, wallpaper or baseboards. Bedbugs leave bites on the human body. In general, they are not dangerous, but can cause allergic reactions.

Crickets

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The wise cricket who gave advice to Pinocchio probably looked something different. And ordinary crickets are creepy insects, sometimes of enormous size. A folk sign says that if there is a cricket in the house, then this is a sign of happiness and prosperity. But people who have been visited by this “happiness” in large numbers do not share this point of view and are looking for ways to get rid of them. About 2.3 thousand species of these insects are known in the world, of which only about 50 are found in Russia. Most of them live in subtropical and tropical countries. Our most famous species are the field cricket and the house cricket. The house cricket in the southern part of the country lives both in apartments and in nature. In the central and northern regions, it lives only in houses near people, and gives preference to old, warm rooms with high humidity. These insects live and breed well in warm basements flooded with water. Sometimes crickets can spoil food and even things in the apartment, just like moths. Therefore, although popular wisdom advises against offending them, it is better to remove the crickets. Unless, of course, you like the “night concerts” that crickets usually organize.

How to get rid of it: effective methods

The first stage is to identify all the places where skin beetles or anthrenuses have settled.
Small pests often hide behind baseboards. The owners will have to explore every corner of the apartment to find adult beetles and larvae, check the shelves in the kitchen, indoor plants, closets with clothes, and bookshelves. On a note! If you do not take this stage seriously, new pests will soon appear from the remaining eggs, and the fight against anthrenuses and leather beetles will be in vain.

The second stage is the selection of the optimal means for exterminating insects

It is important to consider how many pests have settled in the home, whether there are allergy sufferers or small children at home. Chemicals and folk remedies help get rid of bugs

With a large number of skin beetles and anthrenuses, it is easier to invite professional exterminators than to waste time and nerves on treating the apartment yourself.

Chemicals and folk remedies help get rid of beetles. With a large number of skin beetles and anthrenuses, it is easier to invite professional exterminators than to waste time and nerves on treating the apartment yourself.

The third stage is the direct fight against tiny brown bugs. If you decide to carry out pest control on your own, you will have to set aside two or three days to prepare for the procedure and find the time to apply toxic products or homemade compounds.

Note to owners:

• The difficulty of self-treatment is in a large number of areas where harmful beetles can live. For this reason, it is easier to turn to professionals;
• The owners’ task is to check bulk products, flowerpots with indoor flowers, and look in the refrigerator;
• a prerequisite is the removal of rubbish, the use of a vacuum cleaner to collect insects, and wet cleaning;
• Only in the absence of secluded, dusty corners there is a chance to get rid of skin beetles and anthrenuses forever.

How to remove insects yourself

Procedure:

• vacuum the carpets, place them in the sun or freeze them in winter;
• boil the fabrics in a soapy solution;
• treat leather products and items made of leatherette with insecticides;
• clean upholstered furniture using a steam generator;
• freeze woolen and synthetic items on the balcony or in the freezer;
• take out all the products, bags, jars of cereals, flour from the cabinets, review the supplies. If bugs are found in cereals, you should not fry millet, buckwheat or rice in the oven, then remove the dead bugs. It is healthier to throw away spoiled cereals without regret in order to protect the body from the penetration of pathogenic microbes, which are often found on the antennae and paws of pests;
• check knitted items, clothes made from natural fabrics, fur, leather products. Inspect the cabinets, chest of drawers, bedside tables, wipe the inside with soapy water;
• check the baseboards, remove old, dried out products, replace with new ones. If the wooden elements still serve, then seal all the cracks.

A few more tips:

• After preparation, treat baseboards, floors, cracks, corners, and wooden furniture with a toxic aerosol or insecticide solution. You should not buy universal staves: the best option is products designed to destroy harmful bugs. Suitable drugs: Antimol, Difox, Supronid, Morimol;
• Treat potentially dangerous areas twice a week for a month. Only with this approach can you get rid of small bugs. After each procedure, vacuum and thoroughly wash the floors;
• Among traditional methods, the use of boric acid gives a good effect. Pour pharmaceutical powder into all crevices where pests may live. You will have to purchase several sachets of the product: harmful insects inhabit many areas of the home. Boric acid does not harm animals and household members, but skin beetles, anthrenuses, cockroaches, ants, fleas, and other unpleasant and dangerous “neighbors” do not tolerate the action of the product well.

Book louse

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If you hear the word “louse,” the first thing that probably comes to mind is the little reptiles that jump from head to head and feed on your blood, making your head itchy unbearably. These tiny creatures are their relatives, but live in books. They don’t read books, they don’t even have eyes! The book louse or book louse (Troctes divinatorius) is a small parasite that, with a large brood, causes irreparable damage to libraries, herbarium or insect collections, and in some conditions, to stocks of grain and other dry products. It feeds on organic remains of plant and animal origin. In houses he lives in dust and in the bindings of books. May damage zoological collections and bindings of ancient books containing paste. Clusters of book lice make faint ticking sounds that cannot be confused with anything. These insects do not have a detrimental effect on human health, but their presence can have a detrimental effect on valuable things: books, archival documents; on food stocks. The main preventive measure can be considered basic cleanliness, dryness and fresh air, in other words, timely cleaning.

Grinder

There is another type of harmful bugs that appear in the kitchen. They are called Grinders (“Anobiidae” in Latin). Their head is shaped like a hood. Their body color ranges from dark yellow to brown. There are two types: brownie and bread.

In our cities, as a rule, there is a bread grinder. It is smaller in size than the brownie and, in addition to wood, feeds on bread and crackers.

It can also lay eggs in books. Let's figure out how to get rid of bugs in the kitchen.

How to fight

• Seal all the wooden cracks - the floor, the window sill, the cracks in the kitchen furniture, in general, everything you find.
• Seal the entire cereal hermetically. No bags, only dishes that are sealed tightly.
• They love sweets and carbohydrates. It is better to put all dried fruits in the refrigerator.
• Place borax on the shelves; you can buy it at the pharmacy. But spraying with various chemicals is not the best solution.

If there are bugs in the cereal, this is not a sign of poor quality cleaning in the residential area. The bug appears for other reasons. To effectively combat it, you need to follow a number of simple recommendations. Preventive measures will help get rid of insects in cereals, preventing severe infestation.

The main factor that leads to the emergence of pests in flour and cereals is low quality and the complete lack of heat treatment or insufficiently high temperatures during this process. Another reason is violation of storage conditions for flour and cereal products. Because of this, beetles are found in rice or semolina, and in sealed packages.

Things are much simpler with loose products. At the same time, bugs appear in cereals more often, since they are close to contaminated flour. In the kitchen, insects switch to clean food as a result of loose lids on storage containers. Bugs can appear even if you purchase clean cereals, however, if you borrow even a small amount of contaminated flour, rice, or buckwheat from your neighbors, it is highly likely that the insects will now spread to other products in the kitchen.

If you find some bugs in flour: you need to determine their type as quickly as possible and begin eliminating them

Moreover, pests choose not only cereals, but also dried fruits, tea, coffee, and spices to infest. Most dry foods become contaminated using the methods described above. If there are bugs in the cereal, they are difficult to notice due to their very small size, especially when the dry product is dark in color and has large fractions.

Carpet mite

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Scientists have found more than 1,000 different species of house ticks, and all of them cause great harm to humans, all year round. Any carpet or carpet perfectly collects dust, it accumulates in its fibers and even daily cleaning will not give a positive result - dust and mites will still remain there. Ticks, unlike most insects on this list, are very harmful to humans. The ticks themselves are capable of leaving behind their waste products in the form of feces, which contain digestive enzymes, they destroy the cells of the human body and can cause severe allergies and asthma. The damage caused by carpet mites is not limited to allergies: conjunctivitis, allergic rhinitis, atypical dermatitis and others can develop. It’s easy to deal with them - throw away all carpets and upholstered furniture once and for all!

Dark winged mosquito

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The main harm is that they squeak and interfere with sleep! Thank God, humanity has invented many ways to get rid of mosquitoes. Mosquito nets, repellents and fumigators are a whole industry. Place fresh branches of elderberry, bird cherry, Caucasian chamomile or basil in the rooms, and place a container with tomato seedlings or geranium in a pot under the windows and on the balcony. Mosquitoes do not like the smell of these plants, so they will want to leave your home as soon as possible. According to folk superstitions, these small, disgustingly buzzing bloodsuckers - mosquitoes - are capable of bringing not only absolute harm, but also benefit, predicting the weather and future events. Clouds of mosquitoes mean good weather tomorrow. Painful mosquito bites and especially active buzzing of bloodsuckers - foretells imminent bad weather and night rain.

Preventive measures

It is imperative to carry out preventive measures. They are as follows:

1. In spring and summer, you need to put special mosquito nets on your windows.
2. Place grilles on the ventilation holes in the walls, and the cells should be very small.
3. Animal hair should not be allowed to collect in the corners of the apartment. This applies to cases where a cat or dog lives with the family. Usually then wool accumulates near doors, in corners, in cracks. It must be cleaned regularly.
4. It is necessary to destroy old things or donate them to charitable organizations. If clothes are not worn for a long time, dust accumulates in them. And this is an excellent place for skin beetles, moths and other unwanted inhabitants of the apartment.
5. Before storing things, they must be thoroughly treated with anti-pediculosis drugs. For example, a regular solution of permine with a 0.005% concentration is suitable. The procedure itself is very simple, but it will prevent the appearance of skin beetle larvae and moths.
6. Periodically you need to take things out of drawers and cabinets. They can simply be ventilated on balconies. If you do this in the summer, the larvae simply cannot withstand the heat. In winter they freeze, so they are no longer dangerous either. This applies to both larvae and adults.
7. You need to regularly take care of things and keep them clean. Places where things are stored should also always be clean.
8. In winter, you need to take carpets, covers for sofas and armchairs and other similar items outside on frosty days.
9. Furniture should be periodically cleaned with a steam generator. This is an excellent method that will help get rid of pests in the upholstery, its seams, folds, and various crevices.
10. It is recommended to put a clove of garlic in jars with cereals and flour. A bay leaf will also work.

Butterfly.
This is a small fly that lives near the sewer. Small bugs in an apartment are not uncommon. There are many varieties of these individuals. They can be either harmless or dangerous to humans. But in any case, it is necessary to regularly carry out prevention so that they do not appear.

Spitting spider

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As mentioned earlier, this list will feature more than one species of spider. Spiders of this species catch prey by spraying a liquid onto it, which neutralizes it by solidifying into a toxic and sticky mass upon contact. You can observe the habit of spiders swaying from side to side. They do this to wrap up their prey. Most spiders are only capable of producing silk, but Scytodes spitting spiders are an exception. Together with the silk, they release poison from their mouths, and silk strands soaked in the toxin, falling on the spider’s victim, bind it. These spiders are not dangerous to humans, do not weave large trap webs, and are unremarkable in appearance. But they still have one peculiarity - during the hunt they “spit” their prey. This may sound a little harsh, but it's accurate. This is why they got their name “spits”. Spitting spiders live in both warm tropical and temperate regions, including Russia - in human homes, where it is warm.

wood beetle

A more detailed description in the article: Woodworm - how to get rid of it?

Small, dark bugs with wings are often confused with ordinary, harmless flies. But they can destroy wooden structures in just a few years.

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They spend almost all their time in the passages they have made inside the wood and fly only during the mating season. That's when you can see them - flying around light bulbs in the evening and crawling on surfaces during the day. The larvae live in wood for up to 17 years, and during this time each one makes passages up to 40 km long in the wood.

To destroy pests, special insecticides are used that are able to penetrate into the treated surface. Light preparations, after spraying onto damaged surfaces, destroy insects on the surface and lure others out of hiding. More powerful preparations quickly destroy even large colonies of pests, but after treatment with them you should not enter the room for several hours - they are toxic.

In order not to have to fight with various beetles that destroy wood, it is better to take preventive measures - the same as in the case of bark beetles.

clothes moth

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Moths inhabit houses and are a household pest, whose caterpillars spoil fabrics by eating them and gnaw the silk upholstery of furniture. Only caterpillars cause damage to products, because adults lack gnawing type mouthparts. In the dark at night, adult moths fly towards an artificial light source. According to some data, house moth caterpillars also feed on substances of plant origin, namely grains of wheat, barley, oats, corn, flour and dry bread. House moths are widespread worldwide; this species of lepidoptera is a serious pest in human homes. They feed on clothing, carpets, blankets and upholstery, as well as fur, wool, feathers and miscellaneous items such as animal bristles used to make toothbrushes and piano fibers.

Woodlice

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Generally speaking, woodlice are not insects (they are crustaceans), but they lead approximately the same lifestyle as cockroaches. When threatened, they curl up, simulating death. In most cases, wood lice appear only in those apartments where it is constantly damp, for example, water leaks from pipes. These insects are excellent indicators of various plumbing breakdowns and depressurization of flanges. The appearance of woodlice in an apartment, first of all, should worry lovers of indoor flowers, because if measures are not taken in time and they are not removed, the plants will soon die. First of all, these insects harm moisture-loving tropical plants that have a thin and delicate root system (orchid, fern, cactus), affecting it specifically, so if you have just such plants, then you should fight more actively.

Insect bites in bed

Bed bugs are the main disturbers of a person's peaceful sleep among ectoparasites. Insect bites in the bed in the vast majority of cases are associated with their attack.

Bed bugs are afraid of artificial light and always attack people at night. Only a very hungry individual can go hunting during the day. During a bite, ectoparasites secrete a special enzyme along with saliva, thanks to which a person does not feel pain and the blood does not clot. These are active substances of antiserotonin and antihistamine nature, anticoagulants and antithrombic factor - inhibitors of platelet aggregation.

Discomfort appears a few hours after the parasite attack. Sensitivity to bites varies from person to person. Some experience unbearable itching and burning, while others develop pustular diseases. The most sensitive people develop an allergic reaction.

You can recognize a bedbug bite by its characteristic path on the skin. In search of a suitable place, blood-sucking parasites bite the victim several times. Wounds are mainly fixed on open areas of the body with thin skin - on the lips, cheeks, and near the eyes. If a person has a wound, the bug will never drink blood from it. Puncture of the skin is a mandatory procedure before blood sucking.

To suck blood, the louse extends a piercing proboscis, which has cutting teeth. With their help, with rotational movements, it cuts through the stratum corneum of the epidermis. The proboscis reaches the deeper layers of the skin, finds blood vessels, and the insect begins to suck blood. The body absorbs 1 mg of blood within a few minutes. Lice saliva contains an anticoagulant substance that prevents blood clotting. The bite of an ectoparasite causes severe itching, pigmentation and roughening of the skin.

Parasitic wasp (rider)

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They are primarily parasitoids of other animals, mainly other arthropods. Many of them, such as the Braconidae family and Trichogramma, are beneficial to humans because they regulate the number of agricultural pests. Ichneumon wasps differ from ordinary wasps in the absence of a sting as such; it is replaced by an ovipositor. Nevertheless, in the English-language literature, parasitic wasps are usually called parasitic wasps. With the help of an ovipositor, parasites lay eggs in the body of larvae (caterpillars) or in the eggs of their victims. The prey consists mainly of larger insects, such as butterfly caterpillars, beetle larvae, and other arthropods, including some species of spiders. The rider typically positions himself over the victim (like a rider on a horse, hence the name) and inserts the ovipositor. The wasp larvae hatch inside the victim and feed on their organs, gradually destroying them. Species of the genus Megarhyssa of the superfamily Ichneumonidae have a thin ovipositor several centimeters long, used for penetration into tree trunks. Fortunately, people are not considered suitable incubators for wasp babies and it does not lay larvae in humans.

Fleas are small blood-sucking pests: features

Just like mosquitoes and bedbugs, fleas belong to the blood-sucking group. Unpleasant-looking small insects leave their shelters at nightfall and lead a parasitic lifestyle. The body length of the pest does not exceed 5 mm (the largest individuals), the color is dark. The source of food for fleas is blood, both human and animal.

The average lifespan of an adult is several months. The main problem is that insects actively reproduce, laying larvae in secluded places:

• behind the baseboard;
• behind the wallpaper;
• under carpets;
• in soft toys, etc.

Similar to mosquitoes, fleas can become carriers of dangerous infections such as plague, encephalitis, hepatitis and others.

Ants

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At different times of the year and in different regions of the country, in an apartment, and even more so in a private house, you can often find representatives of various species of ants. Very often, ants in an apartment are random guests, carried on clothes or with things. Among them there are insects of different sizes and colors. However, the only real pest in an apartment is the so-called pharaoh ant - an independent species of heat-loving small ants, which in our latitudes cannot live anywhere other than residential heated premises. These red ants in the apartment are a real problem: they are numerous, spoil food, can carry pathogens of various diseases, and besides, they are extremely difficult to remove. One colony of house ants can contain several dozen queens and up to 350 thousand workers. The reasons why red ants appear in an apartment, although not numerous, can be found in almost any home. That is why small red ants are successfully conquering more and more new areas and are likely to appear in any apartment, even the cleanest one.

Long-horned beetle

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One of the oldest inhabitants on Earth, the long-horned beetle has many varieties. The size of the insect can vary from a few millimeters to several centimeters. Whiskers often exceed body size by 10 times. The larvae reach 3 centimeters in length. In our area, you will most likely encounter a mustachioed black beetle with a green-blue tint. During its development, the longhorned beetle goes through several stages - egg, larva, pupa and, in fact, the beetle.

Longhorned beetle and longhorned beetle species are here!

Silverfish (common silverfish)

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You may have once seen them in the bathroom or toilet if you went there in the middle of the night (when the light is turned on, they quickly run away). Those thin, silvery, small things on the floor? Do you remember? They are called silverfish. Like most of the other creatures on this list, silverfish pose no real harm to us and they don't bite. Cases of contact did not reveal any negative impact on human health. They feed on products of plant origin containing starch or polysaccharides; but they may not eat anything for months. Their diet may include sugar, flour, glue, book binding, paper, photographs, starchy fabrics. From storage areas they can be brought into the home through the purchase of toilet paper or cartons of paper napkins. They are harmless to humans and pets and are not carriers of diseases, but can damage damp paper. Their scientific name is “common silverfish” (lat. Lepisma saccharina). It is believed that the silverfish is one of the oldest living insects - its ancestors lived on Earth more than 300 million years ago, back in the Paleozoic era. Silverfish prefer damp and dark places; if the house is dry and light, then there will be no silverfish there.

Ways to deal with “kitchen guests”

If traces of the vital activity of bugs are detected, you will need to take a set of measures to eliminate them from the open spaces of your kitchen. There are several ways to get rid of “unwanted guests”:

1. Products of the household industry.
2. Using folk remedies.

But chemicals are not always effective and have a lot of side effects on human health. They are used only in advanced cases when folk remedies are not able to get rid of insects.

If small brown bugs appear in the kitchen, then you need to:

1. Get rid of cereals where small insects have settled.
2. Thoroughly wash the containers in which cereals were stored. Dishes are washed with soapy water.

You can get rid of small bugs using folk remedies using vinegar. Initially, all cereals are destroyed, then the dishes are washed with a vinegar solution. Don't worry about the smell, there won't be any.

Many housewives are interested in how to get rid of annoying insects at home without using household chemicals. The answer is clear: if you need to preserve the product, you will need to adhere to such actions as:

1. We sort through the cereal.
2. Turn on the oven to 50 degrees or heat the frying pan.
3. We calcinate or fry the cereal for ten minutes, but no more, in order to avoid spoilage of the product.

Not all cereals are subject to heat treatment. Pasta, rice, buckwheat, pearl barley and millet tolerate this process normally. But this method is not recommended for use with sugar, because it will simply melt.

After this is done, the remaining supplies are packed into separate bags and taken outside the kitchen for a week. This is done for reinsurance. If surviving insects appear, they will not be able to move into other cereals and spoil them. You can get rid of white bugs by exposing the insects to cold or ventilating the room.

Cockroaches

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The remains of cockroaches are, along with the remains of cockroaches, the most numerous traces of insects in Paleozoic deposits. Additionally, cockroaches are the earliest known Polyneoptera, possibly descending from the ancestor of the entire subcohort. They have always been and will be on Earth. There are more than 4,600 known species of cockroaches; are especially numerous in the tropics and subtropics. There are 55 species on the territory of the former USSR. In recent years, there have been popular reports about a decrease in the number of certain species of cockroaches in the CIS (they say they have completely left apartments in St. Petersburg and some other cities - no one was upset, but the reasons are interesting). A number of cockroaches live in human dwellings, being synanthropes, for example, the red cockroach (Prusak), or the black cockroach. Others are brought with tropical products to temperate countries and sometimes take root in heated rooms (American cockroach). Cockroaches can damage food, leather goods, book bindings, indoor and greenhouse plants. Some cockroaches, feeding on various waste, including feces, are carriers of infectious diseases (for example, dysentery) and worm eggs.

Harvesting spider

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Hay-making spiders that build trapping webs are ubiquitous. Hanging upside down on their jumbled, tangled, uneven web. Webs are built in dark, damp niches of caves, trees and under stones, in lairs abandoned by mammals, for example, in cellars and various buildings. In human homes, they love dry and warm places near windows. How dangerous are harvest spiders to humans? Suffice it to say that they spend the poison they have exclusively on their victims, inflicting a paralyzing bite on them. He is not enough for anything more. The main reason for declaring war on arachnids is arachnophobia. Some people cannot even stand them visually; for others, a creature that gets on their body causes panic. The problem is so serious that psychologists are working on it.