Last week as my wife was getting ready for bed she turned on the bathroom light and gave a little yell. We had a little juvenile, 16" rattlesnake slithering in the bathroom looking for comfort from the cold and rain outside. My idea was to pin him down so I could grab him and send him on an air trip into the greenway behind our house. He wasn't too inclined to that proposition and instead met his god after he snapped back at me. I hate motherf***ing snakes in my house.

 

I have camped, hiked, backpacked all around the south and never had such an up close encounter with a rattlesnake. I live in the 7th largest city in the US and find one in my bathroom.

 

The next few days we shook out everything, we even would pull the sheets back all the way before getting into bed.

I think I would burn the house down if that happened to me.

 

My mom got attacked by a bat in our house in Kankakee once.

I think I would burn the house down if that happened to me.

 

Step #1: Don't move to Texas.

We had a tiny little garden snake at my place once. That freaked me out. If I saw a rattlesnake, I would just leave and never return.

I almost let a raccoon in our house once because I thought it was our cat (I was drunk and it was dark).

We used to have camel crickets in Carbondale. they are hideous, terrifying, and harmless, but they never go away

Also had to help chase a family of possums out of my friend's house once in high school.

My 5 year old daughter came out of the bathroom once, saying she was scared of the "big spider" in the window right next to where she was sitting on the toilet. Said it was really big. We get spiders like everyone else - usually either those tiny, skinny-legged "dust spiders", or the chunkier but still small tan house spiders. Maybe occasionally one that's a little bigger.

 

So I asked her if it was one of those dust spiders like she saw somewhere else recently, and she tentatively said yes.

 

A couple hours later, I go in there myself, turn on the light, and sitting there in the sill like a foot from where someone would stand or sit to go, is the biggest non-tarantula spider I've ever seen. Wolf Spider, and a really, really, really big one. Seriously almost as big as the tarantulas I've seen occasionally out west. I normally don't freak out with spiders, but this one legitimately made me jump a bit.

 

I tried to get him with a shoe, but he ran super-creepy-fast into a crevice against the block window. Desperate, I got spider spray from the garage (not sure why we even had that) and basically filled every crack around that damn window with fluid. Never saw it again.

 

That was an OUTSIDE spider. Still biggest I've seen in the Midwest. I apologized to my daughter.

 

Best tool for smushing spiders--a Swiffer. If it's not a runner, you can carefully rest one of the edges against the ceiling and then quickly lever it flat. If it is a runner, you've at least got some distance.

Wolf spiders are fast. I had one charge at me while I was at work.

Wolf spiders are fast. I had one charge at me while I was at work.

 

One time in college we were roadtripping through the shawnee forest, and a tree fell in the road. Me and my two buddies got out of the car and picked up the tree and moved it to the side and got back in the car. We started driving and i looked down and there was an orange(pumpkin orange) spider about the size of a quarter on my thigh, with its front legs raised like it was going to attack me. I have never screamed so much like a little girl in my life. The car was going 15 MPH and i opened the door and jumped out and started running and fell and rolled. My friends still wont let me live that down, but damn

I have family in the Phoenix area. Their neighbor one day opened their front door to find a Gila Monster sitting along the door sill, just looking at them, blocking their way out. They elected to go out another door.

 

We had a possum near our front door which was partially enclosed, only about 6 feet from wall to wall. I saw that ugly thing and decided to go through the garage.