I’ve had many episodes of bugs and other small animals in my house. A few of my memorable instances of wildlife experiences indoors 

Many years ago, a mouse got into my dad’s car in the garage through closed doors and rolled up windows. It was searching for crumbs under the seat. We set a trap on the garage floor and caught the mouse. It was tiny, a little house mouse about the size of my thumb.

Last summer, I found a snakeskin in the garage. Looked like it came from a copperhead  I was freaked out!

When I was in my college apartment, we had a huge ant problem. The ants trailed in through my roommate’s window and got into the kitchen and went after my empty coffee cup with sugar residue left in it. My roommate set ant traps (cups of water with dish soap to sink them) and I made a maintenance call to spray for the ants.

The beach condo near Charleston, SC gets “palmetto bugs” that are a species of roach that lives at the damp and marshy Carolina coast. I have frequently seen then in the bathroom and in the kitchen there while on vacation.

Last year, my roommate/best friend found a snake skin outside the apartment door at our college. Thankfully, it came from a harmless black snake. He picked it up and threw it out the window into the lawn and said “That’s what we do in Alabama!”  Our college apartment really had some pest control issues 

I have many more that involved me or other family members/friends 

Get those "palmetto" roaches at my place-since I work at night when I leave to go to work-some nights the driveway is covered with those things!GROSS!! When the bugs get into my place they become victims of my "Bug-A-Salt" gun-then one of my vacuums!Chased one of those roaches down the hall with my Kirby Avalir!!Got him!!Used to have mice-but several traps solved that.One morning while eating breakfast a mouse came out at ate a Cheerio I dropped on the floor.Then baited(used some Cheerios) a trap-placed it behind one of my Hi-fi speakers.Few minutes later mousy got caught-heard the SNAP of the trap and a lone Cheerio rolled out from behind the speaker.After breakfast dumpted the mouse outside.Another time a mouse got his foot caught in one of my traps.Found him when I came home from work.He gave me that look--"Let Me out of here" so I took him outside qand let him go.The cats were waiting!The neighbor had several cats.He was the only guy I knew that could heard cats!When he left some of his cats stayed behind.The house is empty and the cats still hang around there.Sometimes I feed the cats-most of the time thy do well on their own-have no mice now!

I have a Bug-a-Salt gun too!  I keep it at the lake house where there's really a big insect problem.

 At the end of last summer, we had a huge housefly infestation.  There were flies in nearly all the windows, stuck between the blinds and the inside glass.  I had no idea why...   In the basement, there were dead flies all over the window sill and the floor, yuck!  When I turned the heat on for the first time in late September, when the weather outside had cooled off a little bit, the warm air from the furnace smelled putrid    The only explanation for a rotten smell so bad coming from the air vents was that there was a dead animal in the ducts.  That would explain the fly infestation during the summer, and the foul smell when heat was added.  Eventually the smell wore off, although I'm convinced there's a skeleton of a squirrel/rat/mouse somewhere in the air duct system now.

Stink bugs, milkweed bugs and flying ants..I Don't mind them though. The stinkbugs are fine as long as you don't startle them..

Don't pick up a stinkbug with your Kirby or other vacuum-you will have to replace the bag!

Fortunately rarely get any in the house. Sometimes in the summer those mud wasps get inside. They're not aggressive wasps but I don't like the flying around. So usually I suck them up with the vacuum cleaner.

Otherwise mostly get small geckos that come inside. Sometimes find them in the shower. If I can reach them, I put them back outside. Most of the time, I see them high up on the ceiling where there's no way to get to them. I don't mind them as they eat small bugs and don't bother anyone. Used to get the cute tiny green or brown spiders coming in the house sometimes, but I don't see these anymore. Wonder what happened to them?

Those paper wasps sometimes build nests outside under the overhangs. Don't like those wasps as they can be very aggressive and like to sting. I have a spray can that shoots 20 feet, so if I see a nest I stand back and spray. It knocks them right down. Then I take a long broom and knock the nests down. There used to be a lot of these wasp nests but I kept knocking them down and don't see them coming back as often.

Those paper wasps sometimes build nests outside under the overhangs. Don't like those wasps as they can be very aggressive and like to sting. I have a spray can that shoots 20 feet, so if I see a nest I stand back and spray. It knocks them right down. Then I take a long broom and knock the nests down. There used to be a lot of these wasp nests but I kept knocking them down and don't see them coming back as often.

You are really brave to take a full wasp nest, full of the angry stinging insects!  I caught one wasp (probably the queen) starting a nest on my front porch rail. I grabbed a broom and swatted the single wasp and knocked down the tiny beginning of the nest. I know that in some ways wasps are good for the environment and eat other small, invasive bugs, but I really do not want a nest right on my porch where I walk every day.

We have a lot of wasps and yellow jackets where I live, and they build nests either in the ground or on overhangs of houses. There was a wasp nest in a gutter outside the lake house deck last summer. I haven’t seen any sign of them yet, but I’m armed with my bug a salt gun and I might hang an electric bug zapper out there, too 

If you use a bug zapper lamp-hang it well AWAY from where you want to be.Otherwise the light will just draw the bugs to you.Hang it in an area where you WON'T be!Draw the bugs to where you aren't there.That way they can "enjoy" the bug lamp and you can watch the bugs get fried in it.

Here, this year I've had issues with ant infestations in the kitchen and pantry.  Raid helps somewhat, as does Windex (ammonia glass cleaner) for countertops and other food-contact surfaces where I don't want to use toxic chemicals. 

Also have found dead mice many times.  Best one was in an open container of used motor oil under a generator (takes several oil changes to fill it).  And not long ago in an empty five gallon bucket we found a mouse eating another dead mouse...

And then there was the time juncos were nesting in a hole in the wall...or the time something died under the house last year...

If you use a bug zapper lamp-hang it well AWAY from where you want to be.Otherwise the light will just draw the bugs to you.Hang it in an area where you WON'T be!Draw the bugs to where you aren't there.That way they can "enjoy" the bug lamp and you can watch the bugs get fried in it.

Will do, I definitely don't want wasps and mosquitos attracted to the porch where I'm sitting 

I've had a fair share of mouse issues.  I've had to fill in some holes under the kitchen sink with putty to keep mice out.  I can tell the mice are under the house in the winter, because our dog keeps sniffing the floor and pacing, as if he can sense something in the crawl space.  The mantle and the top of the original fridge in the lake house had lots of little "presents" from mice    I was careful not to set anything on those surfaces.

We had a terrible ant problem last December (really unusual due to the cool weather).  They were everywhere in the kitchen.  If I dropped a crumb from my breakfast, 5 or 6 ants would appear on the counter.  If I so much as left out a box of cookies or other food on the counter for more than 5 minutes, the ants would swarm the thing, inside my house    I even found them in the liquor cabinet because they were attracted to a bottle of cognac (really sweet liquor made from fermented grapes, with lots of natural sugar).  They got into the pantry where I keep the sugar and flour, and would not leave me alone!  This was close to Christmas when my family and I were doing a lot of cooking and enjoying lots of sweets, so I guess it was Christmas for the ants, too   

The biggest pest we have here is Louie our cuddly munky 

I have a combination of snap traps, super sonic frequency emitters and I spray peppermint oil everywhere.

I had a Downy woodpecker pecking the side of my house earlier this week. The house has cedar siding, so I guess all that wood was too tempting for that annoying bird.

I beat on the window to scare that woodpecker away. 10 minutes later, it came back. If it pecks a hole all the way through the wall, it would make its way into the bathroom over the bathtub fitting.

Is there a particular spot he chose ? What if you spray something nasty for him on the wall there ? (im thinking smth like silocon grease like whats used for lubrication of metal pivots and sliders in machines)

There are squirrels living in my attic  One night last week I heard tapping and scratching sounds coming from the ceiling. I realized what it was immediately because I’ve seen the entrance to their nest right next to the motion activated floodlights I recently installed.

There’s not much damage for squirrels to do up there. We don’t have any storage in the attic and the HVAC ducts all come from the basement and into the floor.

We still have bug problems. I’ve seen beetles and roaches inside the house and spiderwebs in a few spots too. Hopefully with the cooler weather, the wasps outside will settle down.