Hamster pest!!!

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I have never once felt threatened by any reptile near me. I can't say the same about my beloved fellow humans.

[AndreaK]

Lol! I have always had reptiles/animals of some sort in the house since my daughter was tiny. She was always catching something. She never has been great about keeping things locked up though. She likes them to be able to wander. Now that she has moved out, I can only hope she will avoid venomous animals and constrictors large enough to eat large prey. She dreams of building an educational herpitarium one day. When she was 10, she got 3 of her great aunts (in their 70's/80's) to touch a snake for the first time in their lives. It was a positive experience for all and they still talk about it.

[PaphLover]

Actually, I could touch a snake. Snakes freak me out less than spiders. Especially jumping spiders. I had one jump on me the other day after I moved an orchid pot. Took everything in me not to react and throw the LECA-filled pot into the air.

[desertanimal]

I adore jumping spiders. Those guys will never ever bite you, and if you look closely at them, you will see that they often turn their "heads" and look back! They watch you watching them!

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Years ago people in offices used writing machines called "typewriters." Imagine a single device combining a CPU, keyboard and printer in one machine. Anyhow, at the end of the work day, people put an opaque dust cover over them.

At one place I worked a lady was deathly afraid of spiders. Her co-workers bought a rubber spider 10" / 25cm in diameter. After she left, they made an interlocking chain of rubber bands about a foot / 30cm long, and attached the spider to the underside of the phobic's typewriter cover.

They were ready with cameras the following morning. The lady removed her typewriter cover, and the giant wiggly spider jumped out at her. I wasn't there, but the photos were funny.

[PaphLover]

Originally Posted by desertanimal

...they often turn their "heads" and look back! They watch you watching them!

Oh dear! Oh me! Oh my! Oh no! That is not comforting at all. I think I'm going to have nightmares.

My whole spider fear comes from childhood. I went to bed one night and felt that creepy crawly skin feeling. I just thought it was that creepy crawly skin feeling, but it didn't go away. I got out of bed, turned on my light, and flipped back the covers. …There were three! Yes, three! spiders in bed with me. I ran screaming into my mom's bedroom and completely freaked her out of a dead sleep. My dad was out of town on business and my screaming her awake scared her so bad that she yelled at me. Since then, spiders and I are not friends. They got me in trouble!

[AndreaK]

My daughter had a jumping spider on her window in her room. She was frightened. I just found some really adorable pictures online of them, then I helped her research information about them. She overcame her fear, became friends, and was sad to see it moved out of her windowscreen.

[No-Pro-mwa]

I like the jumpers also, they are the only spiders I let live in the house. By that I mean I leave then alone if I find them others I kill or take outside. When we first started the house we had Black widows move in. Now that was creepy those I kill. I have found 4 different kinds of them.

Snakes just scare me. I've had 2 horses bitten by rattle snakes and one of them died. Then the Bull snakes moved in and the rattle snakes moved out. So me and the Bull snakes have a love hate relationship.

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There are several species of rattlesnake native to the Phoenix area. We have king snakes in our neighborhood (Lampropeltis getula californica.) These eat rattlesnakes, so we have no rattlesnakes in our neighborhood. I try to explain this to neighbors, who assure me they are compelled nevertheless to kill all snakes.

[snowflake311]

The only snake that scares me is the one that is about to strike. The only time I had a snake try to bit me was a pet milk snake. It was feeding time, my hand might have smelled like a mouse.

I am so glad we don't have rattle snakes in Tahoe. They are no joke. I would be more scared for my dogs then myself. We do have them in lower elevations.