[Bogie Shooter]

Originally Posted by senior citizen

Are palmetto bugs also called love bugs???

Back in 1973 we lived on the east coast of Florida for one year; the house was on a canal a block in from the intracoastal waterway and the beach.

Never ever thought of a rat. Never crossed our mind, even with the dock and the canal. Never saw one. But we did see, only when we shut the lights out late at night to watch t.v.........the "palmetto bugs" run across the carpeting.........we had sold our home up north and were renting this one for a year........the landlady, a retired Air Force General's widow, did pay to have an indoor exterminator and an outdoor exterminator come to treat the place.

I think it was monthly. He would tell me not to let my 2 year old son nor my 5 year old daughter out on the grass for a few days....due to the chemicals. He never mentined rodents of any kind (but the Venice exterimators did, over and over again).

While on a hike our little boy , holding my husband's hand, did trip and fall into a red ants nest and got bit up on his legs. They were FAST. (Years later, my elderly mom got bit by red ants in Venice).

Another time, we had taken the children very early in the morning to have a picnic by a nearby lake.......we held their hands and waded into the lake, but not too far.......had our picnic and returned home before 10 a.m. as it was HOT. A short while later we read how a young teenaged girl had been killed by an alligator while swimming in that same lake. HOW NAIVE WE WERE in our twenties. This is why I check everything out now.

We went to Disney World for years, every single school vacation in April and I never once thought about rats or alligators........a realtor at Top of the World told me that he had a friend who "worked the perimeter" of Disney World to keep the gators far away from the hotel areas and the park.

They are also out there !!!!!!! Years later, we visited D.W. in September and all the pools were closed due to encephalitis.........and the LOVE BUGS were out in full force..........so yes, although FLORIDA is better than ICE AND SNOW.........one does have to consider everything they are willing to live with.

I think with your hang ups, you maybe should stay where you are.....that is eden, right?