Have you ever intentionally killed a ladybug?
Asked by
jrpowell (
40562
)
January 1st, 2010
I have no problem smashing a fly or spider. But I am always really careful with ladybugs. I try my best to get them to a safe place.
Am I alone in this?
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64 Answers
There is this Russian thing I do with ladybugs – when you get one, you have to let them go out of the window with a poem – I forget the poem now but I used to know when I was little. I can swat flies but not spiders.
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.
Your house is on fire; your children will burn.”
@gailcalled oh! maybe the poem isn’t just a Russian thing. who knew?
No. That is against the rules.
Ladybugs are my friend. i have always been told that they were good luck and to never kill one. i do not.
no I have not, even the evil stinging kind. I kill no bugs but spiders.
Not that I know of. I’ve really grown to hate killing anything including flies, spiders, lizards, ants.
I don’t kill them no.
I also don’t kill spiders, if I can catch them I put them outside. Most bugs and spiders aren’t bad. Don’t kill them.
Never. I let them crawl along my arm until I tire of it, then I set them down in the garden.
Bugs are evil! And they bite me :( ..Yes I’ve killed ladybugs.
I have never killed a lady bug. When I see one I usually pick it up and carry it around for a while until it flies off on its own. I also have never killed a rollie pollie.
@Facade You’re going to hell. I’ll see you there, but for other reasons.
never, not even unintentionally that I am aware of.
I try to avoid killing most insects (with the exception of termites and roaches).
I like lady bugs. Spiders freak me out but so long as they stay off my turf they can live.
@allie Rollie pollies are cool.
Have I ever killed a ladybug?...Yes. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t once a little eight year old boy who smashed bugs of all kinds.
But that was a long time ago, and now I know better. I never kill ladybugs. Or spiders.
When a mosquito lands on my arm I gently blow him or her away.
I don’t intentionally kill anyone.
pretty sure I know what pete will say
My house is infested with lady bugs. Seriously in fall there are hundreds of lady bugs all around the doors. there are still some in my house now actually.
That said, no, ive never killed them. i like petes…me no kill nothin.
There are ladybugs and then there are FAKE ladybugs. I bet I can look inside the screens of three of my windows and find at least 5 dead ladybug impostors. There are Mexican bean beetles and some kind of Asian thingamajig… Those suckers can diediedie!
@uberbatman Are they ladybugs or fakes?
I took this in my bathroom recently
Good point… I am the same way… Well, they don’t bite me or sting me, so I’m okay with them. I would be okay with spiders if they didn’t sting me >_> I also try not to kill roaches, if it’s just a single one. If I start to see multiples of them, well, it’s time to let them know that they are NOT welcome!
“I would be okay with spiders if they didn’t sting me ” They dont, they bite :P
I’m not sure about an actual lady bug, but I’ve demolished many of their pest-cousins, Mexican Bean Beetles.
I think ladybugs are lucky plus I don’t think it would be lady-like to bug squash another lady
I try to avoid killing bugs; put ‘em in a paper cup and toss them outside. But ladybugs and mantids are especially big no-nos. When my mother came here from Texas she apparently killed a praying mantis, not having seen one before, and my father scolded her for it.
No. I like ladybugs a lot. Once though I let one loose out a 3rd floor window, and it flew about 2 meters before it was snatched from the air by a swooping bird.
@Zaku You should have busted into a falsetto rendition of Circle of Life.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that ladybirds (or ladybugs, as you call them in the US) are the gardener’s friend . All power to them I say.
I don’t kill ladybugs. They’re good. It does make me think… if flies or roaches were colored beautifully or looked cute like ladybugs, would we not kill them either?
@Adagio hmmm didnt know that. Looks like ill be in good shape when i go to plant a garden this spring then :P
No, never, and I always give spiders a safe escort outside, or at least out of my way (like to a potted plant). When I accidentally drown one in the shower, I apologize to it, and I feel sad for a while.
But I show no mercy to flies or ants.
@Grisaille – Laugh! Thanks… I’ll have to practice up for next time.
Heck yes!
Our old apartment would get a yearly infestation, starting in the Fall. I had a very young child (he was 3 months old when it got bad) In a two bedroom apartment, but we coslept..the main room that was infested was of course the nursery.
I would walk in to literally hundreds of those damn things all over the window. They’d sneak out of the room and buzz around us at night time, I was convinced they would crawl into my mouth, ears or nose…or that of my infants.
Every day I would vacuum tons of them up. Terminex came and said they really couldn’t kill them or whatever. They sprayed around the windows, but I had to keep vacuuming them because there were so many. It drove me crazy.
I’m sorry but if you dealt with that, you’d change your tune on killing a ladybug.
@casheroo yea i just moved into this house around November, so it should be interesting to see how things go next year and if there will be more. There were patches of my wall near windows that were just completely red from all the lady bugs
@uberbatman I’m scared of pretty much all bugs, so I probably have less issues with killing bugs than most. But, I will say, the second year did get better. My friends are now in the apartment…it’s seriously a gorgeous apartment, minus the bug thing…and they had issues this past Fall. I warned them but it still freaked them out. They found a hole in the kitchen behind the stove…completely open to the outside, so they think that’s been the source. But I think ladybugs get in through the cracks, considering they were always on the other side of the apartment
With the exception of flies or fleas I try never to kill anything. But when I was a kid I used to kill bugs. Although I never looked between their legs so I have no idea if any of them were ladies.
One of the buildings on my campus has a ladybug infestation. One corner of the ceiling in the student lounge is just crawling with them, and I feel like they’re crawling on me whenever I’m in that building. But I’d never kill one.
When I was little I used to squash lightning bugs and use them as war paint. It is not one of my proudest moments, but it was cool then when I didn’t know I was rubbing guts on my face.
“When I was little I used to squash lightning bugs and use them as war paint”
LOL i used to do the same thing. It is kind of funny that so many people would do that but woudnt even consider touching another bug let alone getting its guts on them.
Wait, hold the phone. What’s wrong with killing a ladybug? I have done it before. God didn’t smite me… this time.
I’ve been scared to death of all bugs since I was a child :S one time my cousin had to lock us in my parents room the entire night she was babysitting cause there was a ladybug. I’ve mostly gotten over that fear.. I just don’t like them now.
but I never kill them.. I always have someone else do it. and if not just run away(: haha
Like @casheroo, I am scared of pretty much all bugs too. So yesss I have intentionally killed lady bugs. I’m okay with going to hell for that.
Probably, because they look just like japanese biting beetles.
@Irishmar Don’t go around throwing terms like “biting beetles”. That’s terrifying :(
Nope, they’re just too darn cute. But also they don’t have the habit of coming into your house flying around and trying to suck the blood out of you or crawl along the floor at night so when you get up you hear a crunch or buzz around annoyingly sitting on your food or planting themselves on a wall so when you walk past you scream. (Takes Breath)
Lady bugs don’t intentionally come into our house, so I don’t need to kill them. But other insects like flies and mosquitoes do, so I will intentionally kill them. Sounds fair to me.
I used to have a lady bug ratio until the doctor cut it off with my tummy tuck.
No, I haven’t. But. We spent a week in the Poconos one fall, and the condo we were staying in was infested with them (see @casheroo‘s story, above). If that happened in my own home, I’m thinking I’d be guilty of mass murder.
I got a shopvac and went around outside under the porch where they were queuing up to get inside… Must have sucked up about 150 impostors that day, if not more. I did then empty them into the trash can and some might have escaped, but hopefully many were dead. Stupid impostors.
I kill only those I intend to eat.
No!
Flies, mosquitoes, spiders (depends on the situation – sometimes I leave them alone to catch bugs in their lovely webs) are about it for me. The rest belong to the wonderful wild kingdom and nature and shouldn’t be harmed.
I feel the need to say this, there are these bugs, japanaze bitting beetles, that look just like ladybugs. They sting you, and they also stink. It was an experiment or something gone horribly worng (government) is what I heard. The first time I saw a whole bunch of them on my window sill I got all excited, (good luck ladybug) and they were bitting bugs. Very rarely will you see more than a couple ladybugs at one time, unless your in the forest. bye
@Irishmar We have them here in Illinois. (beetles) Try going outside in October on a warm day and not get bit. They are everywhere. Those little buggers hurt! I still won’t kill them though. :)
I kill them all the time. I hate them! And I agree with @jonsblond they do bite and they do hurt. In my area they dump loads of them into a valley to fight off some other bug, but EVERY YEAR they end up dumping them at the wrong time and the wind shifts them to town. My house is filled with them every spring. I HATE THEM! (I used to worry about killing them, but not anymore)
Great Blog! I do not like the asian ladybug because they do bite and Instead of migrating to the mountain like our local species they like to live in people’s homes. One can thank the Gov. for that error in ID and importing them. New blog on the Hx. of the Ladybug: http://historyoftheladybug.blogspot.com/
In one of my high school classes, someone I’m going to call Bob picked up a green ladybug during a fire drill. His encounter with the ladybug went like this, ver batem:
Bob: “I’m gonna name you Carl.”
Ladybug: (excretes something onto Bob’s hand)
Bob: “Did you just sh!t on me, Carl? (throws ladybug on ground and smashes with foot)
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