Lady bugs! Had hundreds of them the year before last. Little tree frogs and a few of those big ugly hairy wolf spiders with fangs. Chipmunks in the covered gutters, and now I am getting the dredded mice. I have tried every humane method to get rid of them with no success. I am going to have to resort to killing them unless somone has a better way?
Lisa

The only thing I've found that works for mice is getting the right cat.

--Jonathan

;) Jonathan, no can do with an Akita Cyote mix, i'm afraid kitty would not last long.
Lisa

A few years ago I was sitting at my computer and I have a habit of sitting with one leg tucked under me and let the other swing back and forth hanging down. Being barefoot, the hair on the back of my neck just stood right up when I felt something FURRY brush under my foot! I didn't own any fuzzy slippers. When I looked under my computer desk, lo and behold, there was a possum! Oh yeah! I screamed! I grabbed the phone and a broom, hopped up onto the kitchen table and called my son to come over. He almost died laughing when he saw his dear old Mom sitting cross legged in the middle of the kitchen table, wielding a bat like I was playing in the world series! All he did was open up the sliding glass door and the poor thing scooted out.

I didn't think it was funny at the time, but looking back on it now, it makes for a good laugh at family gatherings.

Hmmm...a few mice from time to time, lots of spiders (we usually name them Charlotte - as long as I know where they are, they're welcome), plenty of bugs and lots and lots of sowbugs and millipedes on the first floor. The house was built into a hillside way back in 1790, so I think "not very tight" would be the understatement of the century. Thankfully, we haven't seen anything larger than a mouse, but we did find a mummified rat in the walls while remodeling. That was kind of cool, in a disgusting sort of way.

!@$% rats in the attic. I think I've trapped them all now though. They showed up about six months ago when they tore down a forest and old farm house nearby to put in a subdivision.

Spiders - many kinds - love them and leave them - common house spider, wolf spiders, jumping spiders, daddy-long-legs. One time my "friend" was sitting on my couch in his altogether and one spiraled down from the ceiling and landed on his watchamacallit. Wow, that was funny, he jumped so high (the man, not the spider)!

Bats in a house I rented, field mice and kangaroo mice now. Ladybugs, paper wasps, flies (duh guess everyone has those), garter snakes occasionally in the garage. Since I got my newest cat (who was once wild) the mice are pretty much avoiding the place. Everything gets safely escorted outside (even the two mice I saved from my cat, although I am sure they wandered right back in).

Yea, I can respond at last!!
Winter times are usually pretty quiet around here, unless you count the hordes of spiders that either hitched a ride in on various potted trees/plants or else hatched out later on and have never known the outdoors. In any case the web-spinners have spaced themselves out fairly evenly and the hunter-stalkers are usually found patiently waiting along a tree trunk or other vertical surface for some tidbit to wander by. This is a handy system, as there is usually a population of gnats and small flies that emerge from the mulch as well, once the 70 degrees of an artificial spring brings them around. By January there are not too many things flying about, not even a fruit fly near the bananas, and I thank the spiders for this.
As for odd things that have appeared over the years, I guess that distinction would have to go to the Summer of the Frogs. It was really dry outside and although I have heard about the abilities of animals to sense water, nothing prepared me for finding grey tree frogs in the toilet, or pressed into their little water-conserving belly-tuck positions in the corner of the shower. Or the unfortunates who had made it into the house but not quite to the water sources within...these individuals had obviously been hard at it searching, because most were covered with lint and dusty bits from some unknown corner, and I immediately took these poor wanderers out to the bird bath and gave them a good soak before placing them under the hostas where I knew "rain" would come every few days.
That was the frog occupation. At some time there has been a snake as well...has to have been. One day I came home to find the cat buggy-eyed and panicked. He was jumpy and panicky, something that totally contradicts his normal persona. And there was the lifting of things with one paw, and a hard look at what lay underneath. To this day he circles a laundry pile with suspicion and if there is a pair of sweats with a drawstring waist and that string is visible, he freaks. I will never be sure, but I would say we have had a snake in here at some time.