Okay, (holds head in shame), I'm a certified wootaholic. Have been for a couple of years. DID YOU SEE THE PRICE ON THE FRONT LOAD WASHER AND DRIER LAST WEEK?. My Scooba doesn't leave marks on the hardwood floors, although admittedly it only hits the hardwoods when it "escapes". I generally use the Dirt Dog and Roomba on the hardwoods and the Scooba only on the tile (this is Florida, no carpets). I usually use a Swifter on the hardwoods after the robots have done their thing. It has, however, done half a room of hardwoods before I noticed it "escaped" from the kitchen or baths. The only issue I have with any of them is that the Scooba always wants to be emptied when it is invariably sitting in the middle of the kitchen and me and my dirty bare feet have to walk over damp tiles to "help" it. I have found if I just hit the clean button again it resumes what it was doing. The only carpet I have in the house is a large throw rug in my office and a couple rugs in the bathrooms. The Dirt Dog will get stuck on them but manages to unstick itself. The Roomba doesn't seem to like carpet at all but maybe it would be fine on wall to wall, rather than throw rugs. I don't use the remotes. I only have the electric walls and bases they return to in order to charge. For the record, the Dyson is fab when I have to clean up what the robots miss. I love my robots and hate that some of you have had bad luck. I think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Mr. B are you paying cable for digital phone, digital cable and digital internet (misnomer)? All you need is high speed broadband and the rest is either free or damn close. The video card in my computer will work the analog TV, Netflix supplies all the TV and movies I've never seen and Vonage the phone. All told $60 a month and $30 of that is the cable DSL (via Earth Link with no contract). I am glad though, that you've finally gotten on the digital phone bandwagon. I hopped on 3 years ago and can't believe how reluctant people are to the concept. I love technology, gadget junkie that I am.

All of us here are well aware of how beneficial they are in gardens, but they can become pests if hundreds or thousands of them decide they want to spend the winter indoors with you.....so just be aware of that when cold weather is approaching in the autumn or winter. I just take the time to gather them up and release them in the barn or the greenhouse. When you let them stay indoors, they can create a stinky situation after a while, so I'd rather not let them overwinter in the house. If you have pest bugs around that the ladybugs like to eat, they ought to show up on their own, unless you live in an area where pesticide use or something else drastic has either killed them all or driven them away. I usually see about two weeks of fairly heavy pest insect population growth before the ladybugs show up, lay eggs, and give you tons more ladybugs. The larvae don't look at all like ladybugs----they look like little gray alligator-shaped or dragon-shaped insects----and sometimes people don't realize that they are the ladybug larvae and kill them. It is the larvae that really devour tons and tons of pest insects like mites, mealy bugs, leafhoppers, scales and aphids (and many others as well). If you've never released ladybugs before, be advised that often they simply fly away shortly after being released. There's a couple of ways to encourage them to stay around: 1) be sure you do have pest insects for them to eat. If you release them before the pest insects are present in sufficient numbers to feed them, they'll just fly away. They won't stay if there's not a big enough food supply to feed them and their children. 2) You can Google and find recipes for wheast or you can buy some wheast from some of the same places that sell ladybugs. This is like fast food for lady bugs (and also for green lacewings) and helps encourage them to stay on your property if there's not yet enough pest insects to eat. You mix it up and spray it on the plants and it gives them a food source to feed upon before the pest population is sufficiently large enough to feed them. 3) Release them in the evening and, if you wish, release half of them one day and the other half the next day. Scatter them around the yard or garden instead of just dumping all of them out in one spot so that they won't feel like they are in an overpopulated area. Lady bugs are great. Yesterday I saw the regular orange ones, and also some pink, red and black ones in my garden. They were particularly busy on the corn and cabbage plants. Finally, to encourage them (and other beneficial insects) to show up in the first place and then to stay, it helps if you are growing plants with tiny flowers that they can use for a food source (pollen and/or nectar). I usually have the following growing in my garden for the ladybugs: calendula, coreopsis, sweet alyssum, dill, fennel, tansy, statice, silver tansy, marigolds, yarrow and cilantro. Outside the garden there's also wild carrots and dandelions in bloom. I also tend to let lots of my other herbs go into bloom periodically (lemon balm, catnip, catmint, an onion here and there, etc.) for the beneficial insects. They need water too and if there isn't any available, they'll leave to find it. Right now, with all the torrential rainfall in Oklahoma, we have lots of standing puddles of water, but I usually keep shallow pans and a birdbath filled with water for the beneficial insects, with the bottom of the pan and birdbath filled with pebbles so the little ladybugs can perch on the pebbles to drink without drowning. Normally, once you've attracted local ladybugs to your garden, or once you've successfully released purchased ones and had them stick around, you'll never be without ladybugs again. Even when it seems like there are not many nearby, they are there, even though they won't show up in large numbers until there's a sufficient food supply available for them.

And this is what spider looked like after I killed it... more like screamed for my mom to come downstairs and she after about 5 minutes of attempting to squish it finally succeeded and it moved around alot and fast kept crawling up and down on fireplace mantle.... while she tried stabbing it with a pool stick from the old pool table near by... and told me she cant do it was afraid to get a shoe or something to get close to it I yelled I am moving out today if we don't kill this now ! Lol finally we got an idea and sprayed it with some kitchen cleaner and it slowed down long enough for her to kill it . Wish I had better pics but was so freaked put when I saw it I only snapped the one very quickly just in case I lost it before it had a chance to be killed and only have the phone photo of it dead to try to help identify it.. I been reading thru a lot of thread like these I know this one is old and I've been rambling quite a bit but hope someone takes time to read and respond....

Yes, neem oil is good, but all anti-fungals are preventatives. Once fungus is established, all neem or any anti-fungal can do is to keep it from spreading. I'd be sure to check the label to see if you can use neem on all your plants. It's an oil, so spray it in the morning or early evening when it's cool so as not to damage the leaves. I used to use a homemade mixture of 1/3 cup Murphy's Oil Soap and 1 tbsp of baking soda per gallon of water. The soap & oil killed insects, but the oil also allowed the baking soda to "stick" to the leaves to prevent fungus. I was given that recipe by Kathy Crowley of Crowley's Nursery in Sarasota County. She eventualy switched to neem, but she used only that on her plants for years and swore by it. Liquid copper is also good for some types of fungus, but again, make sure it's safe for your particular plants. Fungus likes cool, damp weather like we had this winter. Luckily, Gainesville had a lot of wind that kept leaves dry and kept fungus from growing, but I'm watching closely as the new leaves emerge on things. My tropical hibiscus are the only things dropping leaves, but they're persnickety plants anyway.