Came across a few photos of what we have at various times woken up to, bumped into, fought hand to claw with in our shack in Zanzibar.
Millipedes – horrible black glistening things with bright traffic light red legs rippling away underneath. Surprisingly not poisoness.
A furry sort of cuddly African earwig. With enough poison in it to cause serious damage to a small child.
Gecko. Not poisoness. Not particularly horrible to look at but a demon cack bomber. Judging by what they leave behind, they appear to have a proclivity for wiping their backsides along 2cm stretches of wall.
And needless to say in a land where most things living are in one long interminable fight for survival even gecko crapping territory is worth a duel to the death.
A cockroach resting.
Found a couple of scorpions in the house. On my first day at work I had one fall from the office ceiling onto my shoulder. The college principle seeing this – I hadn’t noticed – casually raised a finger to halt the conversation, sauntered over from his desk and brushed it off with the throw away comment, ‘We get them now and then’.
No idea what this was. Big green and yellow and when you smash it with a broom it oozes purple goo.
I loathed that bloody cockerel.
Everything in Africa looks like it’s either on a forced starvation diet or, like lard-arse here, as though it’s just gorged itself on several small children.
We had a monkey not in our house but in the roof for a few months. Before we found out what it was – it was generally active only at night- it sounded just like a small child scuttling around. Not a rat, not a cat. Unmistakably like something small and human. Weird and very unsettling at night thinking you’ve got the Exorcist demon child in your loft.
No words required. Simply imagine Nadine screaming at me to get the f****ing thing out of the house. She’s a brave cookie is my Nadine. She could handle practically anything but cockroaches and spiders were where she drew the line. They fry them up as snacks in Thailand.
Toilet stingray. They swim up the outlet pipes and end up thrashing themselves to death on the bathroom floor. You do not want to be in the middle of number ones when one is on his way out. All you can do is drag the buggers outside for the rubbish men to clean up.
African rat. These ones are tiny. How tiny? Well in Swahili rat translates into field dog. That’s how big they can grow. We only suffered a tiny one. It still basically ate down the door to get at our food cupboard.
The most lethal of the lot. Small child. Probably a demon cack bomber, faster than any thousand legged millipede, definitely oozes green stuff from a range of orifices and in my estimation, poisoness. Don’t be fooled by the cute smile. He knew exactly where the home baked cocoa biscuits were.
najonajo 
I’m so glad you didn’t post these before my visit….
I still wake up in the night in a cold sweat thinking about that kid on the doorstep.
I bet you do 🙂
HALLELUJAH we didn’t visit. Actual nightmares!!!!
Aaaw, how cute. We share our house here with roaches, who are brilliant shit spreaders. They also live inside electronics and leave delicate streaks of pooh along counter tops, behind pictures and calenders and eventually cause the electronic item to die. I have Roach Motels everywhere – "the roaches check in, but they can't check out…" and they do help, but you can't get the buggers living inside your phone, printer or filing cabinet. The cat doesn't do much with them either, she just watches them scuttle across the floor. I hate them as you can smell the collective shit pile somewhere but cannot find it. Ugh…
Other visitors include Cuban tree frogs which come up through the toilet pipe, and if I catch them sitting there, they get flushed straight down again. They can sneak out and then they get into trouble as Tibby cat will grab them to play with them. A screaming frog in the middle of the night can be a little alarming – nasty spooky noise.
We also get anoles (lizards) which again get coerced into becoming a play thing, but they are easy to catch and get outside again. Used to have large wolf spiders too, but not so much at this house.
The most curious creature living in harmony with us is the bag worm or plaster worm. It looks like a tiny oval of paper with a teeny brown pipe sticking out and which it uses to pull itself along the floor or up the wall. I read that they are harmless and live on spiders' webs but I have often seen a cannibalistic gathering round one which is clearly deceased.
I remember the praying mantises, emerald tree snakes and HUGE spiders (don't tell Nadine) which lived with us in Nigeria. Also geckos everywhere which I liked to watch at night.
But I wouldn't mind living somewhere where you don't have to share your abode with half of Mother Nature.
You'll have a whole new zoo to photograph in Thailand – hope there are no elephants in the room….
Take care,
Lesley
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 at 9:10 AM
Geckos I can handle but those cockroaches and spiders – I’m with Nadine on that one!
Cx