I am wondering about people’s experiences dealing with pests in Japan. I’ve heard rumours about the Giant Mukade Centipedes and the Huntsman. I’m not particularly frightened by insects, having spent some time in Central America, but I can’t help but be curious how common pests are. (The huntsman haunts my dreams if I’m being honest)
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I’m placed in Aomori (most northern prefecture below Hokkaido) and luckily there are few bugs due to the colder climate. I’ve never even seen a cockroach up here. It really depends on your placement.
No different than anywhere else in the world. More rural locations will have more, cities will have less. Huntsmen are farther south, and the centipedes – while unsettling – are no different from checking your shoes for widow spiders in parts of the U.S.A.
I had seen many huntsman during my time in Japan. I actually “kept” one because I know it was eating my biggest fear, G (my fear is real that I can’t even type the English name.)
Anyway, they don’t really hurt you besides looking scary. Mine was in the kitchen and would stay near the stove. I had to tap the wall to tell him move a bit so he wouldn’t get burn as I cooked lol
Mukade short story: on the ground packing for my trip, suddenly felt something crawly near my finger. Looked down and one was right next to my hand :’) immediately grabbed a kitchen towel and stepped the shit out of it 🤣 I think I did have a small heart attack that day.
I have seen one Huntsman in my 2 years here so far, and one Mukade.
The Huntsman was in a bucket at school where a bike pump is stored. I lifted the pump out, heard a dull thud and thought a part had fallen off, but nah, the Huntsman had fallen off the pump. It just sat in the bucket, scared.
The Mukade, giant centipede specifically, was outside my house on the street, dead as fuck.
They’re not as common as people talk it up. Insects don’t like to be seen, to avoid predation.
there was a post about this just this past week with plenty of comments, wasn’t there?
I’ve seen one Huntsman while I’ve been here for over two years and it was running (yes, running) into a 7/11 near me. Never had any in my apartment yet but we did have some cockroaches and of course the usual flies and mosquitoes. Prepare for cicada too!
I live in Tohoku. I’ve never seen a huntsman in nearly 8 years, and the two mukade I’ve encountered were down south in Okayama and Osaka. I’ve seen plenty of gejigeji (house centipedes, good pest controllers) and the big orbweaver spiders, and although I’ve never seen them we have bears, boar and mukade (vipers). I’ve seen wild monkeys once, in the hills nearby.
I had a huntsman in my apartment last week. Scared me so bad I slept in a net cafe that night. But they are not super common and he left after I chaced him away with cockroach spray.
The most common bugs you’ll see are little, harmless jumping spiders and cockroaches. But that being said, I’m in Tokyo so it’s probably different in other parts of Japan
Between apartments, I spent time in an old… OLD… share house. There were two sinks, and a huntsman just camped out over one. So… I never used it. Good enough roommate, although I don’t know what I’d say about them killing other pests. I saw a lot of other stuff in that “accommodation.”
<P.S. this was before smartphones, so I’m not sure it was a hunstman. Huntsman spiders can be bigger than your hand spread out, yeah?>
Totally dependent on location and living space! I was rural Chiba and was lucky enough to only have a few cockroaches in the summer. I did see a mukade in my school parking lot though. A nearby JET also had a huntsman inside their apartment recently too.
At least from my own experience in Kyushu, Huntsman are more common than Mukade, and neither are particularly common to see.
That being said, I’ve had two large huntsman in my room before, but they cooperated and I was able to gently shoo them out of my apartment with a broom. I’ll occasionally see them outside in the summer at night.
Mukade are rarer, but once in a while you’ll see one running on a path at night. I had one wake me up at 3am on my foot which…was not pleasant.
Honestly though, the real menaces are roaches.
As many people have said, it really depends on your location and apartment situation.
I live in Kyushu, and my apartment is surrounded by fields. The mukade enter the air conditioner unit outside through the condensation hose, crawl in, and drop down from the indoor air conditioner unit on the wall. During my time here, I have encountered dozens of mukade crawling on the walls or along the floor, and on several occasions woke up to one crawling on me at night. A huge one was wriggling in my hair one night, that was pretty scary. But thankfully, even with all of those experiences, I’ve only been stung once (yes, it hurt, and my arm was numb for hours).
I recently learned that you can buy a kind of screened plug for the air conditioner condensation hose, so of course I got one from Amazon.
The huntsman spiders were probably getting in the same way. At first they freaked me out, mostly because when I moved something or reached for clothes in the closet, I’d disturbed them and they’d sprint out from their hiding place. It always startled me, but they are harmless and supposedly eat other insects, so I don’t mind living with them. They can probably find more food outside tho, so if they happen to be near a window or door, I shoo them out. Once, I found one protecting a bunch of eggs that were laid in a PET bottle that was in the entrance area waiting for recycling day. It was neat seeing the clear eggs turn brown, then black, then little baby spiders were just hanging out in the bottle. I put them outside, since I really don’t need 30 more of them in here.
If you end up in the countryside surrounded by fields, you’ll probably get to see a lot more than just mukade and spiders. Just outside my bedroom window, I’ve seen several snakes, a couple moles, a weasel, and for a while I was feeding two tanuki (I stopped since apparently they might carry disease).
At night in the summers, rhinoceros beetles and stag beetles are attracted to the light and come to rest on the screens of the windows. There are also these large stick-like bugs sometimes. I’d never seen any of these before, so they’re really interesting to find on my windows.
Anyway, there are a lot of neat things out here 🙂
Sometimes there’s a stray NHK man in the genkan. Bug spray just makes em angry
When I arrived- one of the other JETs in my town discussed how awful the bugs were, which terrified me- but then it turned out that he left food and all sorts of empty cans. He had to have the BOE bug bomb his apartment twice.
We had very few bugs in our time there, and it would usually be when we didn’t get the screen door closed all the way.
Generally speaking you get the bigger insects in places that are warm year-round, basically anything south of the Japanese Alps.
If you want help getting over your fear of Huntsman spiders, this video is worth a watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LiALjybcJA
In short, they kill cockroaches, and unlike roaches, they are polite and won’t crawl on your face at night.
In Kyoto I’ve dealt with both huntsman spiders and centipedes. Huntsman are nigh Impossible to catch, so if they’re in your house, your best to kill them if you don’t wanna cohabitate.
Mukade are easy to wrangle, but can poison you just by contact with their legs. Just hope you see them before they decide to climb up on you.
If you have no food for them in your house, you probably don’t have to worry about them .
I had a large house in the inaka, but I didn’t have to worry too much about the bugs thanks to a few yamori (geckos, I think?) that lived inside my house. They mostly stayed out of sight, but I’d sometimes find them on the window panes. When I first arrived, I didn’t know what to do with them. My JTE told me to let them be – they’ll take care of any unwanted bugs.
I lived in the countryside and saw like three mukade in my house. It was a nightmare and I had my landlord come kill them. They’re super dangerous. However, I bought this like mukade spray from the grocery store and sprayed it all over each of my entryways once or twice a week and never saw one again. So I really reccoment that. It should keep out spiders too, and if you spray any bug you find they die like instantly.