I was told that there are BIG spiders there

[Andrew]

Hi Linda:

There are some nasties in Hawaii for sure. One such is the cane spider. see: http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/haw...imals.cane

However it depends on where you are located. I have dug up, crawled through, rummaged around in and pretty much have covered every inch of my place in Leilani Estates in Puna and have never seen a cane spider or scorpion even one time. I have only come across two centipedes which I was able to dispatch in a quick manner (neither of which was inside my place).

In Kona on the other hand I have seen a lot of cane spiders and have been stung at least twice by scorpions and several times by yellow jackets.

What we do have at our place in Leilani in spades include kokee frogs, cane toads, mosquitoes and mongooses. The amphibians actually don't bother me a bit. I don't like the mongoose because they molest the local bird population. Mosquitoes are my arch enemies. If I had the last mating pair of mosquitoes on the planet I would grind them to a dark smear in a second and then rejoice.

Andrew