To be totally freaked out by what I just found on my towel?

[tastylancs]

My heart is pounding honestly. What is this insect? Do I need to boil all sheets and towels? Burn the house down?

It's the size of a large puy lentil. Perfectly round with legs. Filled with brown bits, kind of like a teabag.

Heart still pounding. Please help. I can't actually look at my own photo.

But I have a cat. What’s the issue with cats?

Can I come to London with you OP?

Soooo frickin itchy now.

“Bat darked”

We have bats in London!

But I have a cat. What’s the issue with cats?

One of my cats caught a bat the other week. Fortunately, I heard her singing the song of the victorious hunter before I opened the back door, so the bat didn’t make it into the house. I took it to a local wildlife rescue place.

I made a conscious decision not to have a cat flap after another cat tried to bring a live mole into the house!

Bat the cat sat on the mat.

S1naid Did the trainers fit your dogs?!!!!!!

S1naid Did the trainers fit your dogs?!!!!!!

😁

Glad you id'd it but it does look like an alien with the 'rods'...they're not babies or anything are they?!

It's worth the itching to be reminded of the 'catch him Derry' video though!

Jesus fuck. England was going to be my safe space- Australia is too murdery for me any longer. But then THAT appears on my screen. 😳 No thanks.

Nope. You lot can keep your bat bugs. 🤢 I’ll stick with drop bears and such.

So we can find out if the rods are all connected or are seperate and floating about.

The key question has not been asked.

OP - is the teabag still...

ALIVE???

I hope he is - he can't help being a little black veiny bastard 😂

@Duster12 I feel that I want to know as well, but feel good that you asked and not me so now everyone thinks you are cruel to ticks.

Also I like the bat on the mat. Just saying.

Reminds me, years ago a dear friend rescued a baby bat in Rochdale. It bit her and she became the subject of a complex and lengthy public health issue, where she had to be injected and medicated for weeks. We never let her forget it.

Some bats carry rabies, is it possible these ticks can pass it on

No, the rabies found in (very few) bats in the UK is passed on by a bite or scratch direct from the bat.
We have lots of bats around us and have had several dead ones in the house (from natural causes and from cats!). We have sent off dead ones to the public health people who test dead bats for rabies to monitor the occurrence in the bat population.

*We have a colony of bats in our attic.

Dont like to imagine them infested with ticks.
Can we rid them of the ticks?*

You could try catching them and dipping them in de-lousing powder?

But seriously if pets bring these things in, i am never having any pets ever!

A tick! Dog had one recently but it was full of blood by the time I got it
I’d check the dog and the kids
If the dog has had tick treatment it may have fallen off and be dead

Oh Goody - will add it to the list.
DH desperate to move out of London into Hertfordshire - I’m listing reasons why we must stay in London - full of pollen, no easy transport, no theatre, no museums, no decent coffee shops, no decent shops...I’ll add ticks to the list - never seen a tick before - and shan’t again if I have my way.

Take it In a vial or jar to environmental health at your local council.... they know what all the bugs are

Mumsnet ...an education !
I am itching now .

Oh god, my cat catches live bats and brings them in the house and releases them

Ticks go through different life cycle stages and in the larval stage they have 6 legs. The weird freaky bastards

😂😂

Can be a tick that hasn't had a blood donor. Only when fully fed do they have a greyish look and spherical body. Why not Google?

Don't worry this definitely isn't a bedbug. But I don't think it's a tick either - can you take a better photo ( magnified) please? I can't see how many legs its got. When you say there are black bits in it, are they uniform or scattered? Did you dry your towel outside?

Has tortoise Shell Beetle been suggested? Not sure though