Dealing with Bugs in Stuttgart

If you enjoy spend­ing time out­side, you’re prob­a­bly used to deal­ing with insects and arach­nids. We offer some infor­ma­tion on which bugs to watch out for in the Stuttgart area as well as tips for deal­ing with them safely.

Ticks

South­ern Ger­many is an area in which ticks are a wide­spread issue. They become active as soon as tem­per­a­tures warm to the mid 40s (7° C), which is the major­i­ty of the year here. The peak sea­son is March to Octo­ber, but tick expo­sure can in fact hap­pen year round. Ticks live in high grass­es as well as wood­ed areas with leaf lit­ter. You may come into con­tact with them any­time you walk across a field or through a brushy area, as well as when pets return from such excursions.

Ticks can car­ry dis­eases. Gen­er­al­ly they present with a high fever as well as flu-like symp­toms. Of great­est con­cern is Lyme dis­ease, known as Bor­re­liose in Ger­man. When it is caught ear­ly, a course of antibi­otics is usu­al­ly enough to fight off the Bor­re­lia bac­te­ria. Tick-borne encephali­tis (TBE), called FSME in Ger­man, is endem­ic in South­ern Ger­many. The best means of pro­tec­tion are the FSME vac­ci­na­tion course and active­ly avoid­ing tick bites.

There are sev­er­al ways to avoid tick bites. First, you can avoid over­grown and brushy areas. Stick to the paths and sit on pic­nic blan­kets or chairs rather than lean­ing on trees. Sec­ond, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants tucked into socks. Third, wear a tick-repel­lant insect spray and/or cloth­ing treat­ed with 0.5% per­me­thrin. Final­ly, as soon as you return home from your time out­doors, do a thor­ough check for ticks on your­self as well as any kids or pets, and remove them imme­di­ate­ly. (Invest­ing in a pair of tick tweez­ers will help!) Show­er prompt­ly to increase the like­li­hood of get­ting rid of any you might have over­looked. Also check cloth­ing and bags, on which ticks might have caught a ride into your home.

Spiders

Good news – there are no spi­ders with ven­om strong enough to harm a human in the Stuttgart area. In fact, near­ly all of the hun­dreds of spi­der species liv­ing here don’t have fangs strong enough to pen­e­trate human skin! One excep­tion is the giant house spi­der. They are eas­i­ly rec­og­niz­able thanks to their long legs, up to 2 in (5 cm) in length. Still, bites are rare and aren’t dan­ger­ous. You should just clean the bite to avoid any pos­si­bil­i­ty of infection.

Mosquitoes

Sum­mer weath­er also means mos­qui­toes become active in Stuttgart. You can reduce the like­li­hood of their breed­ing near your home by elim­i­nat­ing sources of shal­low, still water. Install screens in your win­dows to help lim­it the num­ber that find their way into your home. All home improve­ment stores have inex­pen­sive net­ting you can cut to mea­sure and install with self-adhe­sive vel­cro tape.

When you spend time out­doors, wear long sleeves and pants as well as insect repel­lant to avoid bites. Burn­ing a can­dle with lemon euca­lyp­tus oil can help keep mos­qui­toes away from your bal­cony or pic­nic table.

In addi­tion to the usu­al anti-itch creams, there is a very pop­u­lar Ger­man inven­tion called the Bite Away which can relieve the itch­i­ness of mos­qui­to bites. The Bite Away and its gener­ic imi­ta­tors work by heat­ing a small met­al plate at the end of the pen to a safe tem­per­a­ture for a lim­it­ed peri­od. All you have to do is hold the pen against the bite for as long as the light is on, after which the heat will dis­perse any­way, mak­ing it safe to use on chil­dren as well.

Bees, Wasps and Hornets

Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, bees, wasps, and hor­nets are pro­tect­ed under Ger­man fed­er­al law. They are impor­tant pol­li­na­tors and essen­tial to the local ecosys­tems. It is ille­gal to kill them or destroy a hive or nest with­out approval. In most cas­es, these insects are not aggres­sive unless you threat­en them or their home. Many Ger­mans plant pol­li­na­tor gar­dens to encour­age the local populations.

You can avoid attract­ing wasps and hor­nets to your out­door leisure spaces by keep­ing food in cov­ered con­tain­ers and putting waste in sealed bins. Again, installing win­dow screens can help ensure they don’t wan­der into your home. If you have a hive or nest on your prop­er­ty that you would like to look into remov­ing, you should con­tact a pro­fes­sion­al exter­mi­na­tor, known as a Kam­mer­jäger in Ger­man, who can advise you as to your legal options.

Oak Processionary Moths

The cater­pil­lars of the oak pro­ces­sion­ary moth are a tree pest whose hair can be irri­tat­ing to humans and pets. They are main­ly a prob­lem in May and June. You can rec­og­nize the cater­pil­lars by their char­ac­ter­is­tic habit of moving in parade-like for­ma­tions. They have very long white hairs but it is in fact the tiny invis­i­ble hairs that con­tain the irri­tat­ing pro­tein called thaume­topoein. These hairs accu­mu­late in their nests and can also be blown by the wind.

To lim­it your expo­sure, stay away from the cater­pil­lars and their nests. While they are gen­er­al­ly up in oak trees, they may some­times fall to the ground. Be sure to keep your chil­dren and pets away from the nests as well. Once dis­turbed, a large quan­ti­ty of invis­i­ble hairs can be dis­charged into the air. Con­tact with the hairs can cause skin and eye irritation.