Giant Snails, Mice & Spiders: The Five Infestations We Couldn’t Deal With In Ireland

Ready for a completely gross story that will make your skin crawl? Of course you are! According to reports today, South Florida in the States is currently experiencing a giant snail infestation.

Allow us to repeat ourselves: GIANT SNAILS ARE ALL OVER SOUTH FLORIDA. Shudder. Shudder. Shudder.

The Express reports that residents in the area have been warned to keep an eye out for the giant African land snail, a snail that can grow as big as a rat and eat through plaster. They can also make humans seriously ill. Simply put, they’re monsters and we’re really, really glad that we’re not living in South Florida right now.

Apparently more than 1,000 of the critters are being caught every single week and experts fear that the invasion will get even worse in the coming months as the snails emerge from their hibernation.

The giant snails eat pretty much everything that’s in their path, so it’s safe to say that locals in South Florida aren’t exactly having the craic right now.

We’re not going to lie, this story got us thinking about infestations and we came up with a list of five creatures that we definitely wouldn’t want invading Ireland any time soon (ugh, our skin is crawling...).

We would cry if Ireland got overrun by spiders...

1. Spiders: There is at least one member of the Her.ie staff who would give up the will to live if Ireland ever experienced an infestation of these eight-legged beasts. There’s just something... unsettling about spiders.

Sure, we’re way bigger than them and could easily squish them, but when they start to move, all our courage goes out the window. No animal should have that amount of knees. Thankfully, the most we have to put up with in Ireland is the occassional house spider. In Brazil spiders literally pelt down onto unsuspecting victims from the sky. THE. SKY.

Woodlice are just creepy but, in fairness, they wouldn't be as bad as wasps

2. Woodlice: Okay, at least woodlice can’t kill you (well, that we know of) but we’d still hate to wake up in the middle of the night and see these buggers swarming through our window. They’re small, they’re grey, they look kind of slimy and they make our skin crawl.

Granted, we could probably deal with them better than we could deal with a wave of renegade spiders, but we still wouldn’t be happy about it. Just imagine trying to get anywhere with these little creatures crawling all over your feet? Yuck.

Wasps are made from pure evil. Pure evil and anger.

3. Wasps: Could you imagine if Ireland was invaded by a swarm of angry wasps? You wouldn’t be able to go outside and if you were brave enough to venture to the shops for a carton of milk, you just know you’d be coming home with some serious stings. Oh and you also wouldn’t be able to eat/drink anything sweet because the little feckers would be all over you faster than you could swat them away.

Wasps are horrible not only because they’re made of pure evil but because they’re so argumentative – they’ll sting you if you’re mean to them and they’ll sting you if you’re nice to them. Basically you just can’t win. We’d happily take the docile woodlice over the pi**ed off wasp any day. Wasps also make creepy nests. Don't believe us? Check this out.

The worst thing about mice is that they can get into your house

4. Mice: This infestation could go either way. On one hand, you’d have the people who aren’t that bothered by mice and on the other, you have people who would rather die than spend five minutes in the same room as one.

The plus side is that the unafraid people could pull a St. Patrick and rid Ireland of the mouse while the rest of us cower inside. The downside to this is the relentless teasing the fearful of us would receive. Again, those woodlice are looking like a pretty good choice with all things considered...

We could never go swimming again if there was an infestation of jellyfish

5. Jellyfish: We’re just going to put it out there: jellyfish are freaky. They look like giant, floating brains, they move weirdly and they scare the bejeezus out of you when you come across one washed up on the beach.

The good news is that this is an investation that would be contained to Irish shores. Unless jellyfish are actually smarter than we give them credit for and they devise a way to live outside of the water. If they manage to do that then we’re officially up a certain creek without a paddle.