Be on the Lookout for the Top Five Creepiest Pests This Halloween

Halloween is right around the corner and that means our neighborhoods will soon be crawling with ghosts, witches, vampires and goblins on the hunt for candy.  While these are make believe spooky costumes, there are some real terrors that might be lurking in your own backyard. To celebrate Halloween, we put together our list of the top five scariest pests - but beware these tales will send chills down your spine!

Flesh flies are often found breeding in decaying material or feces but some species lay their eggs in the open wounds of mammals - hence the name flesh flies. Lucky for us they prefer to feed on decaying material rather than humans, YUCK!

Everyone knows the saying, "Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite!" Unfortunately, this saying holds a lot of truth. Bed bugs venture out at night to feed on their unsuspecting victims leaving behind itchy, painful welts. This real life tiny vampire can be a nightmare if left untreated as they can live up to a year without food and survive in extreme temperatures.

Earwigs earned their name because of an ancient superstition that they would crawl into the ears of sleeping people and once inside bore holes into the brain. Fortunately, this story is only a myth but earwigs do possess scary claw-like forceps which are used as protective weapons and to capture prey.

Bats have long been linked to Dracula but these creepy pests do not actually suck blood in real life.  Their terror of choice is that they can carry and spread several diseases including rabies.

The totally creepy brown recluse spider is nocturnal and it feeds on cockroaches and crickets.  Unfortunately, if these spiders feel threatened by humans they will bite, leaving behind a tale tell "volcano lesion" - a large, damaged hole in the flesh. You can identify this scary pest by the dark brown "violin-like" marking on their back.

We hope we didn't scare you too much with our list of creepy pests and wish you a spooktacular Halloween!