Reptile & Amphibian Forums

we live in a very woodsy neighborhood, so we have our house sprayed quarterly for bugs-- if we didn't, they'd carry us away in our sleep! i'm unsure exactly what poison he uses, but he goes around the perimeter of the room with it. i asked whether it would be potentially harmful to my tort (today was the first time the'd come by since i got junior that he was here and not at his "grandma's" house), and the guy said no worries, thought it was toxic to birds and fish.

not wanting to take chances, i brought him upstairs with me until the room had aired out for about 1/2 hour or so and the smell had dried up. do any of you have any knowledge in this area? how paranoid should i be (though i know that it seldom fails to err on the side of paranoia)?

We lost a tortoise one time after a neighbor sprayed his yard. The tortoise was about 12 years old if I remember correctly. We kept tortoises for many years so someone trusted this animal to us and the neighbor sprayed by this pen (on the neighbors side of fence). It was dead in about 24 hours. I freaked out. The next day or so is when I found out about the spraying. He said he used several times the recommended dosage because ants had bitten his little girl. (I bet he killed some ants alright, but didn't think that his kid was going to go play on that poisoned yard later--go figure).

You might want to keep your tortoise in a no-spray zone. Crawling on the floor that has been sprayed would also bring him into contact with the poison even if it has dried and you cannot smell it anymore.

i'm sorry to hear your story. our pest guy sprays around the perimeter of the rooms, and i don't let him crawl on the floor indoors... just on my bed, or on this pub table in our kitchen where i feed him. also in our yard they sprays up around the bottom of our house, so when i take him in the yard, i take him far from the house. hopefully no harm'll come of it, because we can't not get treated for bugs, because of the problems we've had with wood roaches and such (YUCK!!!).