'We love our bugs' life...but a praying mantis in the bedroom can sometimes kill the mood'

Couple live with 2,000 insects after turning a passion into a business

- TOM CAMPBELL & ELLIE KEMP

A COUPLE who live with thousands of pet insects and let them roam freely told of how the creepy crawlies escape their home '24/7' - and how they 'kill the mood' when they enter the bedroom.

Simon Griffiths, 56, and his wife Liliana, 53, share their home in Oldham with around 2,000 bugs, from venomous tarantulas to giant African snails most of which they breed and sell to fellow enthusiasts across the UK. The couple have more than 100 species across a wide range of insects, including woodlice, praying mantis, stick insects, ants, spiders, snails, millipedes, scorpions, beetles and cockroaches.

Simon has turned his passion for bugs into a business which, he says, turns over tens of thousands of pounds. He works around 15 hours per day, seven days a week, tending to and feeding his creatures before they are sold. He has found bugs and in particular isopods commonly known as woodlice and cockroaches have boomed in popularity since the pandemic.

While most of the insects are kept in specially-designed boxes, largely in the couple's large temperature controlled "bug room", some are allowed to roam freely day and night throughout the house with no room off limits - including the bedroom.

Simon told PA Real Life: "We keep quite a lot of mantises free-roaming so they don't even have an enclosure and are out all the time.

"We've got one that lives on the desk called Dolly and she's been there for around nine months. They'll eat anything that moves to be honest with you, including you if you stick your fingers in too close and they're in a mood. We've lost a lot of blood to mantises".