There should be a special category of medal awarded to anyone who makes it easy to deal with bugs and creepy crawlies without getting too close. Not that we’re scared of spiders and tiny wriggly vicious nasty bugs you understand. It’s just that there are limits.

This Vacuum Bug Catcher looks like the perfect candidate for one of the first prizes. It uses a telescoping nozzle – good, the further away the better – and works by sucking the little blighters into the one-way trap into the nozzle. The important thing to note is the fact that you are 23 inches away from the target at all times. Which is actually 22 inches too close as far as we’re concerned.

The secret of the whole contraption lies in the manual bellows unit at the end, which provides a way to suck up insects with 10 x the force of conventional battery driven devices. We like the sound of that. Once the little critters are in the isolation chamber they can safely be released into next door’s garden, making life comfortable and wriggle free once more. Magic. Priced at $29.95.