For me, trees were the easiest part since they're organic. I had one page with a house and that page was the annoying one 
I draw by hand, but I color digitally. Sometimes, rather than draw a background the old fashioned way, I will add it with Photoshop. I have gone too far on backgrounds before, but sometimes I can make all the clutter fade partially away with Photoshop. It can definitely help.
I don't have an issue with adding too much, I have an issue with not adding enough most of the time. Like other characters walking around in the background, extra items to make it feel more lively, or something else.
Like this:
I feel like I should have put more items on the top of the dresser besides the hair clips and the face down picture, but those two items were the ones that are relevant to the story later on so I didn't think much else of anything being there :\
I too do generally prefer organic backgrounds to houses / rooms. : D It's just the sheer volume of spruces and other trees I have to keep drawing. Usually I don't have to draw the same backgrounds for this long. I just counted that it's going to be total of 21 pages with this setting. :''D I really do feel like causing a forest fire on my pages just to get to draw something different behind the characters.
see knowing me i would have added perfume bottles and books and make up and dozens more items and then just annoyed myself.
Reuse assets! Seriously it's so helpful, anytime there's like, a poster on the wall or a shelf with a bunch of stuff on it, draw it on a separate layer from a straight on view, then just use the transform tools in photoshop to fit it back into whatever scene it needs to be in. Not only is it easier, but it'll be exactly the same in each scene so you won't have weird continuity problems.
My main issue is that I have this image in my head, and no matter what I do, I can never get it out perfectly. I usually draw ALL my backgrounds in each panel. With a few exceptions such as parts that are really close to a character or have some sort of emotional tension.
But I've had to come up with 7 different biomes, and architectures to use for my comic.. and remembering what goes where can be a chore and a half.
I've never taking elements I didn't want to draw out of a background but I have gotten so tired of drawing my characters outfits that I've written in them stripping layers off. 
Usually for backgrounds I draw the background once and re-use it over and over much like what @haleymewsome 's post was saying to do. It saves a lot of time.
my characters are about to enter a forest and be there for the next 15+ chapters, already draw two chapters of forest and I'm not even sure if it's better than just a void of black instead of the repetitive trees and more trees
Man backgrounds are simultaneously fun and the bane of my existence. I try to mix it up, but when a huge chunk of my comic takes place in a forest, there's only so many times you can draw trees before your hands hate you and your eyes can't bear the green anymore. That being said, hahah, I'm the one who wrote the thing so I have to try and make it right. (Doesn't mean I have to like drawing every blade of grass or something like that though, XD)
I find backgrounds very fun, but they are unfortunately very time consuming. I admit that I have done "scribble versions" of the background from previous pages/panels for the sake of efficiency and making deadlines. >o>;
Well, speaking as someone who actually enjoys drawing backgrounds, I'll still sometimes do panels where the background isn't present partly to save time but also partly for staging/composition purposes. And there have been times I've straight up changed the angle of a panel purely because something was giving me trouble to draw and it seemed better to just change the drawing entirely rather than wrestle with something that's just not cooperating. (Usually I end up liking the composition I came up with for the new panel a thousand times better)
Any major details that are suddenly missing from my own BGs are purely mistake (happened on a couple recent pages of one of my comics and I haven't gone back and fixed it yet cuz I've been really busy juggling other stuff)
HOWEVER, as much as I like drawing backgrounds, it mostly extends to new ones. If I've drawn the same BG too many panels in a row, I get really bored of it, because it's hard to add fun new details to something that's in your face. I try to do what I can, but sometimes it can't be helped.
I dont think backgrounds are annoying, they add a sense of the world around the characters. They are fundementally important to a comic. They can be tedious sometimes but I think mixing up angles and different distances can make them more intriguing to draw. Also if you have the right tools or programs then backgrounds can be very quick and easy. Now I draw in black and white so I don't know the annoyances of coloring a backgrounds. I thinks if you can lead the eyes of the viewer away from the background then less effort needs to be put into it. That is a lazy solution though, but it is a way to make them less annoying. Plus I find adding sound effects in if the annoying part, I never know where to but them.
Detailed backgrounds are tedious to draw, but I don't mind, and I draw them because they're important to establishing the world around the characters, and I like adding in little details each time.
Almost the entirety of my comic is made with vector graphics, which makes it very easy to reuse backgrounds, or background props, and make it easy to scale them up or down as needed. I change up the scenery a lot though, so many of the detailed backgrounds I've spent a lot of time drawing, I've drawn and used only once. I've found drawing architecture to be easier with vectors than by hand, but for nature scenes to be a lot more difficult with vectors.
@jutawi Im with you on this I suck at background perspective when it comes down to everything and drawing backgrounds ...... I like avoidance
I love drawing detailed backgrounds, especially when it comes the the characters' homes. I just think about how much the items and decorations in a room can tell the reader about the people who live there and the extra work feels worth it 
Plus, I know when I go to a person's house in real life and they don't have clutter and photos and stuff I get really creeped out. One time I went over someone's dorm in college and all they had was a printer and a bowl of fruit and all I could think was "wow, I'm about to be murdered, this is where I die." A few more items in a room can make the space feel a lot more safe and welcoming...
i never thought of it that way. I guess roz's dolls would mean a lot too her.
im considering doing drop in backgrounds of the room in question so it makes things a bit quicker.
This is how my comics normally look when I mentioned earlier in the thread how I kind of pay homage to newspaper comic strips, particularly Sunday ones...
This is my attempt to really do some background stuff in a recent story arc...
1
The story arc needed a lot of establishing of locations, which is the big reason for things.
Honestly, I seem to keep the whole adding in backgrounds more reserved for story arcs in general, but am slowly trying to change that. It\s just hard to change, you know?
thanks for posting. the down side is as mentioned before you don't get any hint of the character from just plain backgrounds. I think a happy mix of both is needed.
I understand that. I guess given most of the time the comic takes place in the cast's house, usually the living room (hence the couch), it's one of the reasons backgrounds tend not to be in the frames.
Also, I think a lot of times it might be distracting when you have the characters in the foreground and the dialogue balloons all in there already.