Anyone ever had a lot of black widows at home?

[luvmeye22re]

Renting a house that seems to have an abundant amount of black widows, big female black widows. Ive set off bug bombs, 3 of em, to no avail. Winter will be driving more of them into the house, how do I get rid of em? Orkin wants $250 in my area, can I spray for them myself or is it worth the cash to pay Orkin?

[creepycrawler]

You might see if your landlord would split the cost with you or something. Either the spidies would be gone or I would be. I don't do spidies.

edit: Most insecticides you can buy over the counter say right on them that they aren't really effective unless you spray the spidie itself which is hard to do since they hide well. I'd have it done by the pros. They have the good schtuff.

[Juzzme]

for a do it your self tip break cleaner is da bomb on any creepy crawler . shop vack.. the presure change causes em to explode in vack. propane torch and have a spider fry . that gets the eggs to just don't lite the house up lol :eek:

[RebelRescuer]

It seems that widders like the north side of houses. They also like things to hide in. If you have any woodpiles etc around the north side of your house, I'd get rid of it.

Getting the creepies just thinking about it....:eek:

[summersja]

Don't know if this will help, but it is something to think about.

Spiders can be hard to kill, but the bugs that they eat may be easier to kill. Hopefully, your bug bombs will begin to work over time on whatever the spiders are eating. The spiders will go away if (might take some time though) once their food supply is gone.

Keep up the fight! :boxing:

[Whitey]

Maybe you want to keep them (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18984762/wid/11915773?GT1=10109) around. :D

If that doesn't work for you, here's a little info (http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05512.html) on the spidies.

There was an outbreak of black widow spiders in 1934 in Denver (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0033-5770%28193606%2911%3A2%3C123%3ATBWS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage), so, they are 'out there'.

[TheCopperCowboy]

I had them all over my garage once I pulled the Jeep out for the summer. Copper gasket spray is what I had on hand and it worked like a charm. There's was a lot of foodstuff caught in the webs and also a lot of egg sacks. One web was 3' x 5' high and had 3 black widows working it. I polluted their environment, (and mine), but I haven't seen any widows in over a month. :cool:

[Tom N]

Maybe you want to keep them (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18984762/wid/11915773?GT1=10109) around. :D

.

...prolonged,painful involuntary erections? I'll pass.:rolleyes: :D

[luvmeye22re]

I guess I'll try to see if my landlord will atleast split the cost with me, if they weren't the most venemous spider in north america I probably wouldn't care but I don't need me or one of my dogs or my cat getting bit by one of these critters. Although it might put an end to the girlfriends annoying cat :idea:

[Jake_Blues]

Maybe you want to keep them (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18984762/wid/11915773?GT1=10109) around. :D


Yea, great, so you're dead AND they can't close the casket :D

-E

[UnlimitedFun]

Although it might put an end to the girlfriends annoying cat :idea:

Great, you're already looking on the bright side :D

[jnschwie]

I have a ton of spiders in this house. :confused:

I've never seen a Black Widow in Denver, though, thankfully. Only twice in Carolina.

I haven't sprayed my house. As long as they're just the big uglies and not the dangerous kind, I'm dealing. I did lay out traps. That doesn't work for shiat. :rolleyes:

[SatansFaith]

They're definitely in Denver. We had a black widow living between the flower bed and the shed this spring/early summer - a little too close to my gardening efforts for my liking. I think I would completely flip out if I ever saw one in the house.

It seems to me that the landlord should cover the expense of an exterminator 100%. It would be something worth checking into - I would start by re-reading the rental/lease agreement.

[Mike Boyle]

I posted in Faith's thread before I saw this one, but spray the webs with WD-40. It will kill the spider in a couple of days. Once the spider crawls across the web it will absorb the WD-40 through its legs, in a mater of days it will be dead.

This won't keep them from comming back, but it is a good way to eliminate whats already there.

[jnschwie]

They're definitely in Denver.

Oh yeah, I've heard of them, I just haven't seen one myself.
One day end of last week though, I woke up with a spider WALKING ACROSS MY CHEEK. (Face, not ass). Freaked me out a little. I thought it was a fuzz from cotton or something, but when I threw it down on my pillow I jumped a little. :eek: Maybe I should spray... :laughing:

I posted in Faith's thread before I saw this one, but spray the webs with WD-40. It will kill the spider in a couple of days. Once the spider crawls across the web it will absorb the WD-40 through its legs, in a mater of days it will be dead.

This won't keep them from comming back, but it is a good way to eliminate whats already there.

I found in Charleston that to kill the bugs (especially palmetto bugs, which are just gigantic flying roaches), the best thing to use was anything but bug spray. Typically, we'd use aerosolized cleaning products. Tends to kill them a lot faster. :shrug: :D

[luvmeye22re]

Yeah, I live in the Dumont area and the orkin guy on the phone said that widows are really commmo in this valley from about Idaho Springs to Georgetown. I had one on my arm a few weeks ago so I caught her and put her in a jar. She has since eaten 3 other female black widows, and one male black widow that I have caught and put in there with her. She never let's em live more than 10 minutes. These are some mean little spiders, and canniballistic too.

[RebelRescuer]

Oh, they're SO here!! I've seen them several times and even caught one as a tiny kid (my grandma FREAKED when she saw what I caught!). You really can't miss them because they're just so coal-black and "jointy".

[GarageWheeler]

We just went through this. Had probably a couple hundred pop up all at once. We've always had them in the sprinker valve boxes and a few in the garage, but they don't particularly bother me. This summer, though, they converged on the house and were on my jeep tires, in every corner, and behind boxes in the basement where my wife does laundry. I called several exterminators, then called the landlord with the cheapest estimate ($130). They paid for it- actually we paid, and then short- paid the rent. It didn't get rid of all of them, but they're no longer at infestation levels. I got bitten by a poisonous yellow sac spider in this house last year, and still wasn't worried about it, just to illustrate how tolerant I am of spiders.

On a side note, most people don't realize there are only a couple spiders shaped like black widows. If it's shaped like a black widow, it probably IS a black widow. Young ones are often off- white with green finger shaped color patches on their sides. They usually have the red hourglass on their stomach, but not always. Although there's a local variety that isn't very poisonous, in most cases if it has a big round butt and jointed legs, it's a black widow. The exterminator who came to our house actually didn't know this until I showed him pictures of young black widows, but then I DID go with the cheapest company :D .

Steve.

[j5]

I found a few on the south side of my house when pulling out a juniper. Any shrubs or woodpiles as mentioned should be cleaned up.

[ni0h]

It wasn't an outbreak in Denver. They did the study there because they're so common.
I kept a pet one for a couple years, and named her "Rosie" (see:Bug's life). It was interesting to see her hunt. They don't make a good sticky web - just a big tangle to mess up their prey's movement. She'd stalk the prey and get into position where she could hit it with fresh silk and grab with her hind legs. Last spring I waited too long to feed her, and when I finally did, she was too weak to catch the flies.

I'm glad they're around, though I prefer the low-lethality varieties. I'd hate for my son to stick his hand in the wrong place, since he wouldn't be able to tell us what happenned, toward treatment.

[jnschwie]

Oh fawk. My wife found one tonight.

I wish I had a better lens for extreme close up shots.
I'm colorblind, but she definitely sees 2 red stripes or an hourglass. :eek:

$250 may be a bargain....
Does Orkin have any guarantee? How long do they take? Safe for pets?
Guess who we're calling first thing tomorrow! :eek: