I killed a black widow in my house today...

[blur256]

Should I be worried about more? Is there something nontoxic I can do? Should I burn the house down? I actually like spiders but this crosses a line

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. I caught and released one from my laundry room about 20 years ago.

I haven’t seen one since.

[blur256]

2. Thank you that is good to know.

I hated killing it and I never kill spiders, but this just threw me off because I had never seen one before.

[RHMerriman]

3. So Ivanka had come to visit?

So Ivanka had come to visit?

[blur256]

5. Lol

[RHMerriman]

16. My job is done...

[fierywoman]

4. Google which smells spiders don't like (peppermint, eucalyptus, lemon I think) and spray around your

house.

[blur256]

6. Thank You!

I will do that.

[ThingsGottaChange]

19. Cinnamon

I sprinkled it in a few places to keep various types at bay. Looks like crap but, works! And smells good, too..

edit: spelling

[doc03]

7. I think I would have to sell the house. A friend of mine got bit

by a brown recluse at home. He nearly died before getting to the hospital. He spent three weeks in the hospital and took 100
IVs all together at the hospital and home, the cost for IVs alone $100,000. They came close to amputating his leg.

[blur256]

11. Yikes!

Luckily I didn't get bit. But I would like to know how o get rid of them. But we can't sell at the moment plus we are pretty fond of our house. So sorry for your friend!

[hermetic]

8. I got bit by one once

Many years ago. On the side of my face. I was asleep on the couch and felt something tickle my cheek so I brushed it away. After a few minutes a horrific pain started in my face. WTF? I got up and looked around and found a curled up black spider on the floor. I got tweezers and picked it up. Then I saw those red marks. I figured I was about to die.

I called 911 for an ambulance and told them what happened. They said they would take me to the hospital but it would cost me around $1000. I said, "Never mind. I'll drive myself." Which I did. It was only about a 20 drive and it was hurting like crazy. I took the dead spider with me, to show them.

They put me under observation for about an hour, watching my blood pressure. Then gave me some aspirin and sent me home. As you can see, I survived. So they are not necessarily deadly, but extremely painful. If I find one in my house now, I apologize and then smash it. Once was enough.

[blur256]

12. Dang!

That's what I'm really scared of. I heard it is painful. So sorry that happened to you!

[LakeSuperiorView]

9. Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

JK. I don't mind spiders, but hate walking into spider silk. I have more spiders around than I would like.

[blur256]

13. When I was a kid

I grew up in an old family farm house and we always had spiders so I never minded them. But one morning when I was a teen, I woke up and being the teen I was, was very out of it. I walked through my doorway and felt something on my face. I turned around and a huge wolf spider had made a web in that doorway and I walked right into it. I had itches for weeks thinking that it was on me.

[2naSalit]

10. I got bit by Hobo spider

not sure how many as there were four distinct bites. Bad deal for three months, really nasty pustulating wounds, eventually only mild discoloring and some nerve damage. I learned later that baking soda, applied wet and left on the bite will neutralize the poison and help draw it out as well.

[blur256]

14. Oh I have heard those are awful!

So sorry!

[2naSalit]

18. Yeah, it was quite nasty as the

affected areas were pretty large and they hurt and stung.

[BigmanPigman]

15. I am afraid of spiders and have been ever since I was 8 and had hair that I could sit on.

Last edited Sat Nov 3, 2018, 08:27 PM - Edit history (1)

A neighbor boy put a Daddy Long Legs on my head and it crawled down my hair. We had a house in the mountains and they were all over the place.

As an adult a teacher friend told me not to even hang fake spiders in my classroom for Halloween since she was really afraid since she put her shoe on and a black widow was in it and it bit her. An old boyfriend thought he had food poisoning when he was vomiting violently and was in pain and had to go to the hospital. It turned out that he was bitten by a Brown Recluse when he wiped its web away (I know...DUH!). He said that if he had a gun he would have shot himself the pain was so bad. They gave him meds but the whole thing relapsed two weeks later with the same symptoms but no new spider bite. I saw a spider in the drawer of student artwork in my class (fortunately the kids had gone home). I found out first hand that spiders jump far...about 5 feet. I jumped even further. Another teacher came to try to catch it to show to her class but I made her kill it. Schools have HUNDREDS Of them underneath the lunch tables and it took the PTA to go to the school board to get rid of them.

They like dark, cool places so always have a can of Raid on hand since you never know what type of bite you may get. With the cost of Health Care it is a lot cheaper to get a can of Raid than a $50,000 hospital bill.

[blur256]

17. Oh man those all sound awful!

I had a spider bite back in the early 2000s that I thought was a brown recluse bite. Had to go to the emergency room and luckily it wasn't, but my leg had a swollen spot the size of a peach. I got put on major antibiotics. Scary.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. I live in Santa Fe, NM, and black widow spiders are

somewhat common here.

Periodically I will see one and I cheerfully kill it immediately. Every time I see a FB post blissfully telling people to trap spiders and let them loose outside, I suggest they don't have black widows where they are.

Luckily for my I've never been bitten and don't seem to have a serious infestation, just the random spider.

[samnsara]

21. ive never found them to be herd animals..when i have found one i deal with it and get the....

..heebie jeebies for a few days and spray raid in the area but i never find more than one. I found one crawling in my grass once..i think it dropped from the lawnmower i had just dragged out of the shed. I relocated the spider to the trash bin (alive in tp) and the set off a bug bomb in the shed. I hate doing that because beneficial insects are caught up in the smog. Next day i opened the lid to the trash bin and spidey had crawled to the top and had spun a web already.... I closed the lid and rolled it to the corner for the trash guy to dump.

[Ovens1986]

22. Cleaning Your House

If you need to reduce spiders, the best technique is to stop feeding them. Always, clean your household regularly and there will be no bugs for spiders to food on.

[micDROP]

23. Destroy it

You should have left the dead spider at your entrance... to tell other black widows- this ain't the home.