Black Widows of the non-sexual variety

Lion

The front of my house used to have a healthy population of black widows. I killed those I could see late at night with bleach back in March and things were fine. I saw one just before Thanksgiving crawl into a tiny space in between a window. Now I told my parents this but my dad insisted on pressure cleaning the house even though I said I thought that might drive the spiders further in.

So today I find a Widow making a web in a storage closet 3 rooms away from the outside of the house.

I do not want these things in my house. What should I do? Should I hire someone? What do I ask? I have a cat so I'm absolutely willing to get him to safety before any kind of chemicals are strewn around.

If the entire house has to get fumigated, am I right in thinking I should get the whole place cleaned before coming back?

MetroidZoid

You shouldn't need a complete fumigation, though if you have a large garage, attic, or basement that looks completely infested (and learn to identify black widow webs from normal cobwebs), it might be wise to call in an exterminator for a once over in that area and the outside perimeter. But if you're just seeing a few once in awhile, get rid of easy hiding places, and spray around with this per instructions on back:

It's totally pet safe once it dries, and that takes like less than 15 minutes, maybe longer for a solid spray. Also helps keep out ants, earwigs, etc. I basically spray the 1' around the bottom of the house, along the eaves, and around every door, window, and pipes into / out the house.

Lion

I don't think I'd consider it a complete infestation yet, at least I hope not.

We had several webs and an egg sack outside the house last spring. We destroyed them and haven't seen any webs again, although we continued finding adult spiders in the area for quite a while. We killed them when we found them and hadn't seen them again until Thanksgiving. I'm just a little nervous because now it appears like they're moving indoors.

We don't have a basement, though our attic is a no-man's land that hasn't been disturbed since we moved in 5 or 6 years ago.

MetroidZoid

Yeah the spray will be plenty. Figure besides killing any other would-be-move-ins, it's also keeping prey from moving in. Spider's gotta eat.

supabeast

You're being a nut about this. Black widows are like cockroaches: they want nothing to do with you and will do just about anything to avoid being close enough to bite anything bigger than they are. Bites are rare—they were really only a problem when people still had outhouses and sat down in a web. And if you live in an area where they live outdoors no amount of chemicals will get rid of them, because there will always be more. If you just leave the spiders along you’ll be fine.

archonwarp

supabeast wrote: »

You're being a nut about this. Black widows are like cockroaches: they want nothing to do with you and will do just about anything to avoid being close enough to bite anything bigger than they are. Bites are rare—they were really only a problem when people still had outhouses and sat down in a web. And if you live in an area where they live outdoors no amount of chemicals will get rid of them, because there will always be more. If you just leave the spiders along you’ll be fine.

Bold red for disagree. Cockroaches can't really make you sore and sick in the way that a black widow can. Spray the Ortho stuff; it will probably keep the widows' prey out of your house if nothing else.

Tomanta

archonwarp wrote: »

supabeast wrote: »

You're being a nut about this. Black widows are like cockroaches: they want nothing to do with you and will do just about anything to avoid being close enough to bite anything bigger than they are. Bites are rare—they were really only a problem when people still had outhouses and sat down in a web. And if you live in an area where they live outdoors no amount of chemicals will get rid of them, because there will always be more. If you just leave the spiders along you’ll be fine.

Bold red for disagree. Cockroaches can't really make you sore and sick in the way that a black widow can. Spray the Ortho stuff; it will probably keep the widows' prey out of your house if nothing else.

Especially disagree since there are pets involved. Pets can have a habit of poking their nose where they don't belong, and I don't think you would want a cat getting bitten by a black widow.

Sporked

It usually goes poorly for the cat.

CycloneRanger

Nature always finds a way. If there's a niche to be filled, something is going to fill it. Your best defense against black widows is a stable population of domestic house spiders or the equivalent to out-compete them.

So, don't squish any of these (spoiler'd for huuuge):

TurboGuard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms2klX-puUU

dwwatermelon

Wow, that video was....wow.

Thanatos

My parents live in the boonies of Northern California. Pretty much every crevice that doesn't get touched very often has a black widow. In twenty+ years of living there, with two cats and two dogs the vast majority of the time, exactly zero times has anyone ever been bitten.

As long as you take a little bit of care, you really almost certainly have nothing to worry about.

supabeast

Tomanta wrote: »

Especially disagree since there are pets involved. Pets can have a habit of poking their nose where they don't belong, and I don't think you would want a cat getting bitten by a black widow.

Where I grew up black widows were all over the place. So were snakes, rats, bats, foxes, and raccoons. Nobody or their pets ever got bitten by any of it. Really, these critters aren’t worth worry about.

arcath

See that's the thing. A lot of people have fears about spiders and snakes and any other form of pest. Rational fear or not...

The only proper response is to cleanse the area with fire.

There really is no other solution and it is the most humane thing to do.

devices

I'm not sure of the price of fumigation where you live, but i can tell you that the chemicals used are designed to dissipate completely without leaving any residual whatsoever, so a cleaning service specifically for the aftermath of fumigation isn't really necessary.

Black widows are not particularly aggressive, and as most of the people in here have said, if you leave them be they will generally follow suit. However, given a place to live and breed unhindered, they can quickly become an intrusive problem, and the bite is nothing to tut at.

Do you have issues in or around your house with crickets and/or cockroaches? Generally when I go to houses to get rid of black widows they already have a pretty bad problem with crickets/roaches. Getting rid of the widows' food source is paramount to getting rid of them for good.

You might be able to get rid of them yourself, though you may not be able to get hold of everything you need to do the job. The ortho stuff is pretty decent stuff for being available to the public, but if you have a problem with both the food source and the spiders then you'll also need to do some broader area control in your yard, since the ortho can only be used around your house. Try asking around at Home Depot or Lowe's for what they've got.

That said, in while I admire the DIY spirit, I would definitely recommend getting a professional to come and do a service for you. I'm not sure about what the situation is exactly so I can't really give solid advice about how to treat the problem, but a licensed tech could tell you the hows and whys.

Good luck.

Salvation122

Because spiders are strictly carniverous, there isn't really anything an exterminator is going to be able to do specifically for spiders (though they will use contact stuff on any they happen to come across.) What they'll do is set out a bunch of baits to kill other bugs the spiders are eating, and to prevent more from coming in your house. The widows will then either starve or GTFO.

Rohan

I am so glad I live in Ireland

Gabriel_Pitt

Right, because an infestation of these-

- is absolutely nothing to worry about.

Lion

Thanks for all the advice, guys. It's certainly helped and I'm a lot less worried than I was before. My main concern was my cat since he's not exactly the most brilliant of creatures.

We don't really have a problem with other bugs for the most part. We used to have a lot of big roaches coming in from the outside but after spraying around a few times per year, they seem to have made themselves scarce. They only things left are crazy ants. Not as much as before but they're still around.

Also didn't see any webs inside the house. Not even on the interior of the window adjacent to where we saw webs outside.

What I did over the weekend was vacuum up all the corners/any stray dead bug and keep spraying around the house to keep out anything they eat. That seems to be the only real solution to this.

mts

my one cat is an idiot and he never had a problem with black widows.