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05/26/11, 05:04 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,699
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Yaaaa!!! Black Widow Spider!
Have more signs of a black widow, beside the sticky stretchy web. The body is tear drop shaped, and if you see them where you've just disturbed their habitat (yeah, that loose stack at the base of the bookshelf) they will quickly drop back and freeze. I so nearly stuck my hand on one I still feel faint. Sucked it up in the vacuum  , hope hope hope...
Anyone else with indicators?
Last edited by RedDirt Cowgirl; 05/27/11 at 03:18 AM.
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05/26/11, 05:22 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Southern NY
Posts: 2,330
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I dont even want to know but I guess is better to be aware eww. Is it alive in your vacuum?
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05/26/11, 05:48 PM
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bajiay
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: montana
Posts: 2,197
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I got bit by one of those suckers. I got so sick.....Don't like 'em! I'd be moving those shelves and vacuuming everywhere if I found them in my house!
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05/26/11, 06:21 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Washington, USA
Posts: 2,900
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Yep, bottom of the bookshelf. I know she's in there. She's fast, though, and I haven't been able to get her yet. Ick!
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05/26/11, 09:51 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Alabama
Posts: 7,087
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I had a gal hiding in the sash of my window. I'm organic so I dusted some DE down the opening. Did the trick. Just be sure if you put DE behind all your books you wear a mask!
__________________
US Army veteran, military retiree spouse, and military; civilian; British NHS; and VA doctor.
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05/26/11, 11:16 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Bartow County, GA
Posts: 6,779
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Widow ladies like to sit in their web at night. I used to go out on the patio with a flash light & a fly swatter. They wouldn't move & it was easy to smash them.
You do know that the spiderlings create little webs like parachutes and the wind takes them to their new home?
http://www.orkin.com/other/spiders/b...k-widow-spider
__________________
Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible
Last edited by Wolf mom; 05/26/11 at 11:19 PM.
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05/27/11, 03:16 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2010
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Thanks, Wolf Mom, great website, and good to know about their night habits. I didn't find an egg case, but webbing was all up in the base of an old open-work wrought iron ash tray stand. I sucked d.e. up in the vac after the spider (still not sure I got it) and sealed up the bag in a sealed up bag. New bag, cleared the room and vacuumed like a madwoman.
It's uncanny for such a small critter to be so calculating! They definitely do not run away when disturbed like other spiders do. The website explains why they're not always black either, I saw a brown one that looked full size. If you find an egg case you can be sure the spider is lurking nearby.
Last summer a neighbor got bitten by one that had gotten up his pant leg (!!!!!!!) when he had been working in a corral, he had to go to the hospital for 4 days and was really sick for 6 weeks. Big strapping cowboy in his 40's, always wears regular cowboy boots - and the doc said he was lucky he didn't get bitten in the hand because it can really cause trouble there.
Here's a pest management pdf from UC Davis: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74149.html
Last edited by RedDirt Cowgirl; 05/27/11 at 03:29 AM.
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05/27/11, 03:20 AM
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Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: State of Jefferson
Posts: 5,871
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When I was a child, I would spray them with hairspray and then pour baby powder on top. It worked.....
Now I just smack them with a shoe. EWWWWWWWWWW!
__________________
Chick with a gun.
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05/27/11, 09:24 AM
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bajiay
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: montana
Posts: 2,197
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When I got bit, it was on my hand! We had been moving some things into our new house that had been sitting outside for a few days under a tarp. I was working/training under a Naturopathic doctor at that time. He came to my house and brought me some stuff to take. I was down for about a week or so. I know he gave me Red Clover Stilingia (a strong blood cleanser) but I don't remember what else. It worked though. I do remember vomiting a few times the first day and I had to stay in bed because I felt so horrible.
I had a tarantula in my sleeping bag when I was 5 years old. I don't care for spiders much!
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05/27/11, 09:47 AM
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II Corinthians 5:7
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Virginia
Posts: 8,126
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We often see black widows around here; so we are careful when moving and disturbing items in new areas. When we see them, we smash them.
I was bit on the hand by one when I was about 7 yrs old and great grandmother put a wad of her chewing tobacco on it, tying it up with a cloth. The hand swelled; but I didn't suffer anything other than some pain in that hand. Guess I was lucky.
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05/27/11, 10:55 AM
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My grandpa stayed busy chewing tobacco with 50 or so grandkids. He once noted at Sunday dinner that all the daddy's of all the kids who got bee stung and spider bit needed to be buying his tobacco for him. Don't know how or why, but it always worked. The one time I wouldn't do it was when I got wasp stung right under my eye. And, that was the only time I ever had major swelling, too.
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05/31/11, 10:12 PM
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Living the dream.
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Morganton, NC
Posts: 1,982
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Killed dozens of them on the farm, including one in the mail box, one in my kids' tonka truck, one on a brick I had just pulled of the pile with bare hands last Sunday...
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05/31/11, 10:17 PM
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Southern California
Posts: 1,013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shanzone2001
When I was a child, I would spray them with hairspray and then pour baby powder on top. It worked.....
Now I just smack them with a shoe. EWWWWWWWWWW!
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I spray them with WD-40, but it doesn't always work. I bet if I followed up with baby powder it would. THANKS!
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05/31/11, 11:31 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 603
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zong
My grandpa stayed busy chewing tobacco with 50 or so grandkids. He once noted at Sunday dinner that all the daddy's of all the kids who got bee stung and spider bit needed to be buying his tobacco for him. Don't know how or why, but it always worked. The one time I wouldn't do it was when I got wasp stung right under my eye. And, that was the only time I ever had major swelling, too.
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Tobacco has great healing properties, probably why it was/is sacred in some cultures.
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homely |ˈhōmlē| (adjective) Simple but cozy and comfortable, as in one's own home.
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06/01/11, 09:45 AM
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 367
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We have them here in numbers! They are BIG, bodies as thick as the tip of my pinkie. Mostly found them in the garage and under the flagstones when we were moving them. They really weren't agressive at all toward humans, unless you get near their egg nests, and are GREAT predators for other crawly icks. I was moving my great-Aunts treadle sewing machine into the house and was dusting it off. I had opened the top and the small ledge pulled forward, when I looked - my hand was 2 inches away from the big ole gal!!!!!!!! She didn't even act agressive and of course I yanked my hand back. I just moved her and her eggs to a bush outside in a jar. But what a "buttpucker" moment...... Like I said tho, they are great as predators, up there with praying mantis'. Reb
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06/01/11, 11:43 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: SE Washington
Posts: 1,407
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At work we use screen tents to keep plants from being cross pollinated. When we take them off in the fall there can sometimes be dozens of black widows in each tent. After a while you don't even pay attention to them and just fold the tent up.
Bobg
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06/01/11, 06:19 PM
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: WV
Posts: 1,624
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shanzone2001
When I was a child, I would spray them with hairspray and then pour baby powder on top. It worked.....
Now I just smack them with a shoe. EWWWWWWWWWW!
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I have to ask because I don't know, why the baby powder?
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06/01/11, 06:28 PM
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Single Hillbilly
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: The South, NC
Posts: 1,354
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HeelSpur
I have to ask because I don't know, why the baby powder?
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Helps prevent rash?
__________________
Serial Thread Drifter... Don't Hate Me Because I Ramble On...
I don't care who ya are, that's funny right there ~ Larry the Cable Guy
Sponsored by God
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06/01/11, 09:04 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 4,443
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My grandma (full blood cherokee, born 1886) would fill her lower lip with Garret snuff and start looking for a dirt dobber nest. She would crumble the nest up into a powder and spit enough tobacco juice in it to make a paste. She would take this dirt dobber paste and place it on spider bites, wasper stings, mesquito bites, etc., I guess to draw the poison out.
Being a full blood indian from the old times, she had a lot of homemade remedies.
Oh, forgot to mention. Last fall while relocating a wood pile closer to the house I happened onto a female widow spider. I found a canning jar and captured her so I could show my wife and kids what one looks like, so they would be able to identify one in the future. Well we ended up keeping it for about 3 weeks. We started feeding it fly's and moths and noticed it was getting bigger. Then all of a sudden it built a web and a egg sack. She got skinny and then fat again two more times and built two more egg sacks. Then a article came out in the newspaper about widow spiders and how dangerous they are, plus mentioned that they can produce several egg sacks every year with about a thousand or more eggs in each sack. This got us to thinking that we'd better get rid of our widow spider before we have thousands of tiny black widows crawling everywhere in the house. Within a day or two I went deer hunting and took the jar with me and placed it inside a hollow tree with the lid removed. I retreived the jar this last spring while out looking for mushrooms. The jar still had a web inside but there were no black widow or egg sacks present.
__________________
r.h. in oklahoma
Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy. 
Last edited by Oldcountryboy; 06/01/11 at 09:19 PM.
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06/04/11, 04:54 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,699
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Fascinatin'!
I don't think anyone gets bitten unless you somehow give them a poke or a squeeze. I just don't want them taking up residence inside the house!
Yesterday I did squish one in the kindling bucket on the back steps, and there was such a smell! One thing I've noticed before is that white stuff comes out of them, is this smell indicative of BWS's too?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldcountryboy
My grandma (full blood cherokee, born 1886) would fill her lower lip with Garret snuff and start looking for a dirt dobber nest. She would crumble the nest up into a powder and spit enough tobacco juice in it to make a paste. She would take this dirt dobber paste and place it on spider bites, wasper stings, mesquito bites, etc., I guess to draw the poison out.
Being a full blood indian from the old times, she had a lot of homemade remedies.
Oh, forgot to mention. Last fall while relocating a wood pile closer to the house I happened onto a female widow spider. I found a canning jar and captured her so I could show my wife and kids what one looks like, so they would be able to identify one in the future. Well we ended up keeping it for about 3 weeks. We started feeding it fly's and moths and noticed it was getting bigger. Then all of a sudden it built a web and a egg sack. She got skinny and then fat again two more times and built two more egg sacks. Then a article came out in the newspaper about widow spiders and how dangerous they are, plus mentioned that they can produce several egg sacks every year with about a thousand or more eggs in each sack. This got us to thinking that we'd better get rid of our widow spider before we have thousands of tiny black widows crawling everywhere in the house. Within a day or two I went deer hunting and took the jar with me and placed it inside a hollow tree with the lid removed. I retreived the jar this last spring while out looking for mushrooms. The jar still had a web inside but there were no black widow or egg sacks present.
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