Help! Brown recluse spiders in house!!!

DE really only works well against soft bodied things like the eggs of insects, rather than the adult forms.

My Dad swears by hedge apples (osage oranges) to keep spiders away. Put them in the basement/cellar/crawlspace, in corners, under the beds, in closets, etc. We just squish them or use glue traps. I never seem to get out to go find any hedge apples. Maybe I should as we always have lots of them since we have a cellar under our house.

My wife got bit by one about 2 weeks ago, and I am guessing that it was a baby or something.....the wound is somewhat necrotic, but is VERY small (about half the size of a dime) and it's nowhere near as bad as some I have seen.

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I have recluse spiders by the truckload every year. On average I see one or two per day in my house during the summer months. Yesterday I found three. However, Hedge apples (as previously mentioned) completely eradicate them from your home. When they mature in the late summer gather as many as you can. Place 4 or five in your crawl space or basement and break one up into smaller pieces and place it sporadically throughout your house. Within 1 to 2 days you will not see any spiders. This lasts for about 2 months. When you gather your hedge apples freeze as many as you can. When you need to refresh the aging ones just pull out a frozen one. Be sure not to use them all up before the following spring (like I did this year) or else you will be defensless until the hedge apples mature again.

Oh, also use flat sticky traps along your baseboards and in your closets. You will be shocked at how active these sneaky spiders can be when your not watching.

my daughter was bitten by one a few years back and she lost half her toe. It is now deformed and seems the bone is trying to grow but the Scar tissue will not let it. She will proabably havr to have surgurie on it. This was in CA. Not sure where we picked it up. Be careful! I would much rather have wolf spiders that Recluses.

Good luck

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More information on b. recluse spiders and on yellow sac spiders (another biting spider found in homes in this area)

http://lancaster.unl.edu/enviro/pest/spiders.htm

Had b widows in TX- and one pesky girl hid in the sash of the window next to my reading chaise longue. I didn't mind her company but had a child in the house so she had to go- being all organic I dropped DE down the sash and that did it. Never saw the b recluses but had one classic target/bull's eye shaped (luckily not necrotic) bite on my thigh (fun to show it off at work as a teaching aide). I was in a lot of outbuildings so might not've gotten bit in my house. But reading this I will now leave the wolfspiders in US alone! Here I gotta remove them for my wussy family- even got DD12 a spider catcher a sort of grabber with plastic fibers at end that go from open to closed gently around spidey with hand action a few feet away. But we catch and release (except b widows!).

When I see possible spider bites (sometimes all the kids in the family will have them tho might be ecthyma- like impetigo but less scabby) I remind people to take apart the matress/bed box spring etc and vacuum those lest spiders are hiding between them.

The people that spray for spiders around here use a product called Suspend. It is supposed to stick to the baseboards for a few weeks and keep on killin".I had my house sprayed and asked what they used and the percentage solution. I called around and found someone that would sell me a bottle. It tells what concentration to mix it to. The bug sprayer used a standard pump up sprayer. I have not seen but a couple of spiders in the last 6 months. I haven't done it lately because the wife is pregnant. We have black widows outside and found 1 inside too. that was the last straw. I hate them. The spray is easy to work with and beats paying the bug sprayer 75 dollars. The bottle is a multi "dose" bottle. It was about 50 dollars or so. Good luck, Ive had a bite or two from fiddle backs. Its not good.

About 5 years ago a friend of mine got bit by a brown recluse that was in his boot. At first the spot was about the size of a pencil eraser but before it was over he had spent weeks in the hospital and almost lost his leg.

Nasty little devils.

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I somehow feel I've posted this before in the past, but I'll say it again because I think it's an important consideration.

If you have health issues, particularly diabetes, the bite of a brown recluse becomes MUCH more serious. A family friend was bitten on his ankle and was treated with the normal antibiotics. But, because of his diabetic condition, infection set in, and then gangrene. He eventually had to have his leg amputated at the thigh. It killed him a couple of years later.

I'm not trying to sound morbid, but the doc definitely attributed his death to the bite, and the further consequences to his diabetes.

Please be careful.

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Hi There,

Let me share my experience with Brown Recluse. When I moved to Kentucky a few years ago stayed in an old, unheated, abandoned (1840's) log cabin belonging to a friend of mine from Indiana. It was early spring and the insect/arachnid world was still asleep. I had seen messy webs here and there, and lots of spider exoskeletons, but it never occurred to me they might be Brown Recluse. As it began to warm up the little varmints started to show themselves. They were everywhere. I caught one and showed it to a friend and he positively identified it. My heart jumped up into my throat at this point. The cabin has paneling on the inside, siding on the out, plus an attic and crawl space, so their number could have been in the thousands for all I knew. There was only one thing to do as far as I was concerned, get out of the house. I opened all boxes, drawers, etc., and set off a couple insect bombs in the house. Then I bombed it again. After airing, I turned everything I owned inside out. It took four days. Within my boxes, crates, etc., I found fifteen dead/half alive Brown Recluse, and a few very alive ones that would have followed me to my next abode and multiplied there had I not killed them. The spray supposedly kills only 60 percent or so, depending on their exposure to the poison. Everything went to a storage unit in town, which I bombed once or twice within the next month. I spent that month camping till I found a place to live. I don't like insecticides, chemicals at all, but I didn't know what else to do! The whole process was a nightmare. I've not seen one since though.

So, I learned how to spot a Recluse from a mile away (how they move, physical characteristics, etc.), I learned that they don't occur as individuals in homes, but rather infest it, I learned that they like dry, warm, undisturbed places (messy homes, attics, wall interiors), and I learned to identify their exoskeletons and messy webs. I'm not sure what the answer is in your situation. Obviously you have a place within your home where they can live undisturbed. I do have friends that have lived with Brown Relcluse for years and never been bitten. Whatever you do, I wish you luck, and don't let it ruin your day too much.

Reed