# Enough spiders to give anybody nightmares **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 12, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135 "2014-10-12T20:06:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/1 "2014-10-12T20:06:54Z")
This poor family underwent something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. > [@](#): > > A family was driven from their suburban St. Louis home by thousands of venomous spiders that fell from the ceiling and oozed from the walls. > > Brian and Susan Trost bought the $450,000 home overlooking two golf holes at Whitmoor Country Club in Weldon Spring in October 2007 and soon afterward started seeing brown recluse spiders everywhere, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported . Once when showering, Susan Trost dodged a spider as it fell from the ceiling and washed down the drain. [http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/spiders-force-family-upscale-missouri-home-26106285](http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/spiders-force-family-upscale-missouri-home-26106285) ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/2 "2014-10-12T23:23:46Z")
Um, nah, fuck that. 6000 of the critters in the house? Screw the fumigators, get a can of petrol and a match. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/3 "2014-10-12T23:39:22Z")
I can only assume that the reason agorarachnophobia is not a recognized term is because it is perfectly rational to be afraid of being outnumbered by spiders. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/4 "2014-10-12T23:42:23Z")
How could you ever re-sell it? Better to just burn it and re-build, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/5 "2014-10-12T23:55:32Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > This poor family underwent something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. > [http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/spiders-force-family-upscale-missouri-home-26106285](http://abcnews.go.com/Weird/wireStory/spiders-force-family-upscale-missouri-home-26106285) She should have called some horror film writers in Hollywood and made horror movie with no special effects needed. And home owner could get cut in sales of movie even 4% cut would be lot for home owner. No special effects needed so the movie would be very cheap to make. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/6 "2014-10-12T23:56:57Z")
> [@Poysyn](#): > > How could you ever re-sell it? Better to just burn it and re-build, isn’t it? Spiders don’t eat wood.If it was red ants than yes it would destroy the home. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/7 "2014-10-13T00:02:07Z")
> [@Telperion](#): > > I can only assume that the reason agorarachnophobia is not a recognized term is because it is perfectly rational to be afraid of being outnumbered by spiders. That problem living in the country. My house is by the park and on any given day I can easily see 10 spiders in the house.When I use to see people who live in the country I would see close to 20 spiders. And yes some times spiders lay eggs close by. ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/8 "2014-10-13T00:09:53Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > That problem living in the country. > > My house is by the park and on any given day I can easily see 10 spiders in the house.When I use to see people who live in the country I would see close to 20 spiders. > > And yes some times spiders lay eggs close by. Hey, small numbers like that, no problem. I’m used to sharing the house with spiders. Couple of Hunstmen hanging round, few black spiders around the back deck and door jams and daddy longlegs in the robe, all good. But not thousands of the MOFO’s. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/9 "2014-10-13T00:09:55Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > Spiders don’t eat wood.If it was red ants than yes it would destroy the home. I realize spiders don’t eat wood and was not asking if the house would be structurally sound. I mean, who would buy a house for $450,000 (or more) that had been infested with Brown Recluse Spiders (their bite is not usually fatal, but they can cause extensive pain and possible disfigurement)? I would imagine your heart would race anytime you saw a spider. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/10 "2014-10-13T00:51:53Z")
Well perhaps living in the city down town area in a apartment will be more his thing.Yes less spiders but you get your rats ,rodents and cockroaches. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/11 "2014-10-13T01:29:37Z")
I used to live in another similar suburb a few miles from there. Brown recluses were/are as common as house flies in that part of the country. You either have professional exterminators come in every 3 months or you have an infestation; simple as that. When we first moved into the area we didn’t know that. Fast forward about a year and we’re seeing a few spiders here and there in most rooms. We thought “Good, they’ll keep the mosquitos under control”. Until a neighbor mentioned that they’re probably brown recluse. The exterminators set traps and got hundreds in our partly finished basement. Plus dozens in the main floors of the house. Just the price one pays for living in mostly-forested Missouri. So now I live in Miami; bug & spider capital of the USA. I guess I’m a slow learner. Or not too bent out of shape about creepy-crawlies. Though the spiders rampant in the parks around here are much MUCH scarier than anything I ever saw in MO. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/12 "2014-10-13T01:41:53Z")
they aren’t a poor family. maybe unfortunate but not poor. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/13 "2014-10-13T01:47:56Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I used to live in another similar suburb a few miles from there. Brown recluses were/are as common as house flies in that part of the country. You either have professional exterminators come in every 3 months or you have an infestation; simple as that. > > When we first moved into the area we didn’t know that. Fast forward about a year and we’re seeing a few spiders here and there in most rooms. We thought “Good, they’ll keep the mosquitos under control”. Until a neighbor mentioned that they’re probably brown recluse. > > The exterminators set traps and got hundreds in our partly finished basement. Plus dozens in the main floors of the house. > > Just the price one pays for living in mostly-forested Missouri. > > So now I live in Miami; bug & spider capital of the USA. I guess I’m a slow learner. Or not too bent out of shape about creepy-crawlies. Though the spiders rampant in the parks around here are much MUCH scarier than anything I ever saw in MO. At least you don’t have big spiders like these [10 of the World’s Largest Spiders](http://www.conservationinstitute.org/10-of-the-worlds-largest-spiders/) Yes big like dinner plate. At least I find the hairy big spiders and colorful once like these [10 of the World’s Largest Spiders](http://www.conservationinstitute.org/10-of-the-worlds-largest-spiders/) more attractive looking than say brown recluse like these [probably brown recluse - Google Search](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=probably+brown+recluse&biw=1280&bih=615&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3y47VMPVEKf9sASnvIGgAQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ) ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/14 "2014-10-13T05:12:34Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I used to live in another similar suburb a few miles from there. Brown recluses were/are as common as house flies in that part of the country. You either have professional exterminators come in every 3 months or you have an infestation; simple as that. Yep. Here’s a quote from a [web page](http://spiders.ucr.edu/myth.html) written by an arachnologist and brown recluse expert from the University of California, Riverside. > [@](#): > > In its native range, the brown recluse is a very common house spider. A colleague in Missouri found 5 in a child’s bedroom one night, a person in Arkansas found 6 living under his box spring in his bedroom, during a cleanup at the Univ. of Arkansas, 52 were found in a science lab that was being used everyday, a colleague found 9 living under one piece of plywood in Oklahoma, a grad student and I collected 40 of them in a Missouri barn in 75 minutes, and would have collected more, but we ran out of vials to house them. One amazing story is an 8th grade teacher in Oklahoma checking up on his students avidly collecting material by some loose bricks around a flagpole on an insect collecting trip. In about 7 minutes, 8 students collected 60 brown recluses, picking them all up with their fingers and not one kid suffered a bite. An even more amazing story is that of a woman in Lenexa, Kansas who collected 2,055 brown recluse spiders in 6 months in 1850s-built home. This family of 4 has been living there 8 years now and still not one evident bite. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/15 "2014-10-13T18:37:38Z")
Sometimes there just ain’t enough fire. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/16 "2014-10-16T06:25:08Z")
Sometimes it only takes [one spider](http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/wa-news/spider-burrowed-into-appendix-scar-crawled-through-wa-mans-body-20141016-1171lq.html) to give you nightmares. > [@](#): > > West Australian man Dylan Thomas may now be joking about whether he’ll develop “superpowers” but on the weekend he was experiencing a “searing sensation” as a spider that had made its way into his abdomen through an old appendix scar, crawled underneath his skin, all the way up to his sternum. > > \ > > Mr Thomas said he believed the spider had burrowed into his abdomen on Friday night as he noticed a mark on his stomach on Saturday morning that continued to worsen. > > \ > > The spider was eventually removed with tweezers. It was dead when pulled out. > > Mr Thomas said the experience had ruined his first trip to Bali. Linked article has pictures. ---
**Author:** ![IaMoDiNaRy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IaMoDiNaRy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IaMoDiNaRy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/17 "2014-10-16T19:36:48Z")
I’m in California and live on ranch property. For some reason this summer, the Black Widow population here was out of control! The creepy things were building their webs everywhere. Back in July I didn’t drive my truck for a few days and the Black Widows built webs from under all four bumpers to the garage floor. These things were big, too. I sprayed them and then smushed them with an old rake handle when they fell on the floor. You know, just to be sure… :eek: After that, I went around one evening with a flash light to see how many I’d find. They were EVERYWHERE! I hate spiders and I was shocked to find so many. I’ve lived here a long time and I’ve never seen so many of these things in the barns before. I wanted to kill ALL of them but I didn’t. Just the ones that were in my work areas or in the garage. I HATE spiders! We have a lot of animals and have to go out at night to check on them. One night, a black widow had started building its web right across the barn door. If I’d not had a flashlight, I would have walked right into the thing face first! Did I say I HATE spiders?? ---
**Author:** ![Anonymous\_Coward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/18 "2014-10-16T19:46:16Z")
Yeah, I’ll stay up north thank you very much. Snow six months of the year doesn’t seem so bad now. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/19 "2014-10-16T20:09:55Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Sometimes it only takes [one spider](http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/wa-news/spider-burrowed-into-appendix-scar-crawled-through-wa-mans-body-20141016-1171lq.html) to give you nightmares.Linked article has pictures. The spider was apparently there for three days. How did it breathe? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135/20 "2014-10-16T20:38:44Z")
That’s cute, Johnny. It’s fairly well-established only mortal creatures need to breathe. Spiders, not being of this world, need neither sleep nor sustenance to continue living. Their principle nourishment is the soul, preferably human, ideally helpless and readily terrified such as a small child. Sure, spiders have been observed to eat. But they do so only because they enjoy killing, and eating brings back fine memories of invenomating helpless prey. I do hope you wake up one day, friend, and recognize the evil you so nobly tolerate. One should be more concerned with what the spider was doing inside him, and when the eggs will hatch. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-spiders-to-give-anybody-nightmares/701135.md?page=2)