One of my fond memories of my Papa was the summer-time Black Widow Roundup at twilight (which followed the daytime Nuking of the Ants). He’d go around the property with a flyswatter and get every one he saw. I swear he knew every likely spot for the little buggers.
I leave them be for the most part, although I do kill ones that come indoors ('cause of the cats). Generally though they tend to leave people alone. Wolf spiders OTOH seem to love to hang out by me.
Wasp spray works well on them, and has the bonus of long-range capability, the next best thing to nuking them from orbit.
Just exaggerating for fun. As my wife and I pulled out of the garage after first discovering it, we were joking about the size of it, each trying to out-do the other. That spider got pretty damn big by the time we were done with it.
My dad did the same thing. When he was stationed at Daggett he lived on the airport. (Daggett used to be an AAF base. The barracks had been torn down, but the officers’ housing was still there.) He’d go around with a fly swatter and a flashlight after he got off the mid-watch and kill all the black widows around his house – and the two neighbouring houses, and the three houses across the street. He wanted a buffer zone! (Good thing he was good friends with everyone in the neighbourhood!)
Define small. I’ve seen some bigguns. At least 1 1/2" with legs. Used to have them all over when I lived in Sacrmento. They really are shy, and I got used to them after awhile.
Why was a black widow going tra la la in my garage last year when it was maybe 40F? And yes, I did verify that it was indeed a black widow.
I was rearranging boxes and this sucker came out of nowhere. Instead of outright killing it I swept her out with my broom. Survival of the fittest, sorry I don’t want all of your babies in my house in the spring.
I probably have a disproportionate sense of spider size, since we used to get wolfspiders in the house all the time when I was growing up in Arizona, and tarantulas outside, but 1 1/2" including legs doesn’t seem big to me.
As far as black widows, we got those by the truckload. I remember for a while we couldn’t use the bench just outside the back door because an eggsack full of the buggers had just hatched (about a dozen of them bit my friend. He said it hurt.)
As has been mentioned here already, though, unless you’re a very small child or have some other vulnerability, they’re not “deadly” poisonous. And they’re shy.
We have red-back spiders by the hundred - the Australian version of black widows. Just as shy, just as unlikely to bite anyone. You have to be very young or old or ill to die of the bite - even without any treatment at all. Everyone loves the scare campaign on spiders. I am a recovered arachnophobe who overdid the cure and am now obsessed by the eight-legged critters. I now watch my red-backs and their lives - fascinating creatures. They will take prey many times their size and haul it up into their webs. The tiny male actually commits suicide - somersaults into the female’s fangs after mating to ensure she kills him. Great egg sacs and drop dead (not literally) cute young.
Enjoy your black widows or leave them alone. The only reason I would bother moving one is if it was in the house or near where young children play. The reason you never hear of anyone dying of them is that they almost never kill - or even bite - despite being incredibly common. Panic about things which justify your energy. No spider will rate it!
Not to freak out the OP more than he already is, but I feel compelled to point out that his namesake, Isaac Asimov, wrote a series of mystery stories involving a fictional dinner club called “The Black Widowers”.
Them spiders is everywhere!
If you don’t want to bother with fire, supposedly you can also kill them with a can of air. Just hold it upside down and freeze the fuckers. And then squish them to be sure.
They had better be shy, because I am one of those people who has a serious aversion to spiders and I will most certainly kill them - not only merely dead, but really quite sincerely dead. I mean VERY VERY dead. Yes, my aversion is out of all sense of proportion to the possible harm, but that’s just entirely too bad for the spider.
I seem to remember a woman who called in to Car Talk because an eggsac had hatched inside her car. (A fact, I believe, she discovered while she was driving it.) She wanted the guys to tell her what to do about it, but they were totally freaked out by the idea. I think their conclusion was nuking it from orbit, basically.
See, this is the beginning of my explanation for needing a new wetsuit because my other one caught fire. (because I soaked it in gasoline and lit it with a white phosphorous grenade I keep in my kitchen pantry for just such an occasion!)
When I moved from CA to MD I brought my motorcycle with me, and left it outside (covered) 'til the end of the winter. When I went to fire it up on a warm spring day and popped the seat off to reach some tools stored there, a HUGE black widow moved away from my hand. Gah! That wench was living there under my ass the whole time!
And then there’s always the cousins. I had an infestation of these on my back porch that came and went before I knew what they actually were. Nobody was bitten.
<----Happy nostalgic smile for those stories.
