Intellectually, I agree that the black widows likely won’t trouble you if you’re cautious…but all things considered I stand with the nuke 'em from orbit advocates. I’ve had an unpleasant encounter with a brown recluse spider before that thankfully healed to a 1.5" oval scar on my leg. But you should see the other guy*!
*Rather crushed by the whole incident, he was.
My SIL has a monthly exterminator appointment (she’s in AZ). I saw a thing on black widows and they’re scarier than hell. I would spray regularly…now that they have your scent memorized…
I am assuming this is said in humor, but just in case not …
I would be far more concerned about the residual chemicals in your SIL’s house, than the spiders. I would also be asking if she has some goal to starve the birds - given insects and spiders are essential food for them. There is a reason our bird numbers are plummeting - insecticides are a critical part of that.
Reputable pest controllers will tell you that there is no point in using them for spiders. These little critters balloon (fly in on slithers of silk) back in immediately.
What amuses me is the way a few American pest control firms misuse Australian spiders to advertise their services. For example, this company has a link to spiders under the heading “Pest Control USA”. There you will find many of Australia’s indigenous spiders with only one of them noted as Australia only. I live with hordes of white-tailed spiders (they have been shown to be harmless), blackhouse in and outside the house by the hundred, literally - I count them. Mouse spiders, trapdoors (I have about 300 burrows marked out), wolf spiders - every one of those listed we have in droves, except the Sydney funnel-web (I’m not in Sydney and the Melbourne one is less venemous). The one labeled black widow is in fact our red-back - same genus, different species, with the red mark on the back. And people pay these people to rid them of spiders which only live thousands of miles away? Mine are welcome to stay.
I’m a little confused by this paragraph. I understand that a lot of the spiders you mention are found in Australia, but you seem to be implying that the pest control services are using deceptive advertising, as if those types of spiders aren’t found here in America. Am I misunderstanding you?
When in college I was urgently gathered by my roommates to aid in an emergency situation in the kitchen. They pointed out the egg sack, the streaming youth, and the mature black widow spider nearby. Terror stricken, they asked what to do. I picked up the phone book and commenced thumping every flat surface in the vicinity. I then handed the phone book over and told them they ‘could tidy up’ and went back to work outside in the garden.
In the garden, of course, there a billion plastic pots for use in a ne’er-do-well nursery enterprise that were a favorite home of the widows. The pregnant wife of a friend was over repotting plants and I heard hear scream in outrageous terror. I ran around the greenhouse in a panic as she screamed
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHH my feet!!!
They’re huge and fat and swollen and ugly!"
I sat down and laughed for a bit.
No, you are not misunderstanding me. These are Australian indigenous spiders - they are our species which do not live in America. You do not have blackhouse (Badumna insignis), or white-tailed (Lampona spp. - lots of species with some in New Guinea and New Zealand as well) or mouse spiders (Missulena spp.). I can give you the families so you can check that against the world authority on spider classification, the World Spider Catalogue , but a Google search on the common names will prove it anyway.
We have wolf spiders here for sure, though. Used to get them in the house all the time.
There are hundreds pf species found all over the world. Incredible animals. One of my favourite individuals from last year (whose life features in my book on spiders) was Theresa (a Lycosa godeffroyi) had two lots of young which she carried on her back for oevr a week, along with lots of traumas due to birds, all which were recorded by my camera. She was much less skittish than most wolf spiders and let me get very close to photograph her every day over the year. I was very upset when she lost her battle with the birds. It is getting to know individuals like this which was the way I turned my arachnophobia into an extreme obsession. If you have burrowing wolf spiders (many are free ranging) then you can get to know them as I did Theresa (and many like her).
Please, please tell me these live in your yard, not your actual house.
We have found house cats to be excellent in bug control. There are wolf spiders here, lots of them, huge ones, ones the size of your hand (ack!) but I haven’t seen any bugs at all in the house since we got cats a year ago.
What’s the stat out there? Something to the effect that during your lifetime, you’ll swallow 14 (?) spiders while you sleep?
I used to work with a guy who told me this story:
*One morning, I hit the snooze button. Suddenly, wife starts screaming…she’s been bit! We rip off all the covers from the bed, looking for a spider or something. But we find nothing. I can see a little welt on her skin, so I know something got her. Weird…
So I turn on the shower and get in. I take off my shorts and THUNK! The full-grown scorpion, which had apparently been the perp against the Mrs., had hidden in my shorts, yet not stung me.*
::faints::
I used to have tons of cellar spiders at my old house, and finally got pissed off and brought out the vacuum cleaner when they started brazenly crawling across my face at night.
It’s all protein. There aren’t too many life forms we can’t eat.
When I was growing up, sometimes this cockroach came out late a night while we were watching TV. I named him “Leonard.” No idea why I chose that name…
Yes, they live in the yard - we have 18 acres of bush and these are wild, naturally occurring spiders. Everyone here has huge numbers, but they won’t know that until they know how to look for them. The 300 burrows (mostly Melbourne trapdoor spiders, Stanwellia sp.) are all within about 50 m of the house. They cluster. Some of the blackhouse are inside, mostly outside on the verandahs, in the brickwork and window edges. I protect them. Lots of cellar / daddy-long-legs spiders inside. I adore watching them as the males and females strum the webs at each other, mate and breed. Wolf spiders - the males wander inside during mating season - I put them out because they won’t find a female inside. I’d hate them to go disappointed. I did tell you I was irrationally obsessed.
Okay, I pretty much believe now that black widows aren’t too dangerous to most humans. But what about cats? I found one (a black widow, not a cat) lurking behind one of the litter boxes a couple of weeks ago and killed it with my shoe. I hate the things myself, but my cats like to play with spiders and I’d be particularly afraid of what would happen if one of them got bitten.
Should I be worried, or just let the cats handle the spider problem in their own way?
Urban legend, I’m afraid. Of course, there are lots of very tiny spiders, so small you could barely see them with the naked eye, so some of those will be in fresh food. They are ballooning all over the place and landing.
Pervert.
Cats are very sensitive to widow spiders and so there is a real risk in your situation. I would hate to see a cat suffer the way they would with a widow spider bite. It is not a pretty death. Mind you, the spiders are very shy so it is unlikely they would bite, but next to a litter tray, the cat may press against them which would provoke a bite.
You can’t assume a spider which is deadly to humans is also the same with cats. Our Sydney funnel-web is potentially deadly to humans and harmless to cats and dogs. Our tarantulas are the reverse, and wolf spiders are more dangerous to dogs and so maybe to cats as well. Well, our wolf spider is. I haven’t checked out all species or details on that because it got to more detail than I needed for the book or my observations here.
There are so many different spiders - all fascinating and amazingly complex in behavior and biology - it is impossible to know all about even a few families. The world authority on trapdoors told me she knew almost nothing about tube web spiders when I asked about those I am observing here. She’s been an arachnologist for over 50 years and has an extraordinary depth of knowledge on her chosen families. I have a superficial knowledge of a wide variety (far from all 108 families, let alone the 40,000 known species, or 250,000 estimated species), but detailed knowledge of none. There’s a lot of unknowns about spiders which could be observed by ordinary watchers in their own homes. That is a project I have started on and hope to get people involved in from all over the world when the book comes out early next year.
My mission is to convert the entire world to arachnophilia! What chance do you give me?
Wasn’t that from a list that someone made up just to see if they’d become ULs? Something ISTR.
Yes, here is the story on Snopes.
Thanks for helping to fight my ignorance.