The title of this blog can serve two purposes:
1) Obviously, to account for the fact that I am making an attempt to revive this poor little blog and make something of it. It had been so long in fact that I had to figure out my password. Shameful.
2) Moving on with the posting topics--the spider infestation that is plaguing us at present. Those darn little/not so little creatures are invading our home and we DON'T like it. And they don't like to go down without a fight either.
When we first moved in it was the Black Widows. Mostly we were finding them outside around the rain gutters. Then they were outside between the brick work and the siding. Then, they were inside. Or at least we *felt* like they were inside. And who can blame us. The black widow hides in dark places and is fatally poisonous! Only killed one live one inside. The other that was actually in the house we found dead in the middle of the carpet. Thank you, Ortho Home Defense. But they do like the garage.
So after several hearty rounds of the home defense stuff we haven't seen any more black widows. But now, the brown spiders are apparently trying their luck. I know part of it is that the people in charge of keeping up the pump station lot finally did their job and mowed the trees/grass/weeds/jungle that were taller than i am down next door. And so these stupid spiders think they can just invade our house. And its freaking us out. Generally, I'm not crazy with arachnophobia but when the spiders are brazen enough to stand in your bedroom doorway and stare you down at night, there's a problem. And last night, I lifted a shirt off the floor with the hanger to put away the laundry and when i picked it up there was a huge spider underneath it. Too close for comfort. And under the laundry! Inches from my hands! Now I'm feeling spiders crawling on me and imagining them to be everywhere. I'm wondering if they are on the couch cushions right now.
To the best of our non-entomologist capabilities we think we've identified a few possible culprits. Prepare yourself if you're spider-uncomfortable.
We are, of course, 100% certain on the black widows (thank you hour glass poison indicators). Hobo spiders, wolf spiders, fishing spiders, and funnel web spiders among other smaller varieties. Thankfully, I don't think we've seen any brown recluses in the house. If anyone has any great spider disappearance suggestions, we're accepting any tips.
Here's the scariest picture of all (this is what came up when we searched for spider traps /poison):
How could I reconcile having that creepiness in the house?? And the directions say don't remove any caught spiders because spiders eat spiders so it actually attracts more if you leave them. The wasp spray actually works better than the spider spray in my opinion but it requires a one-by-one "within arm's reach" approach.
Until we can figure out a viable alternative, I will be always with shoes on in the house and refusing to walk around in the dark. I'm not too proud to admit that I crawled *over* David to get in bed last night so that I didn't have to walk around the bedroom in the dark. But I don't want to risk looking like the guy I saw at the doctor's office this week. He had a spider bite on his foot and the whole bottom portion of his leg was swollen to double-size.
This is war!
2 comments:
ICK! I know how you feel though. Back when I lived in my house in Cullowhee I found two very large very hairy black spiders, one over the bed and one over the couch. I sprayed them with some bug killer and they RAN AT ME! I thought that stuff was supposed to kill them not make them stronger! ARGH!
And now that I live in a house surrounded by trees and backed up to woods, I get spiders all the time. It makes me want to cry.
I know this probably won't help with the spider fears, but when you put your shoes on in the morning, make sure nothing is in *them* before you do so...
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