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Well, there's a huge difference between having an initial frisson of "oh!" when suddenly encountering a snake or spider (this is adaptive behavior, as you note above) and people making major life decisions based on whether they think there are a lot of snakes or spiders in an area of the country.
The first is normal, just like most normal people don't feel comfortable walking thirty stories above the ground on an 8" wide I beam; the second is dysfunctional and needs treatment.
I was pointing out the difficulty, not making any value judgment. Make almost any value judgment - especially black-or-white or simplistic ones, and I can point out an exception or case where that is wrong. People with compromised immune systems put themselves at risk around certain vectors.
Choices on where to live are often based on utterly trivial biases. Not wanting to live around alligators near Florida canal homes is somewhat routine. Arachnid and insect bites are far more common than gator bites, and a greater contributor to morbidity in the general population, yet I wouldn't call not wanting to live near alligators dysfunctional or "needing treatment."
Nah. I was bitten by a recluse once. It made a nice divot for awhile. I found that a weak spray of bleach on surfaces discourages them. Black Widows are scary looking but not aggressive. Garage spiders are more likely to be harvesters (daddy longlegs) that are benign. Protection and a light source attracts insects. Insects attract spiders. Both attract frogs. I leave a small outdoor light on 24/7 Each spring and fall, it has a resident frog or two that enjoy the buffet. Very rarely is there a spider in the house.
I found a toad clinging to the side of my house a few months ago. Maybe he was there for the insects.
Yes, my home is in Monrovia CA, and yes I have family living here, including triplet nephews. I’ve only seen spiders outside or in the garage and storage shed but I don’t want to get bit. Btw, the Desert Recluse Spider apparently does live in Southern California.
Yes, we have the desert recluse in SoCal, and there also have been at least two infestations of recluse spiders from South America.
"After more than 50 violin spiders were discovered in five public buildings at Sierra Madre Memorial Park in 1969, worried residents brought in hundreds of harmless spiders in jelly jars, ice cream containers and
plastic coffee cups to be identified.
Teams of vector control workers from state and county health departments spread out searching and spraying. Eventually, they reported finding about 170 violin spiders in Sierra Madre alone.
Over the next three years, more of the brown spiders were found in Sierra Madre, El Monte, Alhambra, Highland Park, San Gabriel and Monterey Park, health officials said. But no bites were reported."
These spiders are brown and they are recluses, but they're not the brown recluse. Loxosceles Laeta, the South American violin spider, also known as the Chilean brown recluse, was transported to the San Gabriel Valley in some costume trunks. It is not a native species.
While you can apply a liquid pesticide spray to control spiders, which will eliminate many of their food sources, it will not kill many spiders, and the ones you do kill will most likely be relatively harmless. When I worked in pest control I used a portable vacuum for spider control. This method allowed me to remove the spider and its web, without staining interior walls.
If I had your concerns, I would stop worrying about recluse spiders and concentrate on controlling the black widows - in the evening when they are exposed - with a can of pyrethrin-based insecticide. This should give you some measure of comfort.
its rare than i see anything in my house. i dont notice many outside but there are some spider webs in a couple of areas of my homes exterior. i have no need for them, want them all dead.
i have a bug zapper that leaves the dead insects on the ground. im thinking of sprinkling some more insecticide on the ground there to get anything that comes to eat the dead zapped bugs.
I saw three yesterday in the backyard, and one in the garage this morning. They really freak me out, but I don’t want a pest control service to come here and spray poison. Is there an all-natural way to get rid of them?
Whap them with your slippa! K-whappa! End of problem.
Spiders are generally pretty slow, especially the ones in webs. If you want to be nice, you can catch and release. They do catch other bugs and things, but the other bugs would probably advocate for the slipper application method.
Sometimes we get lots of crab spiders who make webs what seems like everywhere in the yard. I'll get a stick - a nice dry branch from a tree with lots of twigs on it works best - and sweep up the spiders and their webs and put them off in a corner of the yard or somewhere else. Eventually, we won't see very many of them any more. They seem somewhat seasonal, though.
Spiders are attracted to dampness. If your home tends to be damp, spiders will be more likely to move in. In fact, some spiders actually eat fungus and mildew. If there's a damp area of your house, use a dehumidifier or a product called Damp-Rid, to help dry it.
We use a natural cedar product called Cedarcide that, when sprayed in areas with insects, will get them moving fast. It's a natural product with a great cedar scent, and insects hate it.
They also make plug-ins that emit a high pitched tone that insects and rodents can't stand, but people can't hear. My wife swears by it, but I don't know. However, taking off your shoes when you come into the house will definitely work. Small insects and eggs can be carried into the house on your shoes. We keep a boot tray on the deck, and wear socks or slippers when inside. This also tends to keep the floors cleaner, too.
Spiders don't bother me. I probably have as much of a chance of being bitten by a spider and being really hurt by it as I do being struck by lightning. People are so paranoid, they forget that spiders do not eat peoples flesh nor suck on their blood. They have no reason to bite a person, except in self defense and most can't even do that.
I've been finding spiders in the house lately and I'm not sure why. I don't even care if an occasional spider makes his home here somewhere but I don't want them reproducing and creating hundreds more.
I don’t mind spiders that don’t bite, but black/brown widows and brown recluse spiders really get me worried for my family. I don’t want anyone to get sick from their bite! Is that unreasonable?
I'm with you on this. I hate them too. If I see them inside, they are dead meat. The only ones I spare are the cute tiny jumping spiders. The other ones get smushed with something large, especially wolf spiders which get huge, and gallop fast like a horse across the floor. Too bad, so sad, lol.
I've never seen a brown/black widow in the house. They prefer dark, secluded places outside like underneath old pots or among old bricks that haven't been moved for a long time. We have had plenty around, with kids & pets in the yard, and no one has ever been bitten. They are not aggressive. Just be careful sticking your hands in cracks and crevices, which I'm sure you are anyway.
The brown recluse doesn't live in my state (California) so I don't know much about them. Don't you also live in CA? And somehow I thought you lived alone; that was just an assumption though.
The brown recluse may not be native to cali, but they can arrive there in vehicles, shipping containers, produce, and moving trucks, etc. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to run into one. But there are two other kinds of recluses that do live in cali, the Desert Recluse (Loxosceles deserta), and the Chilean Recluse (Loxosceles laeta). I don't want to see either one.
The brown recluse may not be native to California [fixed that for you], but they can arrive there in vehicles, shipping containers, produce, and moving trucks, etc. So I wouldn't be at all surprised to run into one.
I would. I'd be just as surprised to run into a brown recluse roaming around in Orange County, CA as I would be to see a cottonmouth snake, a copperhead, an alligator, or any other wild species that is not native to California but technically could have been brought here somehow.
No one needs to worry about brown recluse spiders in California, any more than you need to worry that someone inadvertently brought an anaconda in their moving truck from Florida.
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