Spiders (Sarasota, Lee: houses, neighborhood, living in)

[mar_mdq]

What about poisonous spiders? Are they common in the houses or yards? Anywhere?

[Florida or Bust....]

Originally Posted by mar_mdq

What about poisonous spiders? Are they common in the houses or yards? Anywhere?

There is non-poisonous spiders and poisonous.... Both types may be in your yard and they can sneak in your into your house, especially if you live in a wooded area

[mar_mdq]

So how you live with it? Do you get your house sprayed? Or is people beaten every few days?

[Florida or Bust....]

You either do your own spraying or you hire someone to spray your property/home. It's a way of life being that Florida is in a sub-tropical climate. But for most people, the positives of living in Florida outweighs the negatives.

[mar_mdq]

And what do you think about the mosquito spray and the health impact?
Thanks for your help

[motordavid]

One might conclude that SW FL is chock full of creatures and critters just laying in wait for us humans...

I have spent a lot of time wandering around the neighborhood and in the fringes of the 'Glades, shore diving, kayaking, walking around in very undeveloped areas, both here in SW FL and at our Mtn house.

Have seen a few black widows, may have seen a brown recluse, lots of spiders, insects and creatures; other than the usual 'bug bites', have never had a problem with venomous creatures in my 66+ yrs on the planet.

Occasionally a spider or two 'inside' the house, but don't really care nor are they bothersome.
We have the pest company spray inside and out a few times a year, mainly to keep the cockroaches outside/at bay...

Everyone has a different comfort level, but SW FL is Zone 10 A, and while many areas of Collier/Lee county are developed with communities, the temps and surrounding bits of non-pavement allow for all the creatures to thrive, multiply.

My view is anecdotal, but so are any other responses. There is no bug free/spider free area of the US, that I am aware of.

Lightning, bad driving, and home accidents are much more deadly and statistically/practically common...
GL, mD

[ILoveLidoBeach]

Exterminators cannot prevent spiders by spraying. They don't clean themselves so they do not ingest it. Other bugs do clean so they they ingest it and die.

I live in Fiddlers Creek (naples) and it is sprayed and the other I saw something black in the hall....a closer look revealed a golfball sized spider strolling along.

We also (florida) have a black widow/brown widow problem. My house in Sarasota (when we bought it) had egg sacks all over the upper lanai screens. The upper lanai is 60ft. long and they covered the entire length...thousands of sacks... I had Macy's spray and they charged me $350 and left. I thought they took care of it until the screen man was there and told me that my upper lanai had brown widow eggs sacks all over it. When I looked, I could see that they didn't get rid of them. When I called they said their brush wasn't tall enough (WHAT???)......Anyway, that was when I learned about spider behavior and that they do cannot spray to prevent them.

If they say they can, then they are lying.

[gardenpearl]

Originally Posted by ILoveLidoBeach

Exterminators cannot prevent spiders by spraying. They don't clean themselves so they do not ingest it. Other bugs do clean so they they ingest it and die.

I live in Fiddlers Creek (naples) and it is sprayed and the other I saw something black in the hall....a closer look revealed a golfball sized spider strolling along.

We also (florida) have a black widow/brown widow problem. My house in Sarasota (when we bought it) had egg sacks all over the upper lanai screens. The upper lanai is 60ft. long and they covered the entire length...thousands of sacks... I had Macy's spray and they charged me $350 and left. I thought they took care of it until the screen man was there and told me that my upper lanai had brown widow eggs sacks all over it. When I looked, I could see that they didn't get rid of them. When I called they said their brush wasn't tall enough (WHAT???)......Anyway, that was when I learned about spider behavior and that they do cannot spray to prevent them.

If they say they can, then they are lying.

Ugh! The brown widow sacks would have me not sleeping at night. What did you do to get rid of them? Did any sacs hatch, and did any spiders come into your house?

[DChapman36]

The only spider you have to worry about here is the brown recluse and the statistical probability of them biting you is absolutely minute. Point being, you don't have to worry about them.

SPIDERS ARE OUR FRIENDS. We like having them in our house. Especially the big ones that hunt down the cockroaches

I assure you that spraying pesticides in your house is INFINITELY more dangerous than the danger you face from the spiders here.

[Sweetbottoms]

We have lots and lots and lots of bugs in SWFL. We just deal. Not too long ago I found a black widow in my car door. My cousin was bitten by one. We also have tons of lizards, those have been in my house weekly, they scoot in behind me when I open the door usually and I gotta get them out with a glass and paper to hold them in. We did have a snack in our outdoor couch once, I sat on the cushion and he was wiggling under me. We still aren't sure where he came in through the screens. We've had iguanas sunbathe on our driveway and banana spiders are used as a "security system" by some people. My fathers friend had hundreds of them over his windows he left, convinced no one wanted to climb through their webs, or them to get in. I agreed! We also have love bug season, no seeum season. If you live in GG you have panthers to contend with. My husband has had several calls of panthers snacking fido out of the yard, as well as several dogs being eaten by the gators after getting too close to the lake.. The real issue now is the pythons.. They're out of control in the glades. They're so big they're eating the alligators. like this bad boy


due to Lake O release into the gulf we've also had several alligators find their way onto the public beaches, via surfing the ocean waves in.



Heres a corner of my window during the love bug season of 07.





and a part of the house


these are the "super mosquitoes" that popped up last summer


here's a snake trying to crawl up my neighbors door when we got a lot of flooding during a big storm last year (the dirty hallway is residual lake sand from where it rose)



my black widow in the car


my screen during the 07 love bug season... all of those are bugs.



so see we deal with it every day, there's something. We essentially live on built up swamp. For the most part we don't really pay much mind. You learn to live around it and with it here.