2012年7月12日 星期四

Brown Recluse Spiders Live in Spaces You Rarely Visit


If you have a storage shed, a storage unit, or a pile of stuff sitting in the attic or garage, maybe you have an extended family of brown recluse spiders living in there. If so, I have something to tell you that might save you a finger, and/or a lot of pain. Over the past few years I piled stuff up in my mini barn until I can't hardly get around inside, and don't even think about figuring out where any one item is.

 

Last weekend I decided time's here to clean that barn out, and I started at the door pulling things out and organizing them into piles on the ground. I wasn't very far into the barn when movement grabbed my attention, and focusing on the source of that movement I saw a spider with legs that set off a warning alert in my mind.

 

The brown recluse has very long legs, and as a pest control technician I learned to make my first recognition step of the species by my fixed image of those legs (keeping that image locked in my head saved me from a number of potential bites, I'm sure). Looking closer I noted the long slender body that pretty much confirmed for me that I had a recluse living in my barn.

 

That got me inspecting the areas both in my vision, and those I could reach. That wasn't much of the inside of the barn because of the clutter, but enough to show me a number of the spiders dwell there, and enough to warn me that an even larger number lurked where I couldn't see them.

 

At that point I stopped carrying things out of the barn, and took steps to protect myself from bites.

 

I immediately thought about a time back in 1983 when my father cleaned out a storage shed where he worked. That was in New Mexico, and the shed was full of old parts he sorted for either use or to discard. While he cleaned that shed a brown recluse bit him on a finger of his left hand. It was only on his first finger joint, but the poison started eating up his finger, and the doctors cut his finger off at the second joint to stop the poison from spreading into his hand and up his arm.

 

He didn't feel that spider bite him. The doctors identified the spot as a recluse bite later. That's one problem with these spiders. If you do feel the bite it's only a little sting, and you normally think it isn't anything serious. You find out later that you thought wrong.

 

Before you start cleaning any areas with long-stored items take a couple precautions of your own. Don't take chances with these spiders.

 

First thing I recommend is a pair of gloves. Often just wearing gloves keeps you from suffering a spider bite. When a spider feels movement, or vibration, of its nest it first thinks "food." The spider immediately goes to bite and stun the food, and often does this to a hand before it realizes it's too big to eat.

 

Spiders' fangs are too short to penetrate through a gardening or work glove, and once they notice how big that hand is their first action is escape from harm. A long sleeved shirt is also a good idea.

 

As you work into the cleaning job spray ahead of you. Use a good suspension chemical spray, and wait about 15 -20 minutes after each application, so the solution has time to work.

 

With those two precautions in use spider bites shouldn't be any concern for you, and you'll have that space cleaned with fingers intact.




Joseph Jackson is an experienced pest control technician and author of SPIDER RIDDANCE, a how to guide for performing do-it-yourself pest control for controlling spiders.

For other pest control ebooks by Joe visit http://www.bugsmiceratsnomore.com





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