Where Did All These Brown Recluse Spiders Come From?

Recluse: "shut off or apart from the world; living in seclusion."

That's what my dictionary says. I just checked.

So the brown recluse spider lives hidden away from everybody? I mean that word "recluse" is right there in the spider's name. I take that to mean it's a shy insect.

But you sure can't tell that based on my recent clean up activities.

Over the years I stacked stuff into my barn, and it just kept piling up in there, so I decided recently to launch a "cleanup and organize" effort. It's so bad that I discarded some of the stuff before I could even get into the door.

Ever done anything like that and got a big surprise (or scare) you weren't ready for?

I had a set of chrome wheels, two with old tires on them, stored out there for a number of years. Since they'd sat there so long I figured I'd never use them, and decided the time had come for them to go.

As I started taking the tire off one of them a whole herd of brown recluse spiders went scrambling, and sent me jumping backward away from that wheel.

My time as a pest control technician familiarized me so well with the way these pests look that I recognize them quickly.

Most people look at them and just see spiders. Brown recluse have distinctively long legs that I came to associate with the species, but I took a while of studying these spiders before I learned to identify them without looking for the fiddle outline on their backs.

Anyway, as I watched that wheel I saw a number of adult recluse spiders, and a whole swarm of babies, go scurrying.

I don't think I ever saw that many brown recluse spiders in one place before.

The first recluse spiders I saw as a newbie pest control technician were rather reclusive. That was over 10-years ago. As I walked up to the spot where they built their webs I'd catch a motion, and only get a quick glance at the spider.

Most every time the spider headed for cover as soon as it spotted me walking toward its home.

Back then, in my early days of pest control, I only suspected I'd found a recluse. Only further inspection verified the insect as a recluse spider, and often that closer inspection means you're too close if you're untrained and inexperienced in pest control techniques.

These days those spiders don't dart for hiding spots so fast anymore. Seems to me they get bolder all the time.

Maybe it's because there are so many of them around. In my early pest control days the company entomologist told me that people rarely seen brown recluse spiders in the Midwest. He said they didn't live here in very large numbers.

I found that claim was just not true. Once I learned to recognize the recluse I started seeing them too often for comfort, and now I see them every time I go into my barn. I've even found them in my house.

Probably the only reason I see so many is my trained ability to recognize them, and if I'd never worked as a pest control technician I wouldn't know that I have brown recluse. Might be I'd never have a problem with them, but sometimes I get awful close to these insects, and if I didn't know what they are I'd get even close enough to get bit.

That's a scary thought.

I suggest if you're planning a cleaning job of your own in an area that sat cluttered for a year or more you take some special precautions.

Study some pictures of brown recluse spiders to get used to what they look like, and make sure you wear gloves when you perform your cleaning task. They can't bite through a good thick glove.

Be careful of brown recluse spiders when you're cleaning items from collected piles. They have a real nasty bite.

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.

Find other pest control ebooks by Joe at http://www.bugsmiceratsnomore.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Pest Control For Spiders Is Tough Because They Weave Most Of Their Webs Where You Can't See Them

One very effective method for pest control to get rid of spiders in your home is cleaning away the cobweb every time you see one.

Keep taking their house away, and after a while the spider moves someplace else to build.

That works very well in places where you see them weaving their webs, but doesn't that just drive the spiders into hiding? Where they build new nests that you can't see?

The spiders are still in your home. They just move behind furniture, appliances, and bookshelves - places where you don't look for them.

That isn't so much of a problem early on. There aren't so many spiders at first, and they do trap insects for food. That keeps the flies and mosquitoes from bothering you a lot.

The problem comes later when those hidden spiders start having babies. Those little ones have to go find their own place to live. So here they come again. Right back into the open as they build their nests in the upper corners where your ceiling and walls join.

Then you're back to cleaning away those webs again.

Hiding spiders are also a problem when they're Brown Recluse.

You have no way to know a spider lurks behind that furniture or appliance when you reach back there. You definitely don't know if a recluse waits for you to stick your hand into its web.

Those guys have nasty bites. One bit my father on the finger once (the bite was on the side of the joint toward the fingernail). To keep the poison from spreading into his hand, and up his arm, the doctors cut the finger off at the next joint up.

I'm sure you don't want something like that happening to you.

So what kind of pest control technique can you use to keep the recluse from living behind your furniture, and other spiders from weaving unsightly webs around the rooms of your home?

Foggers work, but they only kill the spiders that live in those places the fog reaches. If the spider is under the floor, or above the ceiling, your fog won't work. And the fog may or may not, take out spiders in un-hatched eggs. Those eggs may hatch after the effect of the fog wears off.

I recommend using a suspension chemical.

Suspensions are mixtures of pesticides where the poison, in powder form, floats (lies suspended) in a liquid. When you apply the mixture to a surface the liquid dries, and the powder coats the surface.

Any bug walking across that coated surface gets the powder on its legs. Later when the bug cleans itself it licks off the powder residue, and dies.

All you need is to learn how to properly apply the suspension formula, and how long the pesticide effects last. Then just put on a new coat each time the poison's life expires.

Housekeeping is a valid technique in pest control. Cleaning those spider webs away goes a long way in keeping spiders from your home.

But housekeeping is only one technique of pest control. You need a combination of methods for controlling spiders, and keeping your home spider-free.

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.

Find other pest control ebooks by Joe at http://www.bugsmiceratsnomore.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.