Thread: Brown Widow Infestation

At first it was just a few




Last year I found a big one who had built a web behind the driver's seat in my truck. Past that, it was one here or there, which I am fine with. Rural life includes these things, it's part of the package.

Last weekend I go out to the lawnmower, and on a table beside it I find fifteen of their easily identified egg sacs. Yeah, fifteen.

I gathered them with a stick, poured gas on them, and lit them on fire. I hosed down the five adult brown widows I found around the lawnmower with poison.

Now, I know that these spiders aren't particularly aggressive, and I haven't been overly worried in the past. I have lived around black widows all of my life to no ill effect (a colony resides in my garbage cans outside even now).

What worries me now is their great numbers around the house. I do not want myself or my wife to grab something and get bitten because we stuck our hand onto the spider. From what I have read, the brown widows are twice as poisonous as their black cousins (though the venom is more localized to the wound).

I talked to a guy I work with who used to be in pest control, and he told me spider infestations are tough to deal with without calling in the experts. Even then he doubted I would rid myself of them to any great extent without payin' quite a sum of cash for regular upkeep.

Anybody have any advice for stemming the invasion? I tried training the squirrels to attack them on sight, but that didn't work out so well (I don't have the smartest squirrels in the neighborhood). Right now I kill ten a week on average with regular spray poison, and so far I have found none inside the house. Lord knows how many I miss in nooks and crannies.

Maybe I should just move.

I feel for you but man those markings on its belly are something else.

I didn't know they had brown widows -

Justin

They hit the gulf coast after Katrina a few years ago. Been getting worse ever since. I've never seen black widows in these numbers.

Went to my parents shed yesterday after telling them about my find, killed seven in there right off the bat, found five egg sacs in there too. I didn't even look too hard.

At least I got to show them both what they look like and what to look out for.

Maybe a propane operated fogger?

I have always been a fan of indiscriminate killing so I say fog the largest area possible.

Kill everything for a block in each direction.

Unfortunately, I happen to know that when all life is annihilated , predators are the first to return, so kill them all and kill often.

Sorry, no better advice.

Poison flies ???

Glad we don't have them in FL.

I agree with GW. Maybe close up the shed and fog it so that it saturates the shed.

Originally Posted by mhailey

I agree with GW. Maybe close up the shed and fog it so that it saturates the shed.

for the shed, that'd work. At my house they are all over the back porch and back yard. And front yard. And everywhere else I look really.

I wonder if I could cover my yard w/ a tarp and fog under that.....

I dunno, its tough stuff. Maybe I could find another predatory insect that eats brown widows and import a few zillion of them.

no, it's a thing that fogs large areas

remember DDT ?

you just hose down everything

here is an example
http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/RTP...tag&kw=BOP-554

you just need to find the right poison to put in it

Don't spiders eat their web at the end of the night?
seems like this would make them extra easy to poison.

diazinon (spelling?).

It's a wonderful bug killer that works on virtually every pest you can think of.

There's only one problem. Drug labs started using it in their products and the US govt. pressured the distributors into removing it from their shelves, much like what happened with lye products. There has been talk that Diazinon was outlawed in the u.s. It's made by a swiss company. I understood it was banned for residential use but still approved for agricultural use. This means you can get a registered farm to buy it for you. Just don't drink the stuff or bathe/wash your hands with it.

Glen F

Best way to treat those is a squirt of WD40 !!
Try it, it's not a joke.

Ive got quite a few large farms on the wife's side of the family, so the diazinon idea sounds like it might work. Thanks for that.

I'll keep the WD40 trick in mind too (I've been known to use brake cleaner as a pesticide in the past myself).

I've been rebuilding a house the weekends and evenings that I plan to get into soon on, and was underneath it this morning doing some plumbing. I found about 35 brown widow egg sacs in a corner hung about the seal.
I have got to do something about this. I bet there's many more than the 35 I found scattered out beneath the house. Looks like my impending move will not help me out of my problem too much.