Dangerous varmint: Brown Recluse Spiders

[Bigguy1951]

Got bit 11 years ago. Was slightly feverish for a few days but not enough to stay home from work. I had no problems with any necrosis as it was the first time I have been bitten by one.

 

[Tommie]

We have brown recluse pretty bad in our home here in Arkansas. One day I was riding my motorcycle and felt something in my ear. It felt like water, I thought it had got in there when I showered. Anyway all day long I could feel it in there. That night in bed when I got still, I felt it moving and something crawled out of my ear. I mashed it with my finger and turned the light on. It was a brown recluse! No joke.

Thanks for planting that creepy nightmare in my brain.

I'm also an Arkansan (north central) and can't believe it took this long to get bitten. These nasty spiders are everywhere. Usually I keep a half dozen sticky traps scattered throughout the house. About twice a year I change them out. Each one will have anywhere from a few to a dozen dead recluses stuck to it. A few times I've been shocked out of sleep when a spider was scurrying across my chest or face. Talk about leaping through the ceiling!

 

[gat]

Got them in my shop and it is nearly impossible to kill them out! But a few years ago a friend told me to try Raid Flying insect killer. It contains a poison that will kill them. So I tried it. I sprayed around my Smith shop at ceiling level and then under bench level, then I closed the doors for the night and went home. The next morning there were Brown Too Closes every where dead. I swept up 25 or 30 and found them for a couple of weeks longer also. It seems the spider cleans himself off like a cat, by licking his feet and legs for lack of a better description and ingests the poison that way! They also scavenge any bugs that are killed by the poison and get it that way too!! Raid Flying Insect killer works!!

 

[hoz53]

We have brown recluse pretty bad in our home here in Arkansas. One day I was riding my motorcycle and felt something in my ear. It felt like water, I thought it had got in there when I showered. Anyway all day long I could feel it in there. That night in bed when I got still, I felt it moving and something crawled out of my ear. I mashed it with my finger and turned the light on. It was a brown recluse! No joke.

Wow A person doesn't want to think wat would happen if bitten inside the ear. I have read of houses where several thousand of them were found and no one in the house was ever bitten. From what I understand they are not aggressive kind of the opposite and they cannot penetrate a persons skin without being pushed against you. They like dark places and those things are why people get bit say putting on pants.

 

[hoz53]

Got them in my shop and it is nearly impossible to kill them out! But a few years ago a friend told me to try Raid Flying insect killer. It contains a poison that will kill them. So I tried it. I sprayed around my Smith shop at ceiling level and then under bench level, then I closed the doors for the night and went home. The next morning there were Brown Too Closes every where dead. I swept up 25 or 30 and found them for a couple of weeks longer also. It seems the spider cleans himself off like a cat, by licking his feet and legs for lack of a better description and ingests the poison that way! They also scavenge any bugs that are killed by the poison and get it that way too!! Raid Flying Insect killer works!!

Thanks for that info.

 

[jsn]

My grandmother told me a story about one of my uncles getting bitten by a spider in the 1940's. The doctor wanted to amputate his arm. She used a mustard poultice, arm was OK.

YMMV

 

[madderg]

Look up the use of pure honey applied to the wound. It purifies the wound and stops the spread.

 

[SheepDog]

Brown recluse spiders are normally in wood piles and junk heaps around here - many of the same places we find black widows. I can't imagine what a brown recluse would find to eat inside a house. I have a recipe that will kill every living thing in your house that I used on roaches in a house I owned. It was infested when I bought it and after being told by the professionals that they couldn't get rid of them but were willing to charge me $100 a month to "control" them I decided to look in my old notes and found something I could use. It was/is probably illegal but it is a trichlorinated hydrocarbon that plants and animals take in like sugar and it stops the functions of the cells. When we treated the house we left for a week and came back to floors covered in roaches. The only plant we forgot to take outside was an ivy plant and it too was dead. It was a couple of years before we even saw a spider and the roaches never came back. I can't really share that recipe, it is just as lethal on mammals as it is to bugs.

 

[hoz53]

Brown recluse spiders are normally in wood piles and junk heaps around here - many of the same places we find black widows. I can't imagine what a brown recluse would find to eat inside a house. I have a recipe that will kill every living thing in your house that I used on roaches in a house I owned. It was infested when I bought it and after being told by the professionals that they couldn't get rid of them but were willing to charge me $100 a month to "control" them I decided to look in my old notes and found something I could use. It was/is probably illegal but it is a trichlorinated hydrocarbon that plants and animals take in like sugar and it stops the functions of the cells. When we treated the house we left for a week and came back to floors covered in roaches. The only plant we forgot to take outside was an ivy plant and it too was dead. It was a couple of years before we even saw a spider and the roaches never came back. I can't really share that recipe, it is just as lethal on mammals as it is to bugs.

I was wondering what they eat in houses to. I read an account where people bought a new house they paid 450,000 for and not long after they moved in began seeing spiders all over. A specialist from the university testified there were at least 6500 Brown recluse in there. A company covered the place with tarps and gassed it with something. Interesting skill you've got there with chemicals.

 

[Prairiedogger]

Check out Electricity. Something like a low amp taser. DC voltage.
low amps high volts. Yes it hurts. I heard talk about it with poisonous snakes in the Amozon and spiders.

 

[Arkyvarminter]

Thanks for planting that creepy nightmare in my brain.

I'm also an Arkansan (north central) and can't believe it took this long to get bitten. These nasty spiders are everywhere. Usually I keep a half dozen sticky traps scattered throughout the house. About twice a year I change them out. Each one will have anywhere from a few to a dozen dead recluses stuck to it. A few times I've been shocked out of sleep when a spider was scurrying across my chest or face. Talk about leaping through the ceiling!

Same here but not everyone is bothered by a bite. I am pretty sure I have been bitten a couple times and all I had was a little read bump not much worse than a mosquito bite. I think some people are just very allergic to them and when bitten the bite gets really bad while with some nothing happens....

 

[SheepDog]

Brown recluse spiders have an enzymatic toxin that dissolves tissue. If you try to clean the wound it just spreads the enzyme and it gets worse. It is not as life threatening as the neurotoxin that Black widows use but it is a lot uglier.

 

[snert]

I lived in a 1880 house. It had "regular spiders" and some BR's. Besides it had other insects due to a stone dirt foundation and balloon walls. I bought five cans of auto- discharge insect killer (foggers) which was three more than recommended. I turned off everything that may ignite the fog. It was summer, and I was going on vacation. I set them off in the basement and up into the walls atop the foundation. i ran out, locked door and left for two weeks. i looked back to see mist coming out from cracks in the walls of the house and from basement, so I KNOW I got good dispersion. When I came home the goldfish were dead, (ooops) and I had to wash down the sleeping and eating areas, air the place out (we stayed in camper for a day upon return). I did not see a living bug in that hose for three years. I had dead creatures in every crevass and window, on the floor, under the appliances. Most were spiders. It was GREAT!

Lived there 15 years and when I left it was infested again, and not by any cause of my own, just an old house. So glad to be out of there.

 

[hunter243sgk]

I lived in a 1880 house. It had "regular spiders" and some BR's. Besides it had other insects due to a stone dirt foundation and balloon walls. I bought five cans of auto- discharge insect killer (foggers) which was three more than recommended. I turned off everything that may ignite the fog. It was summer, and I was going on vacation. I set them off in the basement and up into the walls atop the foundation. i ran out, locked door and left for two weeks. i looked back to see mist coming out from cracks in the walls of the house and from basement, so I KNOW I got good dispersion. When I came home the goldfish were dead, (ooops) and I had to wash down the sleeping and eating areas, air the place out (we stayed in camper for a day upon return). I did not see a living bug in that hose for three years. I had dead creatures in every crevass and window, on the floor, under the appliances. Most were spiders. It was GREAT!

Lived there 15 years and when I left it was infested again, and not by any cause of my own, just an old house. So glad to be out of there.

I would like to know what brand you used. As I live in a very old house and it is not sealed up good. The rooms I have remodeled are fine (used drywall in them) but the ones I haven't are just not sealed off good I guess. I keep trying to caulk and foam spray insulation in every crack and hole but I still get critters in. Even now in winter I am always finding lady bugs anytime it warms up any.

 

[eric n]

We have brown recluse pretty bad in our home here in Arkansas. One day I was riding my motorcycle and felt something in my ear. It felt like water, I thought it had got in there when I showered. Anyway all day long I could feel it in there. That night in bed when I got still, I felt it moving and something crawled out of my ear. I mashed it with my finger and turned the light on. It was a brown recluse! No joke.

Why did you have to post that? I'm going to bore scope my ears every time they itch now. Thanks....

 

[snert]

I would like to know what brand you used. As I live in a very old house and it is not sealed up good. The rooms I have remodeled are fine (used drywall in them) but the ones I haven't are just not sealed off good I guess. I keep trying to caulk and foam spray insulation in every crack and hole but I still get critters in. Even now in winter I am always finding lady bugs anytime it warms up any.

I do not recall. I bought it at a local hardware store. Similar to "flea bomb" if i recall correctly it listed everything from roaches to pill bugs on the hit list...might have been black flag. Each can was about 1/2 beer can diameter, with a flip lid release. I might have gotten them at Tractor Suply. You can see some interesting video on Youtube of houses allegedly blown up when flea bombed and ignited by hot water tank...I think more likely a methhouse but what do I know???

BTW, no roaches or fleas in my place, just spiders and ants and pill bugs. Killed em all.

 

[hunter243sgk]

Thanks!

 

[Brians356]

We have brown recluse pretty bad in our home here in Arkansas. One day I was riding my motorcycle and felt something in my ear. It felt like water, I thought it had got in there when I showered. Anyway all day long I could feel it in there. That night in bed when I got still, I felt it moving and something crawled out of my ear. I mashed it with my finger and turned the light on. It was a brown recluse! No joke.

Aren't there exterminators in Arkansas? Geez. I have black widows but they stay as far away from humans as possible and out of harm's way.
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[Brians356]

My grandmother told me a story about one of my uncles getting bitten by a spider in the 1940's. The doctor wanted to amputate his arm. She used a mustard poultice, arm was OK.

YMMV

Was she in "The Outlaw Josey Wales" smoking a corncob pipe?
-

 

[Tommie]

Aren't there exterminators in Arkansas? Geez. I have black widows but they stay as far away from humans as possible and out of harm's way.
-

Yes, we have exterminators in Arkansas. I had my house professionally bombed and sprayed twice within a year. Didn't help. The problem with recluse spiders is the way they move. Most non-web weaving spiders (wolf spiders, jumping spiders, tarantulas, etc) will drag their abdomen on the ground and that's how the poison gets into their system. Recluses never allow their body to touch the ground.