Ugh. We bought some industrial strength wasp killer and have been going to town. It's dangerous to do - one false hit and you've done nothing to piss them off. :[
I can't stand spiders. They're starting to come in by us, too. I can handle the little ones for the most part, but the fat ones? No, dear god no.
The fat, big ones do freak me out a little bit, because despite their size they can move like the wind...an ugly, hairy, and potentially poisonous wind.
Oh, hell no. Spiders give me the willies. The only thing worse than spiders is the hideous camel cricket, which looks like a big-ass spider but jumps like a cockroach. They infested the basement of one of my college apartments. /shudder
So, good luck with that shit.
Good God, I've never even heard of the camel cricket. That sounds like a fun one.
The spiders actually wouldn't trouble me so much, but the combination of them being quasi-poisonous and their habit of hiding in shoes - I mean, for chrissake, shoes - is like a real-life horror movie.
Killing stuff with necrotizing venom is sane.
Exactly. Ordinarily I like spiders, but if I had a Black Widow infestation (I believe the only poisonous spiders around me) I'd have to tac nuke it too.
We have black widows too, although for whatever reason they're usually not a problem unless you go into forests or woodpiles.
If there were only some way to get a pack of black widows to come in and fight the recluses to death...I'd be living a Sci-Fi original!
If they do, please film it. Or write a script based on your venom-induced hallucinations.
Just be sure that you aren't actually in some hellish backwoods giallo film-wasn't there one with a killer that attack via tarantulas?
Hmm, that movie sounds familiar. I think it was even directed by a fairly big name, but I might be way off.
The brown recluse really does seem like a concept out of the mind of an Italian horror director. They hide where you least suspect it *and* their venom can cause big, bloody holes in your body.
Yeah, your description of their venom effect sounds like the spider attack in The Beyond.
Hell yeah. There'll be no extension of my usual courtesy of "Find a way to move them outside" here.
It didn't help that my mom sent me this e-mail forward warning about brown recluses, with graphic pictures of the sort of deep, gaping wounds people who have been bitten get.
Haha! It's good to see, in one small respect, I'm more of a badass than prison inmates.
'course, I probably would have flipped out over the spider-nest, if getting rid of it and its inhabitants wasn't just a matter of turning the sink on full-blast.
Yeah, whoah.
I'm a live and let live kind of person, but I draw the line at venomous species in my home, expecially if they're the kind who are *stealthy* (this is why the 5-foot cottonmouth undulating across my yard inspired only the briefest of freakouts: it's not like she's going to hide in my shoes.)
Have you considered calling an exterminator? I donm't know if they usually handle such beasties, but if there's a few...
I've thought about it. I'm in a really bad financial crunch right now, though, so it would have to be a last resort. The last spider I saw *was* killed by the bug spray, so hopefully my efforts are working (I'm just glad I got that nest before the hatchlings were ready to move on, or else I really would be fucked).
The scariest thing is that, from what I read, you usually don't even know you've been bitten until the symptoms set in. At least with black widows you sure as hell *know* when you've been bitten.
Yep, I didn't realize I had been bit until I started having chills from the poison.
Ayup.
We were loading various cars after a camping weekend and I said mildly, 'Hey *Friend's Name* you have a really big bruise on the back of your leg, what's up with that?'.
Friend didn't know what was up with that. Didn't recall doing anything that would have caused a palm sized bruise. Also admitted to having woken up feeling dizzy and sick to her stomach.
Another member of our camping party was an EMT. Upshot was we drove our friend (protesting weakly) to a nearby doc inna box clinic. Recluse bite. Three days in the hospital.
Ugh. Damn things give me the willies.
We hates the spiderses! Were you on my friendslist when I almost lost my leg to a spider bite?
That probably did not help set minds to ease... (but is true. it was pretty crazy.)
No! Was it a brown recluse?
There was a minor brown recluse infestation in my house in West Virginia. I've a debilitating phobia of spiders generally, even if I know they're harmless, so learning of the recluse's necrotizing venom caused me to more or less lose my mind. Finding them was truly horrifying, but the paranoia of knowing they were out there somewhere was even worse. I was constantly checking shoes and shaking out clothes and bedding,
*shudders*
Fortunately I'm stressed out over the fact that a computer repairperson is apparently holding my laptop hostage, so the insects are just a distraction for now. Yay for a sucky life!
Huh, I do, so either that map is wrong or my home happened to be the sight of their family vacation.
We get Red Backs and White Tips here - too far south for Funnel Webs thank god - so anything entering our house with more than two legs gets either flattened or gassed.
No offense, but this is why I will never go to Australia (that and the eight-hour plane ride).
Ack! I feel like I'm in the land of giant spiders here, but THAT would freak me the fuck out.
It's kind of depressing, because I always said that there are two benefits to living in Virginia: the weather is relatively mild (we do get both hurricanes and blizzards, but usually neither are nearly as bad as they get further south or north); and the wildlife isn't all that dangerous. I guess the second has been disproven! | 
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