Word of Caution Re Spiders
 

Not sure if they are an issue in everyone's area, but there are always quite a few Black Widows that make themselves at home around here this time a year. One of their favorite places to take up residence seems to be in the ridges underneath our hound's dog house. :eek: I check it every day or so and just found the first 2 of the year had moved in since Tuesday evening. I'm not even sure what, if any, risk they pose to dogs, but I'm certainly not willing to take the chance.

So, just a warning from your friendly neighborhood spiderhater, keep an watchful eye and give a little peek now and then under the dog house if you have one. :)

I think I would be pouring some concrete down and then put the dog house on that. Poor little hound. Yes, those spiders can and do inflict terrible pain and swelling to animals.
We also have those type of spiders if we don't keep the garage nice and aired out and not crowded. We also have a spider that's much worse than the black widow. It's call Brown Recluse. We spray the garage and inside the shed outside.

Brown recluse, black widows and scorpions are the worst. And they are just starting to come out again.

Thanks for the heads up. :)

We just moved from the Midwest (no poisionous insects to speak of) to Every-Bug-From-Your-Nightmares, Southern Nevada. We have our place professionally sprayed by bug people, but I've still seen a handful of different new bugs that FREAK MY GUTS OUT. I know what to look out for as far as all the really nasty spiders go though, and thankfully we haven't seen any of those so far. The rest of them, I try to look up online to find out how much sleep I should lose over them. :eek:

Lauren & Nikko

I can relate. When I moved to South Africa I had to learn a whole new compendium of dangerous bugs...and snakes, too. I lived in California most of my life and poisonous snakes there have an early warning system...rattles. Here, they are sneaky...and legion. There is the boomslang (tree snake) that is green like a tree and drops out of the trees onto patios...and people! The Cape Cobra hangs around buildings looking for rats and mice, but will bite animals and people, too. They are territorial and the same cobra has been removed on numerous occasions from front steps of the building where my husband used to work!

The spiders here are terrifying...the baboon spider is a shiny, hairy black thing about the size of a toddler's hand, has fangs about a centimetre long, and feeds on mice and small birds. Very poisonous. The rain spider is reputed to be harmless, but it looks like a cross between a daddy long legs and a hairy wolf spider, is as big as the palm of an adult's hand, and runs like the wind!!:eek::eek:

Like you, I have a man come spray for bugs regularly!! And, despite our large landscaped garden, we haven't seem any snakes in the 5 years I've been here. But I know they are out there!!

We seemed to be infested with brown recluse's last year because of all the rain and the exterminator said only way to get rid of them was with sticky traps..Only issue with those (and yes they really work ) is you have to put them where puppy wont step on them or try to smell them its horrible getting them out of ur lol
:animal36

It IS on concrete! :eek: (It's on the back patio.)

They get under our flower pots on the front porch and along the bottom of the house where the siding meets the foundation concrete too. :( We have our yard treated each year, which helps some.

We normally have our yard treated around late March...but it doesn't seem to help much with them. Everyone in this neighborhood has the same problem. We just check it, knock them out and kill them, and then repeat the process as needed. I'm thinking I'm just going to get some polyeurathane or something and fill in the ridges on the bottom and take away their hiding places altogether....hmmm...

How about a little silicone caulk? That will fill on those gaps and keep those spiders out.

I am a spider hater too.
Nancy loves them.

My baby Chloe was bit by a spider on the top of her head. I took her to the vet and he had to drain it and gave her benadryl. I felt so bad for her!!!! It's been about 3wks now. It looks so much better. The hair that he had to shave off is growing back brown!:confused:

Word of Caution Re Spiders
 

So sorry, poor Chloe, you hair will be beautiful. What color was it before?

Suffer from Black Widows and Brown Recluses here
 

We have horrible Black Widows. The house was built two years ago and we have decided they feel they were here first and they aren't leaving ;) Before we moved into this house, I had serious spider phobias of anything with eight legs. Now, I can deal with anything. Orb Weavers are freaky looking, TX tarantualas are funny looking, wolf spiders can look like brown recluses if you don't know the difference but they are all actually good and help to keep the bad stuff at bay.

Okay, on a serious note - Black Widows are extremely difficult to kill through regular bug extermination. We treat the house and yard thoroughly every month which kills off most of the yucky stuff but we still have to hand treat for black widows outside. From what our exterminator has told us and what we've seen the last two years, black widows have a high tolerance for bug spray and they don't pick up enough on their legs when they walk through it to kill them. They have to be sprayed directly on their bodies to do any real damage. This means we do a nightly "round up" since they tend to come out more at night. We have spray cans of bug spray and go way overboard on each one. We then vacuum or sweep them up and throw them away. Do not smoosh them, it only spreads the venom on the ground and then bare paws and feet will pick it up until it washes away.

Like mine!!! dark with grey roots!!!:D Now its all bluish grey, with one brown spot where she was shaved!