Widows in the woodpile

[riptides]

Interesting things, Black Widows, zillions of them in my woodpile. My neighboor alerted us, as she notices the spiders in hers too. And she is a few miles away. Anyway, it is a fairly large woodpile. Oak, in excess of 16X30X4.

How to get rid of these things?

They seem to be alive but slow... very cold here in Central/Northern VA.

Spray? I am BURNING this wood now....
Traps? Never heard of spider traps? eh?

Comments, suggestions./w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif
-Mike Z.

 

[HalseyGreen]

In the late '50 when i was a kid, my parents built a house, and we ended up with black widow spiders in the bricks. We ended up spraying and spraying and moving the the pile while spraying (while wearing gloves) finally did not find any more. It was a real pain. By the way, this was in Northern Virginia (Clifton) also. Kind of scary if you have kids. And those things kind of muliply quite rapidly.

 

[beenthere]

I would consider tarping the pile and setting off some (maybe many) of the insect bombs under the well-sealed tarp enclosure. Spraying would be a big chore, but the alternatives doesn't leave one much choice (unless you put a for-sale sign on the wood pile).

 

[Chuck52]

I'd say Beenthere's plan is a good one. Just be sure the bombs are effective against arachnids. You could tarp the whole pile and make it as tight as possible, perhaps by weighting the tarp down around the bottom and taping if you have to use more than one tarp.

Chuck

 

[Steven]

you siad it. just cover it up tight as possible and set off some of those cannister bombs for insects.

 

[BigDave]

The last time I encountered a Black Widow, I used a 7-iron. The Driver just seem like overkill. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif Unfortunately, I didn't see the Brown Recluse that got me in the leg on a different occassion, he left me with an oozing wound that lasted for months. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[Phred]

Riptides,

I have that problem too. Leave a pile of wood and I end up with black widows. Not hordes of them but enough to make me pay attention. Neighbors claim rattle snakes are a possibility also.
If you find a solution let me know.
I was leaning toward pileing my wood up on a pallet and storing it away from the house in the summer time. Then use the FEL forks to bring it closer for winter use. This would minimize the snake problem.

Good news is the black widows don't seem to be very aggresive. A good pair of gloves is pretty good protection.

Fred

 

[RobS]

(this post contains no useful information to the original question)

There was a bit on NPR the other week about Brown Recluse spiders. It seems a family bought a house and upon moving in found spiders. Had the county extension out and they identified them as recluses. The experts asked the homeowners to collect some for study. Over time they collected hundreds, if not thousands of the spiders for the local university. They also learned to live with the spiders rather than exterminate them.

Now I found all this a bit extreme, but somewhat interesting at the same time. They even went to the trouble of moving their beds away from the walls so the spiders wouldn't crawl onto them. Other than that, they found the spiders pretty much kept to themselves and were only active at night when the people were sleeping.

Creepy is all I can say. Good luck with your spiders /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I have a friend just south of Dallas who lives in the country. He has eight kids and they have recluses everywhere. None of them have ever been bitten.

I have heard they are a hazard for chimney cleaners. Supposedly they are thicker'n fleas on a dog's back in chimneys.

I also heard the thing on NPR and immediately thought of my friend and his tales of recluse spiders all about and no one getting bitten.

I do know of two people who were bitten by the recluse spider and years later died of brain aneurisms (sp). I'm sure one has nothing to do with the other but............

As for the black widow, if you think you've got it bad consider the plight of the male who's got loving on his mind.

 

[BigDave]

<font color=blue> I do know of two people who were bitten by the recluse spider and years later died of brain aneurisms </font color=blue>

WHAT !!! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Harv, you are supposed to put /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif's after a statement like that. I'll let you know if I get a brain aneurysm..oh wait a minute that won't work, O.K. if you never hear from me again, just assume it was that brown recluse that bit me back in 98. /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif/w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif/w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif