Getting rid of black widows

[WestCoastGal]

We're not bothered by spiders outside so much since doing our landscaping, with the exception of a recent find, the black widow. We've found quite a few of them hanging out near people areas so decided to be proactive before someone got bit and ended up in the emergency room for treatment. We also alerted our landscapers to the fact we had spotted them (they seemed surprised although the black widows are native to our area of the country). Also showed our neighbors and their little daughter who we would hate to see get bit. Last year we took care of two of them along with a spider sac under our BBQ island the old fashioned way. Then later learned they are maybe one of the few spiders that will actually come at you, quickly too, if they are threatened. So this year after finding 3 more large ones decided for a different approach.

Wanted to pass on that Terro's Spider Killer spray in the orange can works immediately on them. Locate their webs during the day and come back out after dark with a flashlight and chances are you'll find them around the web. If not, use a twig to lightly disturb the web and chances are she'll come out to investigate.

As I understand it, it will also work just as fast on any black widow spider sacs. Didn't see any this go round and hopefully got to the mothers before she laid any. Definitely don't want to have those break open and hundreds go scattering.

We have used the Terro ant bait liquid in the past for ant problems in the house usually during the dry summer months when they are looking for water and found it worked very well for us with the ants we had. We tried an organic spider spray on the black widows the first night but to little effect. It didn't say specifically for black widows so were glad to have found this solution.

[Hammer]

You may actually be dealing with an infestation of brown widow spiders. Here in SoCal they are a non native species that has exploded onto the scene in the last decade...ish. They are far less dangerous than black widows but are also much more comfortable out in the open in areas where humans and spiders will interact.

[DoomsDave]

Black widows are all over the place in California and it's a big shock when you realize it. They are all over.

They like to hide - a particular favorite spot is under the rims of 15 gallon nursery cans. But any dark, sheltered spot will do.

They perform a function of keeping insects under control. Trying to kill them off is likely futile, since there are so many. Spiders are very tough and really resist efforts to poison them.

Considering how ubiquitous they are, what's surprising is that there aren't more incidents. I think it's because the spiders are shy and would much rather run than fight.

If I have to kill a critter like that, I usually use brake cleaner from the auto parts store. It's cheap, and it kills the spider or other critter almost instantly, and leaves no residue, and the odor disappears rapidly. Works great on those giant wood roaches that used to like to invade my house in the summer.

[MattyB]

Like Dave said, trying to control them is futile. They're everwhere, once you know how to spot them. If you find them on your BBQ or kids playset, etc., then that makes sense to get rid of them, but trying to go around the house and kill them all just doesn't make sense to me. Their benefits greatly outweigh the dangers. If you notice, when you disturb them they usually run away or fall to the ground in a little ball and play dead.

[WestCoastGal]

Hammer, no these are the classic black body with bright red hourglass on the underside. Can't mistake them. I'll see if my husband still has a photo of any of the ones he found in our yard. If I'm not mistaken the brown widows which can have more of a yellowish hourglass, prominent or not, are the males. And the males' venom isn't suppose to be anywhere near as toxic as the females. If you see brown ones, no doubt you have the females as well though. Their webs differ greatly from the other spiders in our yard so are kind of easy to spot. Hubby found another one last night in a web near one of sabals by our seating area.

I'm allergic to bee stings and also have asthma since moving to our dusty valley and don't want to find out how I'll react to a black widow bite. While our BBQ island was being wired and plumbed last year, our electrician came to the house one day and said he wasn't staying long, had a doctor's appointment and was in a lot of pain and didn't feel well at all. Showed me his neck which looked liked either a spider bite or maybe the start of an adult shingles attack. He said the tests they did were inconclusive but he was gone for a few weeks and said it took him a long time to recover completely. Whatever they gave him helped with his intial pain, which he said was the worst he had felt before, but the pain still lingered. Months later from this is when my husband found those two black widows under the completed island and to be honest we wonder if he could have been bit while working under there prior to his symptoms appearing. From what I understand many times you wouldn't even know you got bit.

We're just spot spraying the black widows when we find them now. If we don't and they lay eggs they will populate our yard quickly and with hundreds in a sac you can see how a neighborhood or your home can easily get infested and you'll need to call in the pros. I imagine this is a similar problem that people in the southwest experience with scorpions. We're just hoping to control the population around us best we can. No illusions that total control is anywhere achievable. Just a quick spray on them seems to do the trick and we don't use more than that.

DoomsDave I have never heard of brake cleaner being used. I'll keep that in mind. Right now we have a whole can of the Terro Spider Spray to use up and I'm hoping we don't have so many of the spiders around us that we exhaust the can quickly.

[DoomsDave]

Debbie:

Sorry if I sounded flip or cavalier.

Sorry to hear about your allergies. Those can be a nasty problem, thankfully I don't have to worry about that.

I was truly shocked at how common BW are out here. In Ohio, where I'm from, they're much less common.

Given how common BWs are, you might want to find out if you're allergic to the BW venom. Spider venom is very different from bees, wasps, and ants, and you may find you're not allergic, which is nice to know. That won't mean it's harmless, but at least it won't be a disaster like an allergic reaction can be.

Brake cleaner is great because it won't injure most surfaces, though I'd be careful about fabrics like silk. (My place is strictly easy-care . . . ) I suppose it's not "green" but it's probably better than poisons. It's certainly cheaper.

[Stevetoad]

i had a massive amount of brown widows all around my yard. with a 3 year old running around it worries me. ive gotten ridd of them for the most part. what i have done for over a year is go out once every 2 weeks at night with my pipe torch and flashlight and burn them to death. they are very easy to spot at night and they wont move. once you hit them with the flame they will fall on to the ground in a ball THEY ARE NOT DEAD. blast them at that point. make sure to get the littlest ones too. the other thing ive done is catch as many lizards as i could and released them into my yard. they wont eat the widows but the do a good job at limiting there food supply. i used to kill about 30-40 every 2 weeks, now im lucky to find 2-5. good luck

[WestCoastGal]

Debbie:

Sorry if I sounded flip or cavalier.

Sorry to hear about your allergies. Those can be a nasty problem, thankfully I don't have to worry about that.....

Thanks Dave; but no, I didn't take your comments that way. And the advice about talking to my allergist is a good one, probably wouldn't have thought to mention it and I fortunately have an annual apt with my allergist coming up this month. I know there are a lot of people who just can't stand spiders anywhere around them and for me it's a different issue. This is the only one I know of in my area I need to be careful of. I know kids, the elderly, people with allergies and even pets are at greater risk of the effects of their bite.

After the suggestion of brake cleaner I did an internet search specifically for brake cleaner and spiders and it came up with lots of automotive people using the same thing. Who would have thought. Never came up in our internet searches for treatments.

Hammer, your bringing up brown widows got me curious, and while immature BWs and male black widows are brown, you guys in SoCa are dealing with a different variety. Colorful patterned back on them from the photos I've seen online. From what I read they are taking the place of BWs down there. Imagine some day they will be up here too.

Stevetoad, good to hear with regular patrols the effort can pay off.

[Hammer]

Yes, the browns widows are EVERYWHERE here. Their hour glass can be quite red. They can even be pretty dark and look almost like their nasty cousins.

In any case, if you don't like 'em Steve's method is a pretty good one. So far I have a truce with them. But once my boy is getting around the yard more, it will be war. Not worth the risk.

Like Steve, I have more lizzards here than I know what to do with. But even so, they haven't made a dent in the population...via competing for food.

[WestCoastGal]

Here's a photo of the underside of one that was by our redwood fence adjacent to the BBQ island seating. You can barely see the web in the photo but it stretched from the fence to one of the BBQ stools. I would feel so bad if someone sat down, didn't see it and then got bit. This one looks like a younger one. Many of the other ones we killed had large swollen looking abdomens (top side) and were much larger lengthwise.

[DoomsDave]

Ah, yes. Lizards LOVE BWs!

I once picked up a BW with chopsticks and pitched it on my concrete patio and a lizard ran right up and ate it in one gulp! Down the hatch . . .

One day, feeling a bit sadistic, fed the lizards, with spiders. I have LOTS of lizards in my woodpile, the males doing their pushups to attract the females, oh the things they do for love.

[Matt in SD]

Like Dave I'm amazed there aren't more brown/black widow bites around here. I would guess that 50% or more of the spiders I see on my property are brown widows, they are by far the most common spider. The egg cases are the most certain way to tell brown from black: brown widow egg sacks are spikey, black are smooth. They both have REALLY strong webs, to the point that you can easily tell if you're fingers have hit a black/brown widow web when grabbing under the lip of your 15 pot just by the feel of the web. Because of this, once you know they're around and what the web feels like, you'd have to be pretty careless to come into contact with one.

I'm amazed that all you guys use such complicated/toxic ways to kill them. A few years ago when I was concerned about them, I just put on a pair of leather gloves and pinched them between my fingers. Kind of gross I guess, but no cost and chemical free. If they fall on the ground, why not just step on them? If they crawl into a tight spot, jam a stick in there. They're not hard to kill.

I don't even bother anymore, if they were an issue, someone would have been bit by now...though I definitely don't put my fingers all the way under the lips of 15g pots if I have to carry them!

Matt

[nachocarl]

Steve's on to it, go around with a flash light at night and you will see them, I usually just stomp on them. Interesting about the lizards, as we have more and more every year and the BW pop does seem to be less and less! Got to love the lizards. The big alligator skinks try to come in the house though.

[Gonzer]

I've found that introducing them to a wealthy and dashing 70-ish black widower works quite nicely.

[DoomsDave]

Lizards are voracious about the spiders and bugs. I don't spray anything, let mother nature do her thang. Rarely do I have a pest problem get out of hand.

[rprimbs]

I don't spray for black widows either. I figure they are just something that I need to be aware of. Relatively few people that I know have been bitten.

Recently I've been running into something much more dangerous -- rattlesnakes.. I was watering some pots of impatiens that I was propagating, next to our front door, when a little head poked up between the pots. The snake looked at me, flicking the tongue out, then went back down and crawled a little ways away, curled up, and went to sleep. I got a shovel and killed it. I felt bad about it but I don't want them making a home right next to our front entrance. And when my son is big enough to run around I don't want him to get bitten.

The type that we have here, in my part of Escondido, are the "speckled rattlesnakes". They are relatively small, and they don't really have a diamond pattern on their backs. Their distinctive markings are dark rings on their tails just before the rattle. Here is the poor snake I killed.