A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2004 Picture time, come & look at what I found!

Is this scary or what?!






Now, I'm no spider expert, but these are bad, right? One was dead, by the one that was alive. I moved it with a stick (6 feet long!) so I could see it's underside to get a photo. I didn't kill it.. yet.

Meg

the one with the red on the belly is a black widow
it can kill you depends on the size of the spider.

here's your black widow
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2061A.html

here we have the brown recluse. Bad too, makes your skin rot at the bite area.

Hey suzydaze.. that's what I thought. The spiders were identical, but one was dead in the web. I don't know, do they kill each other for territory? I guess I'll go poke it with a stick a little harder now..lol. It was a good size spider.. both were actually. I'd say body was close to dime size, without the legs.

Meg

Sorry...that just struck me funny!


I deal with these spiders all the time. They must like to make their homes in and around rocks, because they are under my rocks that I move constantly. I always wear leather gloves when I move the rocks...I'm not sticking a bare hand under there to get attacked!

Cindy

the femal eats the male but I don't know if a male balck widow has the red on the belly.

She eats him is where the widow part comes from.

dime size I think are about as big as they get. I'd look for an egg sack too and get rid of it.

Ok, now I'm totally freaked out! Thanks, ladies.

And these were in your YARD?! And you haven't looked in the newspaper for other housing options yet????!

Me 'n Maxi would be running as fast our legs could carry us, never looking back for an instant!

Yikes, but golly, do we hate bugs!

Whatever else you do or don't do -- keep yourself SAFE for heaven's sake!

Merme

Meg you've totally freaked me out....we don't live that far away

See now I'm totally panicking because spiders are what I hate the most....if I saw one of those around my house I'd be terrified, they just look ugly and mean.

They are definitely in California....I am killing them ALL the time....they like to hang out around the outside of our door frames...woodpiles...the garage....anywhere in the dark....they will pop out once in awhile during the day but they mainly come out at night or early morning.... At night I go around with the flashlight and look for that sticky funky web and start spraying....saw one on the outside of my daughters door and sprayed all the way around the door...next morning I checked and there were 6 of them dangling from their webs. Not sure if the males have the red hour glass but they are brown...with the bulbous back~end but kind of marked...much smaller than the females. I will see if I can find a picture for you...make sure you spray the white egg sacs...sure don't want them hatching.

When the fire dept. came to rid my snake ...they turned over one of my logs that hadn't been cut up yet and those big macho guys were more afraid of the black widows than the snake that they hadn't even seen yet to identify.

Just for your info...black widow anti~venom is a risk too....there have been adverse reactions that killed the person. Just give it some thought before you jump into thinking you'll be okay with the anti~venom if you should get bit.

I would still rather have the black widows than the brown recluse....I have seen pix of them but if I was to see one I don't think I would be able to recognize it because we have so many spiders that resemble the brown recluse.

Brown reclouse are pretty nasty too. I've been bitten by those 3 times now. It too depends on the size of the spide as to how sick you get from it. I had a baby one bite me at work once and it didn't do too much other than itch. The itching spreads the posion.

usually you never know you have been bite til it just doesn't heal. It looks like a regualr skitter bite, or a pimple (depending on the amount of posion) and it starts itching (usually the itching is when you notice) because you'll scratch before you know, so automatically you have started spreading the posion. then it just makes a circle and that gets bigger and bigger and the center of it will start to rot and decay, the bigger it gets the worse it gets and the dead tissue will fall out. (sounds nasty I know) the idea is to get your butt to the doctor ASAP before the area is the size of a dime is a good idea.

then he shoots medication down into the bite area and puts you on a pill pack.

sometimes you run a fever, throbbing in the bite area, sick to your stomach.

I usually have a rough week of it, I'm allergic to the shot they give for it I'd rather have it then the rotted flesh. Most flesh I have lost looks like a nick from legg shaving.

Yep Loz, under a rock that was leaning against the back of my house. This is the first time I've seen a widow *in person*. I've seen photos before, but never before the real thing. And there were 2 of them there! I do think the one was dead.. but the other, nah uh, very much alive & freaking me out.

I went back out to get rid of them, but couldn't find it! They are nocturnal, but I don't want to to out there in the dark with a flashlight poking around..lol.

Meg

Oh my Gosh, you LOST IT !
I'd be freaking out , didn't know you had those, but I guess I never really thought about where they lived , just knew not here.

I've gotten quite used to daddy-longlegs here.

Just spray the area where you saw it and the web...maybe something will penetrate it enough to kill it. Don't mess up the web and it will come back out again...hopefully it will step in the poison and kill it. Those were great shots btw...if you ever see that kind of mixed up web be careful. I couldn't see real good ...but in the first pix near the middle but at the bottom of the pix...the white thing....is that an egg nest? It will look like little pieces of cotton. If it is, spray that too! I couldn't find a good pix of the male....they were all far away or not clear.

I have a question...does the brown recluse have a distinct web I can watch for??? Like I said I have seen plenty of pix but they look soo similar to other brown spiders we have here....shoot I hope the brown spiders here aren't the brown recluse...I haven't been killing those!!!

Ok, here's what I could find on brown recluse spider webs..

I found that paragraph here .

I have seen these critters in person, when I lived in GA. We had an abundance of them. ICK.

Meg

We have the brown recluse here.
If you get close enough to it, you can see a "guitar" shape on it's back.
Looks JUST like a guitar!


Cindy

Ok,ok, you guys have TOTALLY freaked me out!

About 20 years ago, I had a sunny basement apartment in Cincinnati where I lived quite happily. I always kept my open-topped tool box under the ktichen sink which was a rather shadowy place. One day I glanced down and thought I saw the spare belt to my vacuum cleaner laying on the floor next to the tool box where it was kept. So I reached down to pick it up and toss it back in. Ha! The darn thing MOVED! It was a snake!

So I did what any sane person would do....I went running and screaming up the stairs alerting the entire apartment building to the fact that there was a snake in my place. The guys, macho men all, armed themselves with assorted household items they thought might be useful for catching a giant, killer snake. For of course, by the time I told the story fifty times, the snake had gotten much, Much, MUCH bigger.

Geepers, I can tell you the men were vastly disappointed when the giant killer of defenseless women turned out to be a baby garden snake, maybe 6 inches long at the most. I told them they were my heroes, every one. Don't think they were too impressed.


Merme

Yea, I always heard it called a "violin shape" on it's back.. but guitar would suit it too. They are creepy I tellya.

Meg

We have Black Widows EVERYWHERE here. At first I was all scared of em, would make hubby spray them from like five feet away, but we're so used to them now, I just get something and squish 'em. They may be poisonous, but we're a heck of a lot bigger.
We used to have a storage unit in front of our house, and they loved it underneath there. We'd go out with a flashlight and see em just hanging there all creepy. One night we counted 13.

Another interesting thing about the Black Widow antivenin that I've heard is, you can only use it once in your lifetime. So if you get bit and go to a doctor or hospital, supposedly they'll just watch you to see how bad it gets, because if it doesn't get REALLY bad, they won't give you the treatment. Don't know if that's true, but it's what I heard.

OMG, the Brown Recluse is scary, too, and I swear it looks like some spiders I've seen here. Now I have to look and see if they live in California.

I have seen some severe wounds...observed some awesome surgeries.... but this was caused by one itsy bitsy brown recluse spider.
The following link was a few clicks within the previous link mentioned.
bite photo\'s

I'm getting some glue traps! Living in a sterile bubble is sounding pretty good right now.

Gad zooks!

The other day I was sitting here at the computer and felt something crawling on my ear. I thought it was Lola's tail feathers hitting my ear, but then realized she was on the opposite shoulder! I think it came out of the Morning Glory seeds I had in a big box here under the computer table.




Cindy

Isn't there a song called Paranoia ....I now have my legs crossed under me.

Meg.....did you warn your kids???? That's the scary part because kids will get into everything, and pick up all kinds of things......Those ugly spiders better not be up my way.....I think I'm a higher elevation so maybe they aren't....fingers crossed anyway....

Okay Karen here is the snake story just for you....and I swear on my life it's true....It's a little long--advanced warning....lol

Okay so I'm in my old 2 bedroom apartment that I lived in for 5 years. This was the 2nd year I believe.....I was in my bedroom watching a movie and preparing to jump into the shower....I was getting my comfy clothes picked out to wear afterwards when I heard a huge commotion coming from somewhere in the apt.....I walk out in the living room and kitchen....nothing there, nothing out of place.....door was still locked.....so I'm thinking.....okay I'm hearing things....so I'm walking back to my bedroom and the bathroom is directly in my line of vision....it's dark in there--no windows, no lights on......I notice this big outline of something on the edge of the tub......cautiously I peek in trying to figure out what the heck it was.....that's when it hit's me.....it's a snake

Okay so I lived with my brother, who conveniently wasn't home.....so I slam the bathroom door shut and jump in my car and drive to his girlfriends house(about 10 minutes away)....it was storming that night and I had to cross through flooded roads, and I was crying and freaking out....So I get there banging on the door and Jill(his ex) answers the door, and I just burst into tears again....Now I'm freaking her out too.....What's wrong, she was asking me.....I couldn't even talk......Paul, my brother comes to the door....and I blurt it out somehow....there's a snake in the bathroom......

Now, my brother loves me and we get along fantastic, his first reaction though was I don't want to go and get this snake....are you crazy, I don't like them.....Now Paul is a 6'4" manly man.....I looked at him and said you have to get it you wimp, you're the man here......so semi reluctantly they pile in their car and follow me back.....

Before we opened the door which led right into the kitchen Paul said to me....be prepared it might have gotten out of the bathroom....I said you're nuts....I shut the door, and the gap under the door was barely noticeable.....so carefully we open the door and there it was in it's full glory laying on the ceramic tile cooling itself I guess.....a big 3 foot black snake......now around here there are rumors of them cross breeding with copperheads(don't know how accurate that is).....So Paul was freaking out, I'm freaking out....but very thankful it didn't choose to hide somewhere so we'd never find it....
He gets the shovel and scoops it up and carried it down through the field we lived next too....that was the last of the snake.....

The freakiest thing was....I was literally ready to get in the shower....a few minutes earlier and it would've been showering with me .....We quickly realized that it came down through the vent above the shower--it wasn't screwed down properly....

After Paul and Jill left I went up to the local bar to call my husband(then boyfriend).....I said you need to get your butt down here, and I'm not leaving until you get here.....so I sat there for hours.....lol Had a good buzz by the time he arrived .....He put in about 8 big screws on the vent, but did I feel better....nope....I literally drove to my parents(20 miles one way) every single day for about 3 weeks before I could even think about showering in the apt again....

It's funny now.....I used to worry that people thought we were dirty or something when I told the story, but now I realize that living next to a field it was just something that happened....

If the snake would've dropped on me while I was showering I literally would've been scarred for life........

Oh and being brave when I was younger I used to hold my ex boyfriends python(no giggles in the peanute gallery please) :p trying to show off....the next day it bit his siters hand and she had to have it's teeth surgically removed....

Oh and he also had a monitor lizard....One day it got loose and those things are big and mean, when they bite they don't let go....well I went to pee and when I came out they said...oh by the way the monitor is loose and we think it may be in there......it was hiding under the claw foot tub....

My sister used to have a tarantula when I was little...she used to make me pet it, and I think that turned me against spiders for life....it was so ugly.

So yep, I've had a few close encounters with things that give you creepy crawlies....lol

Whew.....thank goodness I type pretty fast....

Well, I lived in Tulsa for two years. Rather briefly, actually....I hated the bugs and snakes and scorpions in the area. Don't like things I can't recognize or cozy up with too easily.

We had this REALLY nice apartment in a big, modern complex that was immaculately maintained. Everything about it neat and tidy.

So there was a flood. The water came. The water went. The men came to clean up. My neighbor had a strange looking LUMP under her wall-to-wall carpet. Everyone had to go see what it was, and give an opinion on how to flatten the carpet again or something.

The workmen peeled back the carpet. It was a nest of snakes. I ran. Am still running. Will always be running.

Merme

Merme, don't worry I'm right behind you.....

laura

*shreiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiik*

I don't like those spiders and snakes.. and that aint what it takes to love me...

Ok, yea, I'm being silly.. but seriously, I don't like spiders & snakes. *shudder*

I was at my boss/friend's house one day, watching their kids & mine. This was like a year ago. Kids were down in the basement.. one side was finished, carpeted, furniture, etc.. the other side, was not. Cement floor, wood beams, etc. They had shelves up on the unfinished side to store electronics on, for thier ebay business. Well, the kids went over on that side, to get something, and started running up the stairs yelling snake!! So, I figured, knowing the tricksters that her kids were, they were trying to pull a fast one on me. I thought either a rubber snake or nothing at all. They swore up & down a real snake.. so I told them to show me where.. I followed them downstairs, and they stood back & pointed. I said I don't see it.. I'm looking and looking.. finally, I see it, coiled thru the bottom of some of the shevling and between a couple of computers. Then, it bobbed it's head. It was real. OMG. Everybody upstairs, NOW!!! I went down to check a few more times, and saw him in pretty much the same spot each time, then he had moved to somewhere I couldn't find him.. and never did see him again. Not sure where it got in at.. the houses back there are new.. at that time, it was only a year old house. But they did have a good bit of field mice getting in from somewhere, and they had a lot less noticeable in the basement than the upstairs.. we figure the snake was eating the mice. LOL. He had his fill, and left, we think.


Meg

yeah, I've seen one of those bad bites up close. My sister in law got bite by one out at the wood pile and it got huge, you could put a butter bowl over the top and just barely cover the edges. once they got the bite well she had to have a skin draft done to put skin back over the area. It was on the back of the leg.

they like to hide in the closets inside clothing. The first time I was bite I had put on a bathing suit and pulled a wrap around skirt out to cover it and it was in the hem of the skirt. Crawled out the hem and up my leg and bit me almost on my private area. and in about 2 hours I was sick as a dog. Hand to be brought back home, stomach was up set, sweating, chills, fever. I didn't know what I had some down with.

Best thing to do if you think you have been bit is take an ink pen and draw a circle around the bite. if the redness goes out side the circle get your butt to the doctor

Uh, ladies, did any of you guys ever think of moving to Maine? We don't have ugly bugly stuff up here, for which I am forever grateful.

You are all either really BRAVE women,or...you are all completely INSANE !!!!

True, I swap a short growing season for risk-free critters in the neighborhood, but it seems like a fair trade to me, considering what a baby I am!


Merme

DITTO !! The ugliest thing we got is Lobster!!