Jodo Kast Jun 27, 2008 (edited Jun 27, 2008)
For the past 2 months I have been at war. My enemy is small and can kill opponents many thousands of times his size. They breed in large numbers and tend to avoid the light. Although formidable in appearance, they are not aggressive and will attack only if they feel trapped. I thought I had them under control, until last night. I found one in my bed.
Brown recluse spiders primarily occupy the midwest of the U.S. and deliver poisonous bites that can destroy flesh and organs. They do not build webs, but wander, like wolf spiders. Prey, including any insect and any spider, are attacked by ambush. So it doesn't matter if your house has no insects and no spider webs. You can still have a large population of brown recluses, because they get along just fine eating each other. It's possible to have hundreds of them in your house and rarely see one, nor ever get bitten. That was my case for a few years.
I found out I had them because I got some sticky traps and put out a few. That same day I caught one. I wasn't sure at first, so I compared it to several large images I found online. Sure enough, it was a brown recluse. I can now identify them quickly. I have become so accustomed to them that I can touch them while they are held fast by the glue. I don't have enough courage (nor enough stupidity) to touch one just ambling about.
One advantage to having an exoskeleton is that it takes longer to become dessicated (lose all the water in your body). One spider showed no signs of weakness after 12 days of no food or water, so I had to run a pencil tip into its prosoma, where the brain is located. I couldn't take a chance of it working its way off the glue. Once you start to catch them, you start to catch more. Since they eat each other, the corpses attract more spiders.
My laundry room had two large holes in the drywall, for certain pipes. I bought a foam, called Great Stuff, and sealed the holes. I also sealed the small openings along my sliding doors. I expected to see few spiders, since I sprayed deltamethrin (a poison) before spraying the foam. The laundry room is like a city for spiders, since it has what they need. Primarily, it has water, darkness, and low traffic. Bathrooms and kitchens are like little counties for the spiders, because of the water. So I was surprised when I started seeing spiders in my bedroom. They certainly weren't coming from the laundry room anymore.
Because of how I placed the traps, a spider would have to run out in the middle of the room in order to get in. They primarily hug the baseboards, because they want to stay inconspicuous. If a spider decides to run on the wall or on the ceiling, then I have no defense for that. The placement of my traps is using the assumption they will remain on the floor. But they were getting caught in the traps in my room. It seemed more likely that they were somehow originating in my bedroom.
I noticed my electrical outlets have little gaps under the plastic plates. So I put tucktape (usually called duck or duct tape) around the outlets and along some cracks I found in my baseboards and felt that solved the problem. But I kept finding them in my bedroom.
I wasn't too worried about the window in my bedroom because it looked sealed. It's sealed against polar bears, but not spiders. I found one halfway out, squirming its way into my supposed safe zone. Finally, I witnessed a point of origin, something I had been looking for for months. I took the foam and sealed my bedroom window - thoroughly. Even the photons are going to complain and that's the way I want it.
