How do you get rid of spiders? It seems I see way too many of them in my apartment. On my nightstand, crawling out from under shelves or my desk, out of my BED, crawling down the walls, the ceiling of the bathroom...
*shudder*
I need to get rid of them. Normally I'm not squicked by them, but THIS MANY is really getting me tweaked.
posted
I'd just put a big bucket of dead flies in the corner, far away from your bed. It'll take 'em a while to get through that.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
All yah need to do is to get a rubber-band gun and just have really good aim. It may not get rid of the spiders permanetly, but it's a lot of fun.
Posts: 1789 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
One time I shot a hobo spider with a BB gun. IT left a splat mark 5 inches across on the barn wall.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
You get rid of the spiders by not having anything for them to eat. They are only there because of all the delectable bugs your apartment offers them..... Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Or you could get a cat or a bird or something that eats spiders and let it loose in your house. (of course, I remember your place is No Pets.) What was it that the old lady who swallowed a fly got to get rid of the spider she swallowed to get rid of the fly? Get one of those.
Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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She swalloed a bird to catch the spider (that wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her).
Mack, I sympathize. My upstairs bathroom doesn’t have a shower, so I shower in the basement and the spiders have taken over the basement bathroom. I clean ‘em out before I get in the shower, but then I’m reaching for the shampoo and here comes a giant spider, lowering itself from the ceiling. I don’t mind them at any other time or place – I just pick them up on a piece of paper and carry them outside – but that really isn’t an option when I’m in the shower. Psycho spiders. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:You get rid of the spiders by not having anything for them to eat.
But what if mac is the thing they want to eat?
Seriously though, mac, your options are kind of limited. Getting rid of their food sources is a very good suggestion. Pesticides won't really do that much to spiders, but since pesticide exposure supposedly ups your chances of contracting nasty things like Parkinson's later in life, you're probably much better off not using them anyway.
You can lay out sticky traps in high spider-traffic areas; brown recluses, for example, like to stay close to walls, so putting the occasional sticky trap along your baseboard would probably help.
Other than that I don't really have any good suggestions. You could do a really thorough search for egg sacs to try to limit the next generation, but there are inevitably going to be sacs hidden in places you won't be able to think of, or reach, or both.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I love spiders. They keep away bugs that really bother me like mosquitos.
I do, however, draw the line at brown recluses. My brother was bit by one and it was not pretty. Fortunately, it was on his forearm. It didn't make him the belle of the ball, but it didn't kill him either.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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First, try the Mystic Method. On a day when you have some time to spend, sit and watch the spiders for a while. Try to establish an appreciation and connection with them. Then, explain that while you appreciate their help keeping the local insect population in check, they are creeping you out. Ask them if perhaps some of them can move on to other places where they are more needed. See if there's anything that your spideys are trying to teach you (do you need to clean corners more often?).
Then, if they don't give you respite in a couple days, get out the vaccuum cleaner. Suck those babies down the tube, along with their webs and egg sacs. Make sure to warn them first, so that they can flee if they want to. Then, show no mercy.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
1. Smash every single one you see with a hammer.
2. Laugh maniaclly.
3. Repeat.
My sister hates spiders and this seems to work well for her.
Our apartment does occasionally have spiders, but they generally don't live long enough to enjoy the trip down the toilet bowl.
Posts: 753 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
You know, Jenny, I actually did this with some mice that were invading my home. I explained to them that I respected their right to exist, but that the space they were wanting to live in was space that I claimed as my own, and they were no longer welcome. I said that I wanted them to leave immediately, and that I would be putting out live traps to forcibly remove them if they refused to leave. If the live traps didn't work I would resort to sticky traps, which would be much less fun but still not lethal for them, and that if that didn't work I would resort to conventional mouse traps. That was two weeks ago, and I haven't seen any sign (ie droppings, smell, or the sound of scrabbling little feet in the air ducts) of them since.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
We had spiders in our apartment shortly after we moved in. Brown recluses, not just daddy longlegs. We got rid of them by calling the apartment manager and saying, "Hey, there is really a disturbing number of scary-bad, kill-you-dead spiders in our apartment. Is there anything you can do about it?"
posted
I'd suggest hiring Doc Oc, The Gremlin, or Dr. Doom, but they haven't been able to get rid of one spider.
Go with an exterminator, and I don't mean Arnold. (Arnold will be out of Terminator 4 if elected governor. Hence he will be the X-Terminator)
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Forgive my naivete, but what happens when one is bitten by a Brown Recluse? Apparently, you can die, but what does it mean to not exactly be the "belle of the ball."
I don't think I've ever seen one of these in real life.
Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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Here is a page that has several pictures of brown recluse bites, as well as text that describes what one can expect from a bite.
When I was in high school, a classmate was bitten by a brown recluse. In her case, the bite swelled up to about golf ball size, and eventually rotted away, leaving a fairly deep crater in her thigh. I was bitten in college (rolled over on a brown recluse that was exploring my bed), and the bite, while painful, wasn't that serious. It swelled up and ended up looking like a third nipple on my chest, but eventually just faded and went back to normal. No rotting at all.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
mac: get used to them. i had the same problem in my old house... i sucked all the spiders up with the vaccum... the next day roaches, ants, flys, etc showed up.
your better off with the creepy crawlers Posts: 40 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Let me point out that you don't HAVE to cope with them. You can do what I did, when I decided to clear my basement of spiders: buy a bug bomb advertised to kill spiders, set it off, and leave your house for a few hours. When you come back, most of the spiders will be dead.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Thanks for all the scary pics, everyone. I think I'll go sit in a corner with some bug spray now. Posts: 524 | Registered: May 2003
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quote: One time I shot a hobo spider with a BB gun. IT left a splat mark 5 inches across on the barn wall.
OK, I read too fast. At first I thought that Annie said she shot a HOBO with a BB-Gun...
As for me and spiders... Most spiders in MN are either Daddy Longlegs or outside, so I'm OK with them. There was a rather large, yet-unidentified spider that nested in the window of our front door. Probably because we have a nice bug shower by the light nightly. But usually bugs don't bother us.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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