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I have two or three bites...I think one happened Sunday night and another last night...maybe a third.
I've had trouble sometimes with spiders in the house. They're usually smallish grey spiders. They aren't furry or weirdly-proportioned. They're sort of stereotypically spider-shaped spiders, but small and grey. Does anyone know what kind of spider it is? I'm calling Orkin.
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No, their bodies weren't all round like that...and their legs were shorter in proportion to their bodies...I've been looking through spider pictures, but I haven't found anything yet..
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Do you know what a black widow or a brown recluse look like? They don't look like what you've described, as far as I can tell, but those are the only two really poisonous spiders I know of in the US, so chances are what you have aren't life threatening. (Unless you have some rare allergy, that is.)
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See, I haven't seen any spiders like those around Karl. Just the grey ones, or maybe little green ones. I think this one bit me in my sleep; otherwise I'm sure I'd remember a spider crawling on my hands. The one on my thumb looks infected...it swelled up yesterday and turned kinda green, and I popped it and started putting Neosporin on it often. It's still kinda puffy and red and raised. The one on my wrist could almost pass for a small paper cut, except if you look close you can see two bitey-things.
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The picture of the spiderlings in that first link will give me nightmares for years to come. Thanks for that Gecko.
I got three spiderbites (someone at work told me they always bite in threes, or some such, which sounds silly), in my face in November. They persisted for a month (I figured they would just go away) until eventually I popped them, and little things, which resembled small pebbles popped out of my face where the bites were. I put neosporin on them and cleaned them every day, and after a month they were reduced to three red spots on my face, and around January or Feburary they disappeared entirely.
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I think they were the same kind of spider that we used to see in Tampa...they would be outside on the walls of the elementary school. I don't know if any Florida Hatrackers have seen spiders like that...
If the swelling doesn't go away in a few days,you should definitely go to the doctor for the bites-they'll give you a prescription for an antibiotic that will help.
They could eventually go away on their own, but they could also get infected and turn out to be big problems. Better safe than sorry, right?
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I have no idea what it was. But when I pinched the bite, to try and get whatever was in there out, so I could properly clean it, the little thing just popped out, literally you could hear the pop (and I certainly felt it) and it was like a tiny pebble about the size of the bite, which was maybe pimple sized.
Maybe it was an egg laid in my face? Maybe puss or something that congealed together? I have no idea, I didn't save it.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Maybe it was an egg laid in my face? Maybe puss or something that congealed together? I have no idea, I didn't save it.
Oh, golly. This is how urban legends start! It was NOT an egg! (In fact, the bites were almost certainly not spider bites at all -- see my previous post.) It was almost certainly a dried accumulation of pus and related tissues.
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Oh I was kidding about the egg. Spiders don't usually (that I know of) lay single eggs like that, they have nests with hundreds of eggs at at time. I've seen Charlotte's Web
The pus thing however sounded extremely likely to me. Maybe it wasn't a spider. I don't really know, I just know we have spiders all over the house, so I assumed.
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Huh. This reminds me of a story. Last August, my father and I opened the door to the basement at his house. It took a while for my eyes to discern the spider on the wall. Then I noticed another one. Their shape, leg pattern, and color all matched the brown recluse brown recluse.
A quick glance around the walls above the door (and above my head...YIKES!) would have given the common arachnophobic person nightmares for a month. Seriously. Brown recluses clung to the walls around the door and numbered in the dozens.
Not. Kidding. I won't soon forget it.
We popped a couple cans of poison down the steps and left the house.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I don't really know, I just know we have spiders all over the house, so I assumed.
As you may have seen from the first link, that is what most people assume. I have no idea why, except perpetuation of an untrue meme.
I used to think it was true too, until my kids' pediatrician set me straight. Since then I've done a bit of reading on the subject. Unfortunately, all too many doctors perpetuate the myth instead of quashing it.
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The thing is, spiders are the only creatures I've ever had trouble with...I don't have any fur-covered pets or flies. I once got sugar ants in the kitchen when I left some Kool-aid out...
Gah. It lists staph as an infection that causes bitelike things. I had a bad staph infection four years ago. This is the first rashy-bitey sort of thing I've really had since. I'll have Michael change the sheets when he gets home..
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: Huh. This reminds me of a story. Last August, my father and I opened the door to the basement at his house. It took a while for my eyes to discern the spider on the wall. Then I noticed another one. Their shape, leg pattern, and color all matched the brown recluse brown recluse.
A quick glance around the walls above the door (and above my head...YIKES!) would have given the common arachnophobic person nightmares for a month. Seriously. Brown recluses clung to the walls around the door and numbered in the dozens.
Not. Kidding. I won't soon forget it.
We popped a couple cans of poison down the steps and left the house.
Yeah, see, that'd be the moment I moved out, sans my stuff. I'd be too worried there were spiders in my clothes.
Posts: 55 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:Myth: How could insects be biting me? I see only spiders in the house!
Fact: Ah, but spiders are exclusively predators. Essentially all the food a spider consumes in its lifetime is other small living creatures, mainly insects. House spiders may be more conspicuous than household insects, but they could not live there without insects to eat. And if they were not there, there'd be a lot more insects!
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: Huh. This reminds me of a story. Last August, my father and I opened the door to the basement at his house. It took a while for my eyes to discern the spider on the wall. Then I noticed another one. Their shape, leg pattern, and color all matched the brown recluse brown recluse.
A quick glance around the walls above the door (and above my head...YIKES!) would have given the common arachnophobic person nightmares for a month. Seriously. Brown recluses clung to the walls around the door and numbered in the dozens.
Not. Kidding. I won't soon forget it.
We popped a couple cans of poison down the steps and left the house.
I went to Texas a couple times last year to visit family, and one time I got up early and my cousin asked me to go grab us some coffee (hot chocolate for me) at Starbucks, and said I could borrow her car. I said sure, went outside and on the hood of her car were four Brown Recluse spiders. I walked right back in and told her to get her own coffee, at which point she went outside, calmly flicked the spiders off her car, and went off to get coffee.
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Rivka, I lived in a house where I routinely got bit by spiders (I saw one do it once, I knew they were spiders.)
They were one of the kind that can bite humans (some don't have the jaws for it) but where the bite is supposed to "completely go away in a couple of hours", as per that link. Unfortunately, I am allergic to the venom. I'd get one bite on the foot and my entire leg would swell up. I missed every field trip my 5th grade year (and a lot more school besides.) It stunk.
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Oh, it does happen. Just way, way less than they get blamed. Bedbugs and other biting insects are far more often the culprits.
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They're about 4 hours apart. I'm totally up for the idea of LonghornCon! :-D I'd drive down to Houston, or have it here in Dallas. I know pfresh85 lives in the area and I believe vonk is in Houston. Maybe we could even intice some people from neighboring states. When would you be in Texas?
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Indeed, I am in the area. I vary between living in Richardson (suburb of Dallas) and Kingwood (suburb of Houston), what with school and all. Depending on where/when a supposed LonghornCon would be, I might be game for it.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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My mom is going down for my cousin's graduation, and to pick up my Grandpa for the summer, in late May, and chances are good that I'll be going down then.
pfresh - Kingwood is where I'll be staying, that's where my family lives.
I don't know how likely it will be that I can get to Dallas. I'd have to borrow a car from a family member and escape for the entire day, which my family wouldn't be happy about, especially lending me a car. But if you could all make it to Kingwood, I could easily slip away for awhile to hang out. I'm sure we could find a park somewhere, maybe do a cook out?
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I could most likely make it to Kingwood on a weekend in late May. I graduate in early May and I don't know what my schedule will be like after that. I'm currently in the interviewing process and I hope to have a job and knowledge of start dates and such within the next few weeks. Two of the jobs I'm interviewing with start off with an out of town conference/ training thing that I imagine would happen in late May or early June, so I'm hesitant to say I could certainly make it. If I'm able to, I'll come. I'll let you know when I have more information. If I can, a cook out sounds fun.
brojack17- Any idea when your next trip to Houston is?
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Ok, color is useless in identifying spiders, we need more detail. More description. Size, number of eyes and organization, hair, apparent weight.
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I'll say once more that it depends on when/where a con is if I can come or not. While I'll be in Kingwood after I graduate in early May, my family's going to Hawaii in late May (like the 20th or so), as that's the only time when all of us kids are free of school and other stuff. It's only for a week though, so I'll probably be back before May is over. If I can make it, it'll be cool. If not, no big deal.
And rivka, I was surprised about the turn this thread took. I wasn't particularly interested in a spider thread, but then I heard about the con stuff and so I came in. Seems an odd place for it, but I guess that's how it happens.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Euripides: Yeah, I don't really understand the potency of American arachnophobia.
It's no stranger than Australia's odd addiction to Foster's.
We hate anything that a scary movie has been made about, which is why we kill sharks and spiders willy nilly even when it's really not wise to do so.
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Ooooh, bad memories. One of these chaps lived in the wall of the hut I lived in on a Moshav in Isreal, until a more arachnahobic roomie than I caught it in the open and pounded it a foot deep into the ground with a broom, during a berserker freak-out.
They also used to hide in the crates in the packing plant where I worked. Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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Rivka, I have been bitten by a spider in my sleep. The evidence was both a bite consistent with that of a brown recluse, and a smooshed brown recluse body in my sheets. I agree, though, that most of the time when people think that a spider bit them in their sleep, they're wrong.
TStorm, the cans of poison probaby didn't have much impact on your brown recluse population; recluses are very hard to poison. Your best bet, when trying to control a recluse population, is to put down sticky traps, situating them so that they're directly against the walls.
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quote:Originally posted by Amanecer: brojack17- Any idea when your next trip to Houston is?
It's supposed to be next week, but I am trying to get out of that one. The next one will be the week of May 9 (unless something somes up sooner).
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