Finding Huge Spiders Everywhere

[southern california guy]

[quote name='jiyoung' date='31 May 2010 - 05:58 PM' timestamp='1275350282' post='2121666']
Totally unrelated--but this is counterintuitive to me, considering my experience with the organizational skills of the Italian people while I was studying abroad...
[/quote]

I like that

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='jiyoung' date='31 May 2010 - 06:58 PM' timestamp='1275350282' post='2121666']
Totally unrelated--but this is counterintuitive to me, considering my experience with the organizational skills of the Italian people while I was studying abroad...
[/quote]

I once met a young lady from America on a bus in Italy. She said she was there for a semester of study. I asked her what she was studying. "Hospitality and customer service," she said. I replied, "So . . . you came to [i]Italy?" [/i]A man behind me burst out laughing: "That's so true." He was from Switzerland. I was pleased someone else saw the irony.

~Sternhauser

[Marie-Therese]

Yep, it is definitely a wolf spider. I have dealt with hundreds of those.

Btw, a brown recluse is going to be pretty hard to run across. They are very small (not giant and hairy like wolf spiders get to be) and a brown recluse hides away in dark cool places, hence the name. I was bitten on the inside of my right forearm by a brown recluse that was hidden in a box I was carrying. I have a very large scar from it.

Wolf spiders can be aggressive, but generally they won't bite you unless you provoke them. I usually just catch them in a jar and put them back outside. They keep pests away.

[JTheresa]

Im laying here, in bed, reading all this.

Just watch me wake up with a huge spider bite somewhere.

Fortunately our biggest pests right now have been ants. They really big black ones and the tiny tiny brown ones. I hate ants way more than spiders. and coming from a Franciscan, thats pretty intense.

[cmotherofpirl]

Its spider season, and that is a wolf spider. They live in my basement and my garage and can get VERY big [ as in 4+ inches across big!]. Take them outside and find them a dark corner if you can, they eat garden pests and misquitoes.
They will not hurt you unless you provoke them and they can move incredibly fast. If you have to kill one a good swat with a flyswatter works if you catch them dozing. I had one several years ago you could actually see across the yard, he lived on the underside of my lawn chair. We finally came to a truce, I would poke the chair with a stick and he would leave for several hours. No matter where I moved the chair in the yard he found it by morning.

[Marie-Therese]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 June 2010 - 10:28 AM' timestamp='1275402489' post='2122055']
Its spider season, and that is a wolf spider. They live in my basement and my garage and can get VERY big [ as in 4+ inches across big!]. Take them outside and find them a dark corner if you can, they eat garden pests and misquitoes.
They will not hurt you unless you provoke them and they can move incredibly fast. If you have to kill one a good swat with a flyswatter works if you catch them dozing. I had one several years ago you could actually see across the yard, he lived on the underside of my lawn chair. We finally came to a truce, I would poke the chair with a stick and he would leave for several hours. No matter where I moved the chair in the yard he found it by morning.
[/quote]

CMom, did you name him?

I do everything I can to avoid killing anything, especially spiders. They are very good to have around. The only time I will kill a spider is in the case of black widows or recluses, both of which are indigenous to my area. My brother was bitten twice on his right foot by a black widow last summer. He found a HUGE infestation in his back yard. Those are the only cases (outside something unavoidable) where I will kill a spider intentionally.

The only things I can say I kill without regret are roaches, houseflies, ants, and mosquitoes.

[rhetoricfemme]

[quote name='Marie-Therese' date='01 June 2010 - 12:09 AM' timestamp='1275365377' post='2121884']
Yep, it is definitely a wolf spider. I have dealt with hundreds of those.

Btw, a brown recluse is going to be pretty hard to run across. They are very small (not giant and hairy like wolf spiders get to be) and a brown recluse hides away in dark cool places, hence the name. I was bitten on the inside of my right forearm by a brown recluse that was hidden in a box I was carrying. I have a very large scar from it.

Wolf spiders can be aggressive, but generally they won't bite you unless you provoke them. I usually just catch them in a jar and put them back outside. They keep pests away.
[/quote]
Thanks for the heads up! I've heard a few horror stories about how a brown recluse bite can get.. What was that like, if I may ask?

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 June 2010 - 10:28 AM' timestamp='1275402489' post='2122055']
Its spider season, and that is a wolf spider. They live in my basement and my garage and can get VERY big [ as in 4+ inches across big!]. Take them outside and find them a dark corner if you can, they eat garden pests and misquitoes.
They will not hurt you unless you provoke them and they can move incredibly fast. If you have to kill one a good swat with a flyswatter works if you catch them dozing. I had one several years ago you could actually see across the yard, he lived on the underside of my lawn chair. We finally came to a truce, I would poke the chair with a stick and he would leave for several hours. No matter where I moved the chair in the yard he found it by morning.
[/quote]
I'm glad you were able to truce with the spider. I've felt pretty guilty the last few days, since I wasn't sure of what kind of spider these were, I've been killing them and/or containing them to show to management. I normally just scoot them onto a piece of paper and take them outside, but I've gone all militant on these guys.

Last night my husband collected my dead specimens all into one container instead of the several I had lying around. Then we caught one last night, which I expected to be dead by morning (all the rest died within hours, but they died alone). This dude ate his buddies to stay alive. Now I feel really bad.

[Marie-Therese]

[quote name='rhetoricfemme' date='01 June 2010 - 05:59 PM' timestamp='1275429552' post='2122324']
Thanks for the heads up! I've heard a few horror stories about how a brown recluse bite can get.. What was that like, if I may ask?
[/quote]


It was pretty bad. I am fortunate in that I don't have an allergy to the venom (or at least I didn't at the time of the bite) because people who have a reaction to the venom rarely survive. The venom of a recluse is necrotizing, which means it kills tissue. The bite basically rots into a huge hole. At the worst of it I could stick my pinky finger into the hole in my arm. It took almost 2 months to heal it. The scar on my forearm is faded out now, but it looks almost like someone burned me with a cigarette.

[southern california guy]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='01 June 2010 - 08:28 AM' timestamp='1275402489' post='2122055']
Its spider season, and that is a wolf spider. They live in my basement and my garage and can get VERY big [ as in 4+ inches across big!]. Take them outside and find them a dark corner if you can, they eat garden pests and misquitoes.
They will not hurt you unless you provoke them and they can move incredibly fast. If you have to kill one a good swat with a flyswatter works if you catch them dozing. I had one several years ago you could actually see across the yard, he lived on the underside of my lawn chair. We finally came to a truce, I would poke the chair with a stick and he would leave for several hours. No matter where I moved the chair in the yard he found it by morning.
[/quote]

I think I have wolf spiders too. And you're right they can REALLY move!! I tried to get on in my office but I wasn't quick enough and it got away.

[Catholic Fox]

The only thing I kill without remorse are spiders.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Marie-Therese' date='01 June 2010 - 06:26 PM' timestamp='1275427612' post='2122292']
CMom, did you name him?

I do everything I can to avoid killing anything, especially spiders. They are very good to have around. The only time I will kill a spider is in the case of black widows or recluses, both of which are indigenous to my area. My brother was bitten twice on his right foot by a black widow last summer. He found a HUGE infestation in his back yard. Those are the only cases (outside something unavoidable) where I will kill a spider intentionally.

The only things I can say I kill without regret are roaches, houseflies, ants, and mosquitoes.
[/quote]
I named him Wolfie of course

I try not to kill anything, but sometimes you just can't catch the darn things and they have to go, its usally the big wolfies in the cellar that meet their maker. I had one drop one my bed from the ceiling and I think they heard that yell in the next county. We have white house spiders in the ceiling corners and we have agreed to ignor each other. Its not worth dragging a ladder out only to have them scamper out of reach every time.
The porch spiders that make the large webs from the roof are also ignored, they are the first line of defense against misquitoes, as are the daddy-long-legs who really are not spiders but harvesters who can't bite you.

[Sternhauser]

Wolf spiders in particular are known to give people a nearly lethal case of the jibbly-jibblies.

~Sternhauser