Spider Problem

[Guest]

If I used the shop vac to vacuum them up, was that enough to kill them or do they need to be sprayed in the canister?

I checked it & no spiders were moving around.

the food source is the problem

I killed 2 today, but they were in different rooms. So I may have pushed then into other parts of the house.

Maybe its best they stay in that little closet & I can kill them off directly with spray.

[Wayne SW/MO]

A pro told my son that spraying outside and in where ever there might be ants, etc would be effctive because they eat dead prey, alomg with the poison. I think the residual in our laundry room got a few. I spray at the base of the dryer and later dragged a couple out from under it.

Having them in the house doesn't set well with me. Some came out of the laundry room and got trapped in the sink, which started the war. Later I found one loner in a bathroom, but I haven't seen any in the house otherwise.

[Guest]

A pro told my son that spraying outside and in where ever there might be ants, etc would be effctive because they eat dead prey, alomg with the poison

This makes sense to me, that room with all the spiders was full of dead insect bodies from the bugman spraying it.

I later shop vacked the dead insects & thought the room was clean until I looked behind that sheet of plywood.

It was covered from end to end with brown recluses until I got them with the shop vac.

Maybe, the war has only begun.

This cold spell will allow me to work outdoors without worrying about them. I'm going to cut back all the trees & bushes touching the outside walls, then move the woodpile to another property.

[Guest]

Apparently, silverfish are the preferred food source for brown recluses.

http://www.orkin.com/other/silverfish/

[Wayne SW/MO]

Here's an article that might interest some. Unfortuately it doesn't include any assaination information.

http://www.livescience.com/39996-brown-recluse-spiders.html

[Phil Lilley]

For 30 years, we had tons of spiders on our dock. All we could do is knock the webs down every morning.

Last year, we had a company out of Harrison spray our dock once a month starting in April. The first application, 90% of the spiders died. The dock is pretty much spider free now.

They use a natural spray with a Chrysanthemum extract. It even smells nice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysanthemum

I'm sure you'd have to spray the spiders directly but with this at least you don't have to worry about poison chemicals and using too much.

I assume it would work on brown spiders.

[Guest]

Phil,

Do you have any contact info for that company in Harrison?

Im willing to give that a try.

Note: I haven't seen many insects since this cold, snap. The garage is only partially heated & cooled, so its cold in there now.

Thanks for the reply, I want to try the mums.

[Wayne SW/MO]

You can buy Pyrethrum based sprays at Home Depot and Lowes which is the Chrysanthemum extract. I use it in my garden.

One has to check and see what is effective against what. I had a tough problem with flea beetles on our eggplant and I found that they were immune to some sprays. I had to resort to Sevin dust to get rid of them. It's not friendly stuff so I only used it on the eggplant and not when they had flowers.