How do you guys and gals get rid of these? I’ve tried vacuuming webs and killing as many as i can, but every few weeks, there’s a new web, even tiny webs on buildings, vehicles,etc.My layout and shop are in my basement.
Are they feeding on your townspeople? Sounds like the movie “Eight Legged Freaks.” [:O]
There’s a product that’s supposed to dissolve their web attachments and make it difficult for them to spin. It says it’s completely non-toxic, but I have no experience with it, nor do I know how it might react with model rr scenery & paint. Cobweb Eliminator
Nelson
Raid makes fumigating bombs that you can get at Wal Mart. There are three canisters in a blue box. Ad I tbsp of water to the plastic pitcher, peel the protective paper cap off the nether side of the canister, insert canister in the water, and leave the space to be fumigated, leaving it closed.
You must open all drawers and cupboards so that the fumes can penetrate those spaces. I would also displace several suspended ceiling tiles.
Don’t use a fumigating bomb if you have any gas appliances in your basement that have a pilot light that is always on. It’s a good idea to also unplug any appliances that might create a spark when the motor starts. These warnings are on the bug bomb cannisters because some of them use propane gas as the propellant…
Spiders only set up “shop” where the food is near (unless they are transient, moving from one place to the other). If you have spiders around, something else is around. Personally, I have an arrangement with the spiders in my basement (also where my layout is)…they leave my family alone and stay in the basement and I capture them in a jar and take them outside. No problems. The Wolf spiders in my basement are on steroids, so I know they are eating something down there (and a lot of it) that I probably would like even less (bugs, beetles, roaches, centipedes, flies, etc). I vacuum twice in the winter and keep the place dry and clean all year around. I am a firm believer that if you use chemicals to kill the spiders, you are only inviting every other creepy crawler to “visit” with no predators in sight.
My solution
he keeps the place pretty clean and doesn’t bother the layout much. Of course here he is helping with construction.
We had an infestation of wolf spiders in the basement last winter. The kids refused to even go down there to play their video games. I had a couple of small plywood scraps reserved specifically as spider swatters. I was killing one to three every time I went downstairs. Those buggers were big (bigger than a 50-cent-piece) and FAST! Hard to catch. YUK! And forget the cat/hunter solution. Our two felines were totally indifferent to them. Didn’t even treat them as pounce toys. I found a couple this fall when the weather started getting cold and IMMEDIATELY called the exterminator. Haven’t seen one inside the house since.
As an aside, the CFO never believed my & the kids’ stories of the huge spiders. She was skeptical such ghastly ceatures could be inside our home. Then this fall she spotted one out hunting on our concrete patio and basically freaked out.
BTW, wolf spiders are hunters - they don’t spin webs.
Yeah, I heard Wolf infestations can get pretty scary. I used to get a couple of big suckers a week strolling through the basement and upstairs. Friggin things looked like tarantulas! That was when we first moved into the house. The CFO was convinced we had an infestation and made me call the exterminator. He said you KNOW when you have an infestation, it’s almost like the movies. Knowing that we didn’t have an infestation, I chose the “relocation” method instead. It’s a delicate balance, the yin and the yang! Every now and then my wife still finds one curled up in the dirty laudry in the basement taking a snooze. It’s kind of amusing!
But the second I wake up with one crawling on my chest, I’m calling the exterminator!
The exterminator will fumigate at a cost to you of over $150. He will use the same process that the makers of the over-the-counter canisters I mentioned earlier say to do. So, you decide; $10 or 150… How many Walter’s heavyweights can you buy at MSRP for the higher price?
By the way, the smart thing to do is to do this twice a year, preferrably within three months of the previous application. That way, you get the adults, and you catch the hatchlings when they are still too young to produce eggs of their own. [;)]
Oh, I did mentiont the eggs in my last post, didn’t I…?
I was amazed at the amount of spider activity around the window-wells in the new house. Good thing is it seems to mainly just be around windows and foundation area, so I’ll try spraying there every so often and see how it goes. But still you can’t get rid of all of 'em.
My last basement got some wacky bugs that I have no idea what they were, never found anyone else that knew either. They had super thin long bodies and many legs on each side and kinda spread out all around them. They start out really small but I saw some with bodies around an inch long by late summer. Hope they don’t have them in the new area!!
Just be glad that none of us live in Australia. That pic I posted is of a Huntsman, which can have a legspan of 7-8 inches.[wow] I had an Australian friend who said her brother used to kill them and then spread their legs out across a dinner plate. If you get an infestation of those you’d be wishing for wolf spiders. Are there any Australian modelers out there with horror stories?
Stix,
I think what you’re describing is a long-legged centipede. I had an infestation in my basement years ago, so I know. They have 15 pairs of long legs that fall off when they’re attacked. The rear legs are longer and double as feelers. The total gross-out moment came when I saw one on the wall with a body length of nearly 2 inches chewing on another one whose legs were falling all over the floor. After that I got an exterminator.
Is this it?
Ewwwwww! See those a lot here in Kentucky.
I’ll take a good ol’ Wolf anyday of the week!
On a sort of related topic, I had a centipede incident in Jungle School down in Panama. Had one, about a foot long, thick as my pinky, hanging out in my rucksack. They carry a nasty sting. Fortunately, I was digging around in my pack during the day when I ran into it. Normally we did all our training at night, and if we had, I bet I would have gotten a hellava bite from him. Still creeps me out.
It’s a spider, man… [:P] That was a pretty funny movie.
We have wolf spiders in our basement as well…But not as many as we did. Don’t know what we did to get rid of them, but there were a TON of them when we moved here thirteen years ago…And now we don’t see many at all.
Outside in the shed is another story…We once found a spider hanging around the combination lock we had on the door…It was HUGE! The size of my hand. I don’t know what exactly it was…But I don’t think it was a wolf spider.
Supposedly naptha deters spiders. I have also heard that Lemon Pledge does. Clove is sometimes mentioned
But a previous poster makes a good point. If they aren’t starving to death you have a problem in addition to the spiders.
Dave Nelson
One of my cats looks EXACTLY like that, except much skinnier. (1 year old) His brother, MUCH fatter, doesnt eat the spiders, persay. He smells them to death. As in when he sniffs them, he crushes them with his nose. LOL
Luckily all we have are Daddy Long Legs, which are no big deal, and dont see them much anymore. We also see from time to time centipedes, I saw a milipede once, and silver fish. And summerly ants, but only upstairs. Again, cats take care of msot.
[:O]you guys aint had fun til one of yours trains comes out of a tunnel with spider web and spider attached!
Been there and done that!
I had a problem with Orb Weaver Spiders but sprayed the attic, exterior of the house, garage in/out, and around the foundation. Haven’t had one since.
A bit off topic here, but a chiropractor friend of mine had a friend who took his whole family down to South America to do missionary work. Conditions were primitive, and one of those monster centipedes bit him in the face while he was sleeping. [:O] Like spiders, all centipedes have fangs and a certain amount of venom, so it’s generally not a good idea to manhandle any large enough to break the skin. Not that you’d want to. [swg]