I recently moved down to the area, and have now killed three black widow
spiders on the side of my house in the past month. They seem to keep
reappearing in the same area. Should I be calling an exterminator, or
are these spiders just a fact of life down here?

Scott Dianis wrote:
I recently moved down to the area, and have now killed three black widow
spiders on the side of my house in the past month. They seem to keep
reappearing in the same area. Should I be calling an exterminator, or
are these spiders just a fact of life down here?

Black Widows are common to this area. I don't see them that often (they
tend to like dark, hidden places) but just killed one last weekend in
the corner of my garage.

--
Susan
shsimko[at]duke[dot]edu

They are not that common but they are around. They are especially drawn
to woodpiles, old wood, rotten wood and dark areas. There's probably a
group of them that hatched out of one egg batch. I would just use a
strong insecticide on that area and see if any more turn up.

Susan H. Simko wrote:
Scott Dianis wrote:
I recently moved down to the area, and have now killed three black widow
spiders on the side of my house in the past month. They seem to keep
reappearing in the same area. Should I be calling an exterminator, or
are these spiders just a fact of life down here?

Black Widows are common to this area. I don't see them that often (they
tend to like dark, hidden places) but just killed one last weekend in
the corner of my garage.

--
Susan
shsimko[at]duke[dot]edu

Hopefully to make you feel a bit less worried: When I lived in Durham
(1971 -1995), I had a small stairs of cinder blocks in a hill garden,
and they seemed to like being in the holes of the cinder blocks.
Since I moved to Pittsboro area 11 years ago, I have never seen one.
I have not heard of a single case of anyone being bitten by one. I
guess I would advise to just look before you stick your hand
somewhere. Wear garden gloves.
Kira

I've had a few here in Durham also. Found one in one of my garden work
boots i keep in the garage. So if you do anything like that make sure you
pound the shoes before you stick your feet in.


"Scott Dianis" wrote in message
...
I recently moved down to the area, and have now killed three black widow
spiders on the side of my house in the past month. They seem to keep
reappearing in the same area. Should I be calling an exterminator, or are
these spiders just a fact of life down here?

We have killed three in our backyard recently (orange cty)but they were
all under flagstone piled up in our yard.

My sister had a dry-stacked, circular 'wall' of white quartz rocks
around her herb garden in a field years ago (again in orange cty), and
on a rainy misty day a guy knocked on her door. He was from one of the
universities around, and asked permission to look for black widows in
her rock wall. He found 26!