Ooooo! YUK! Really?! YES!!! There is such a thing!
A Brown Widow. In
Florida! Read this. Or this.
And
we had (3) of
them on our back lanai. And who do you think took care of these awful creatures? You are correct - ME! (to give John credit, he offered to do it after work but I didn't want to wait until then)
Several weeks ago after mowing and edging the lawn I was sweeping the lanai. I saw a couple of spider webs that had what I now know is the egg sack in the web. I swept the webs down not thinking anything of it.
At our house in Pebblebrooke we always had spider webs at the top high corners of the pool lanai. They were almost impossible to keep on top of. They were the result of the 'golden silk banana spider.' Spiders in Florida is not a new thing.
Well, Macey and her friend, Janiel had been collecting snails (since its been raining here so much lately). They were creating a 'snail farm' in an old fish tank of ours. They came bounding into the house with the announcement that we had BROWN WIDOW spider egg sacs on the lanai.
Now, how did these two smart girls know this, you might ask. My friend Nicole (Janiel's mom) had told me about a month ago that she had killed several - one out front, two in the garage and one on their lanai. Little did I know (but the girls did) that the
distinctive egg sac is the tell-tell sign.
See it here.
The next day after talking to Nicole and deciding not to wait for John's help I headed out back armed with my
trusty bug sprayer jug that has a 'pump action' gun to spray a continuous stream of poison on its victim.
It didn't take long on the first web to determine that the spider was in the very corner of the deck box where the web was a little thicker. You could just see parts of a couple legs sticking out beyond the cover. I got ready and sprayed! It stayed put at first and then it was on the move! YIKES! I just kept spraying and spraying and spraying and spraying. It was a fighter. Finally it lay on the ground in a puddle all done in. Thank goodness. YUK! Did I say that already.
The
2nd one was even more hidden. The web was from the top of the bucket the kids stash their swords, balls & stuff in outside and extended to the opening of a plastic watering can we have outside.
I started by spraying inside the opening of the watering can. Then I noticed a spot where it connected to the bucket that was thicker. I pumped the sprayer and aimed up under the edge of the bucket and started spraying (without getting too close, I wasn't going to stick my head down far enough to get a look under the edge). It took a bit of spraying but sure enough - out came the spider!
After triumphing and sharing with my friend she told me they seemed to like the hinge area of the screen door. I didn't check right away. I remembered a couple of days later and when I went to check - there it was! The
3rd one!
I saw the egg sac first and was having a hard time telling if the spider was there. Sure enough. It was close to the same color as the dark color of the screen door. I'm not sure if it was a darker Brown Widow Spider or if was indeed a Black Widow Spider.
I stood back and sprayed. I was worried it would get away since it was up higher. I was worried it would climb up and I was running out of juice in my trusty sprayer. It eventually met it's demise and fell to the ground. Can I say YUK one more time.
The phrase "the eensy, weensy spider went up the water spout" has a completely new creepy crawly eerie meaning now.
