If they weren't "black" I guess I could visit them like Monson?

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1407970,1408100#msg-1408100
"I'm actually surprised the OP is so laissez-faire about Black Widows. They're venomous and can kill children. I'm not a fan of killing something because it looks creepy, but Black Widows are a no-no."

What are you going to do beside getting an exterminator? Go every where with your kids?

This is from the new article I posted.
" "I'm big on my boys, if they want to be in the garage I have to be out there because I'm more afraid of my boys because I'm afraid they'll find them first," said West Jordan resident Sara Owen. "

I don't think that there are more black widows in Utah since I was a kid, just people there are more sensitive about them. It is probably a good thing. I could have been bitten and died and my mother's premonitions about my early death would have come true. Wouldn't that have been a miracle.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 12:21PM by Elder Berry.

Not to play or mess around with them, just kill them or get an adult to take care of the problem.

But remember, I grew up at the base of mountains and was used to having all kinds of creatures that could maim or kill you on a daily basis. Even the squirrels can kill you in Colorado (Bubonic plague breaks out every ten years and squirrels tend to contract it from fleas.) Common sense with nature was the standard.

Don't parents teach their children basic safety when it comes to venomous creatures these days?

I wonder. I was told specifically NOT to touch or catch a spider with a red hour glass shape on its back by older siblings and my mother mentioned this many times to us kids.

We knew we were playing with fire in attempting to catch them.

I also played with fire.

It is probably a miracle that my mother's prophecy didn't come true. My kids are way more sheltered.

It's not like we were sheltered; I'm surprised we all made it out of our collective childhood with our physical faculties intact.

We did stupid stunts with fireworks, jumping off roofs, windows, running around like heathens. One of my brothers was always crashing through windows or getting holes in his head.
Despite the advice about not messing around with venomous creatures, our parental supervision was somewhat lacking.

I think that this has already been mentioned in the earlier thread --- but I tend to be overly cautious, so just to make it clear ---

The red hourglass is on the black widow's abdomen (stomach), *not* on its back. So please don't think a spider is safe if there is no marking on its back. (Also, in some species of black widow, the red hourglass is replaced by a red "x" or a series of red dots. But always on the abdomen.)

Thanks. It has been awhile since I was a kid and now I remember why we wanted to catch them.

Here in Australia we have a spider with a red marking on its back. Funnily enough we call it the red back spider. Quite poisonous and generally found outdoors. Always need to shake your garden boots or squeeze the fingers of your gardening gloves if these are left outside. Our national broadcaster couldn't show a UK kidssshow called Peppa Pig as kids were told it was safe to pick up spiders whereas many of our spiders are poisonous or deadly

Spiders !

Why did it have to be spiders ?

Potter? Harry Potter?

Loved the reference and totally connected with it!

I can remember my father pointing out a black widow spider in our garage. He had a garden glove on, and manipulated the creature's web just enough that I could see the red hourglass. Then he used a booted foot to make the spider an indelible mark on our garage floor.

I have been a certifiable arachnophobe ever since, but at least, I'm brave enough to kill my own spiders and not screech for my husband to do it.

We have black widows here, too, so all of our children were thoroughly indoctrinated. (We had rattlesnakes where I grew up, in rural San Diego County, so I taught our kids to recognize pit vipers, too, but my husband thought that was a bit much. I've never seen one here.)

Ah, yes. Indy. I'm old enough to know that reference! Duh!

Utah has a big problem with hobo spiders.


I've never heard of a brown recluse problem in Utah.

As a kid I was a great black widow torturer.

When we were moving from Utah County to the real Zion our house was infested with Hobo spiders.

Strange to think that coming here were there are all sorts of creepy crawling things was a relief from the invasion of the Hobos.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2014 04:39PM by Elder Berry.

Where I live the Black Widows and Bumblebees battle over nesting territory by our front door--quite the down-side of Mother Nature to watch 'em.

In California, not only do we have black widows outdoors, but a new species that came from overseas, the brown widow. That spider's bite is worse than a black widow's one. It's obviously brown given the name, and it also has a red hourglass like the black widow. Lately, I've been seeing those newer spiders more than black widows, but if it's got an hourglass on its abdomen, it's getting killed.

I'd never heard of Brown Widows, so I googled them. Wiki says that their bite isn't nearly as bad as black widow's bite:

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

if Monson wasn't such a racist he might have liked black widows.

THIS thread caused the death of one little spider this morning, during my Yoga workout. I couldn't tell his color or shape because it was still too dark out and I wasn't taking any chances, so I smashed that sob with my dumbbell.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2014 04:46PM by wine country girl.

When I first moved to Las Vegas in 1998, I was in a brand new apartment complex, built in an area that was desert land about a year before.

I'd only been there about 2 weeks, and one night late, I went out to the kitchen for a bottle of water. I turned on the light and there on the tile in front of the door, I saw a large bug.

Turns out it was a scorpion, probably about a inch long. I swept it out front and then stepped on it, which I usually don't do with bugs.

I told the leasing office the next day and they said they would be spraying for bugs soon but also told me to remember that I was living in an area that had been home to them about 6 months earlier. Didn't make me feel much better.

They sprayed and it helped, but I did see them occasionally for the next couple of years. I talked to the Poison control center and they told me if I was stung, it would be like a bee sting, not toxic or fatal. Didn't make me feel much better.

I've not seen them again since I left that place.

My father was a native Californian, just like me, and he had been around the critters all his life. He told me to avoid them as a general rule, but to bear in mind that generally, the smaller they are, the more venomous they are. I don't know if that is true, but I've never had a reason to doubt Dad's folk wisdom.

When he and my mother (a native New Yorker) were first married, they lived in a very rustic cabin near Yosemite. No electricity or running water. They had an outdoor privy. One night, my poor mother had to use the privy, so Dad, ever the gentleman, took a flashlight and scanned the inside of the privy before she used it. He didn't see anything.

Mother sat down, and hopped back up again. She insisted that she had sat on a splinter. Dad checked the seat area again, and still didn't see anything. Mother tried again, with the same result. This time, Dad squatted down and viewed the seat from a horizontal angle. . .and saw a tiny little scorpion, barbed tail at the ready. He flicked it down into the Pit of Doom, and Mother could take care of business. She told me later that she had overlapping red welts the size of English muffins on her posterior. That story made a believer out of me.

OMG, at that point, I would just buy a chamber pot and empty it into the privy.

I'm terrified of scorpions. Yet the whole year I lived in AZ, I didn't see a single one. Lucky me!

I've found the safest thing to do is just assume everything is out to kill me.

LOL!

I was in my early twenties and was off to do some dirty work in the field (I was butchering one of our critters for family use) Since I knew I would be getting crud on me, I dist the garmies, grabbed an already dirty shirt out of the laundry and jumped in the truck heading for the field. As I was driving along I felt a sticker poking me in the back. I scrubbed by back on the back of the seat. After a few scrubs, I determined that the "sticker" seemed rather large so I reached my arm around behind me, (while I was stearing with the other hand) and took hold of the "sticker". At that point I realized it was a bug. Carefully holding the bug between my fingers with my shirt slightly bunched around the bug, I steered with my knees and unbuttoned my shirt.

Some how, I was able to hold onto the bug, drive and take off my shirt at the same time. When I looked at the "bug" I realized it was a rather large Black Widow Spider and knew I had been bitten.

I forgot about buthering and went to the doctor instead. He said the anti-serium was likly to make me about as sick as the bite so he told to me go home and (gasp) drink lots of coffee.

I didn't have coffee in my home so I went to my sisters. She was known to always have a pot on. She gave me all that was left in her coffee maker (bottom of the pot). I only drank about a cup as I thought the taste alone would kill me. lol.

I did survive the bite but it was a nasty/painful three days. (I did it without drinking more evil coffee. As you all know, God protects those who obey the Word of Wisdom) (Snort)

FWIW.. I now enjoy my cuppa Joe every morning..GOOD STUFF! (My sister still brews an Nasty Pot too.) Just my 2 cents

I know someone who was bitten by a brown recluse along her waist. I'm guessing it got in the waistband of her jeans while she was in her attic. She had to have a huge chunk of tissue removed. They didn't get all the poison, so they had to go back and take even more skin. I'm sure she was a huge scar.

At least with the black widows they are easier to spot because of the red mark. The brown recluses are just small and brown and hide easily.

If it's in my house and has eight legs, it's HISTORY.

Not negotiable.

I've lived by the ocean, in the mountains, in the city, in the suburbs, in several states, and I've never seen a black widow spider, a brown recluse, or a scorpion. We always had cats. That's gotta be the reason.

Get rid of venomous spiders. Keep you wolf spiders since they kill icky insects but are not venomous to us. At least one variety of wolf spider is not venomous to us.

Nobody likes me - I don't know about cats. We have cats and we have black widows. I have to have an exterminator every 8-9 months (course I am extra freaky about them). Black widow bites can kill cats so be careful.

That poor couple in Missouri with the 10,000 brown recluse spiders. That is NIGHTMARE HALLOWEEN MATERIAL if I ever heard it.

had to google that.

http://www.kptv.com/story/26762276/5000-brown-recluse-spiders-force-mo-family-from-home

Scorpions? Black Widows? are you guys kidding me? I live in Australia where even the mammals are venomous. Where the government gives you a medal if you survive to puberty. Where we keep Great White Sharks in the back yard pool. Trust me, yous have it easy.

spiders. (Of course this was over 40 years ago, so I assume it is the same now) They take an empty match box and make compartments inside it. Then they catch spiders and force them to live in the compartments.

Once they have a good collection, they go about the neighborhood and have spider fights with other kids doing the same thing. They do this by coaxing the spiders on to a stick, then not letting them drop off the stick by moving it back under them.

Eventually the spiders do fight and there is a winner declared. I often wondered how many kids got bit, but they never complained of it and no one was worrying about it. Tikbalag can vouch for this because I'm sure he saw the kids do it too. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_fighting



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2014 08:07AM by darksparks.

I had an image at first of children throwing giant spiders at each other a la snowball fights. Just picking them out of a box and flinging them while laughing maniacally.