Spiders

[hljr]

This is not the important spider some of us have on top of our engines.

These are large quarter size black widow spiders and they have found my hanger to be a wonderful place to live. I see a half dozen or so and an egg sack had hatched last Sunday and there were hundreds of baby spiders on the wall.

Now a google search says the adult spiders live only a season. The baby spiders cannibalize themselves so only a few survive for the coming year. Not acceptable to me.

I want them dead this season. I like the Bic lighter/carb cleaner method but I've refrained.

Any good pesticide recommendation?

They need to go before the plane becomes an even better home.

 

[Commander91gm]

Re: Spiders

Herman

Pretty big problem out here too. Just spayed a egg sack in the hangar this morning.

Any of the commercially available spray's like Ortho Home Defense work.
I spray around the base of the walls, across the threshold and around the tires every so often.

Really don't want them to get into the plane

 

[CenAir]

Re: Spiders

WD-40 kills bugs, spiders and a lot of insects in a pinch you usually have some close by, I use it at work to when we get wasp and bees nests in HVAC equipment outdoors when I am out of bee spray. They die nice and slow too, sorry if I seem to enjoy watching them die but have been stung so many times over the years when you pull a panel off a unit is stirs them up and they all go in attack mode and start stinging me so, and nice to get even once in a while.

 

[flyfred3]

Re: Spiders

Sometimes I like living in England

 

[N4843W]

Re: Spiders

A cheaper torching method is buy a big can of cheap hairspray at WalMart with the Bic lighter. OH BABY! Big flame but dissipates immediately. Great for the egg sacks. Used it on the emerald elm borer nests that were rampant hear some years ago. But at least those critters don't try to bite you and kill you.

Tell you what ... in my lifetime everything will start wanting to move back to the so-called rust-belt. No black widows, no fires, earthquakes, mudslides and we have the water.

 

[DKrueger]

Re: Spiders

Scott, Lets see if you feel the same in February......plus, based on this year no water shortage here.

 

[N4843W]

Re: Spiders

You're talking at the wrong guy there, I am one of those sincere "winter lovers." When I semi-retire, my wife want a place in the south and I want to move north to Traverse City! I think the water shortages in the SE are an anomaly, an occasional cycle just like the Midwest, but the SW is in a real trick-box with water. Some years ago Morris Udall in his primary run said "The Great Lakes States are just going to have to get used to sharing." OMG what a hue and cry went up in these parts. It would truly be a blood-in-the-streets issue. That's a subversive operation I would join. I don't think any water pipeline built to pump water out of the great lakes to the SW would ever get completed do to the continual attacks it would experienced. Hell, I'd just drop by Gary's house and pick up 10 rifles and 10,000 rounds (he'd never even miss it) and it would be "let's go a-huntin' boys! Michigan Militia here I come!

 

[Commander91gm]

Re: Spiders

You can keep the Great lakes water.

Now if we could only keep the snow birds up there rather than coming down here all winter, and consuming our water we would be fine.

 

[jmcb]

Re: Spiders

We've got the Black Widows and the violin spiders (Brown Recluse). Use the bug bombs and they kill anything in the hangar.

 

[gmores]

Re: Spiders

I've tried this and it works to help keep the spiders elsewhere. A 1 qt. spray bottle, add in about 10 drops of lemon essence oil, and 5 drops of dish detergent. Mix a little and spray that all over the areas they like to build.

Apparently spiders smell with their feet and hate citrus - I hear most mints work as well.

Simple and you don't risk poisoning yourself if you brush against the sprayed area or some of it blows in your face while applying.

 

[milojevicp]

Re: Spiders

Hi Herman,

When we lived in Atlanta they were a healthy bunch in our garage and we made them unhealthily with Ortho.

Good luck with this pretty arachnid.

Pete

 

[hljr]

Re: Spiders

I think they are dead now. I sprayed Ortho in every crack and along all the edges. I had two areas on the plane where baby spiders were gathered (on the elevator and on top of the cabin at the gps antenna).

I fogged the hanger as well.

I went back today, a week later and found one very sick snake (ended that misery) and I swept up 17 black widow spiders. The baby spiders were dead on the plane as well.

I am going to use Glenn's recommendation of lemon oil repellent next.

I'm not sure what a black widow purpose on earth is but it is not to co-exist with me.

 

[Flybot]

Re: Spiders

Wait a minute... I just looked it up in the dictionary...

black widow
noun
a venomous spider, Latrodectus mactans, widely distributed in the U.S., whose purpose is to co-exist with Herman Lanmon, (esp. in his aircraft).

Huh... you learn something new every day.