While exceedingly rare, it's always important to see a doctor if you believe you've been bitten by a brown recluse. Since moving around in your sleep would be considered an act of provocation by a brown recluse, it is imperative that you gear up, so to speak if you plan to handle one. Be sure to don full-length pants, a long-sleeved, shirts, boots, and gloves.
Identify any potential spots in your home where they might be living. The brown recluse prefers to live indoors but can survive outside if necessary. Dark places like attics, crawl spaces, garages, and heating ducts are common abodes. Additionally, the brown recluse spider may take up residence behind baseboards, closets, and crevices near the bed. Outdoor locations include outbuildings and woodpiles. Ensuring that traps are out of reach for children and pets, place glue boards or sticky cards in these areas and check the traps daily.
Insecticidal dusts and sprays are far more effective for controlling a large population of brown recluse spiders. Protective gear such as safety masks and goggles are highly recommended. Not comfortable getting rid of a recluse infestation on your own?
Give Miller a call today at ! Understanding the basic details, potential threats, and how to properly identify this unusual spider are the first steps to getting rid of a brown recluse infestation.
If you are bitten, contact a medical professional immediately. A bite from a brown recluse spider can cause extensive tissue damage if left untreated. When you need an inspection done by us for pest control or termite issues, we'll have someone come out during a scheduled time that you agreed on with us.
The bite is usually not felt, but results in a stinging sensation, followed by intense pain that develops as long as six to eight hours later. A small blister usually develops at the bite location, and the surrounding area may become swollen. Dead tissue around the bite may peel away leading to a deep, open ulcer that can take three or more weeks to heal, resulting in dense scar tissue.
Restlessness, fever and difficulty sleeping are common symptoms. The venom injected during a bite can lead to a severe allergic reaction, especially in children, the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions. If you suspect you or a family member has been bitten by a brown recluse spider, it is important to seek medical attention promptly. There is no anti-venom available in the United States to counteract the poisonous venom of the brown recluse spider bite, but a doctor may prescribe pain medication and antibiotics to keep the bite from becoming infected.
In severe cases, plastic surgery may be required to rectify scaring. So what can you do to prevent brown recluse spiders from taking up residence in your home? To begin, inspect the outside of your home for any small openings or holes, paying special attention to areas where utility pipes enter the home.
Seal any such openings with a silicone caulk to prevent spiders and other insects from gaining access inside. Stack firewood at least twenty feet from your home and five inches up off of the ground, to deter spiders from hiding out in the wood.
Store clothes and shoes inside plastic containers and shake out all clothing that have been in a hamper, on the floor or in storage before wearing. Use extra cautionwhen handling items that are not used often, such as boots, baseball mitts, skates and gloves.
Outdoors the spiders may be found in barns, sheds, woodpiles, and under anything laying on the ground. They also commonly reside behind shutters. Migration indoors can be reduced by moving firewood, building materials, and debris away from foundations. Sealing cracks and holes in a building's exterior can further help to keep these, and other pests, outdoors.
Some of the more common entry points for brown recluse spiders include gaps under doors, vents and utility penetrations, beneath the bottommost edge of siding, and where eaves and soffits meet the sides of buildings. Outdoor populations of brown recluse spiders are less common in the northern portions of its range. Use of Glue Traps — An excellent way to survey for brown recluse is to install flat, sticky cards known as glue traps.
Often used to capture mice and cockroaches, the traps can be purchased online or at grocery, hardware or farm supply stores. The best glue traps for capturing the spiders are flat, like thin pieces of sticky cardboard without a raised perimeter edge.
The more glue traps used the better — dozens placed throughout a home will reveal areas where spiders are most abundant. Traps should be placed in corners and along baseboards and wall-floor junctures, especially behind furniture and clutter since spiders tend to travel in these areas.
Besides being useful for detection, glue traps can capture and kill large numbers of spiders, especially the males, which are more likely to wander into places where people are accidentally bitten. Ongoing eradication efforts can be judged by the number of new spiders caught in traps. Glue traps should be installed before applying insecticides since some products will cause spiders to become active and wander into traps. Use of Insecticides — Brown recluse spider elimination will often require use of insecticides.
Some spiders will not be caught in glue traps, especially the adult females, which stay hidden more so than male spiders. Insecticides should be applied into cracks and other areas where spiders are likely to be hiding, attempting to contact directly as many as possible.
Liquid, aerosol, and dust formulations may be employed. Dust insecticides are particularly effective for treating cracks along baseboards, sills, joists and rafters in basements, crawl spaces, and attics.
Dusts also work well when treating under insulation, within voids of concrete block foundations, and behind light switch and outlet plates to contact spiders traveling along wires from attics.
Apply the dust as a fine deposit barely visible to the naked eye. Spiders and other pests tend to avoid powdery accumulations much as we would avoid walking through a snowdrift. Insecticides can also be sprayed into harborages and places where spiders tend to travel. Effective ingredients e. The sprays can also be applied outdoors behind shutters, the bottommost edge of siding, along foundations, etc. As control measures are being implemented, precautions can be taken to further reduce the chance of being bitten.
Shoes and clothing should also be kept off floors, or at least shaken out before wearing. Remove excess clutter and store seldom used items in plastic storage containers. There may be some comfort in knowing that bites are a rare occurrence, even in dwellings where brown recluses are abundant. Please check with your local county agent or regulatory official before using any pesticide mentioned in this publication. Please note that all photos in this publication are copyrighted material and may not be copied or downloaded without permission of the author.
Brown Recluse Spider. Distribution and Diagnosis The brown recluse spider, Loxosceles reclusa , is found throughout the south central and Midwestern United States. Vetter, Univ. Habits and Development In nature, brown recluse spiders live outdoors under rocks, logs, woodpiles and debris. Bites and Medical Significance Like other spiders, the brown recluse is not aggressive. Medical Misdiagnosis Spider bites are difficult to diagnose, even by physicians.
The wound on the left is from a recluse spider, the one on the right from a bacterial infection.
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