I am not a bug man. I never went to bug school, never got a bug license and seldom gave anybody bug advice, other than “call a bug man.” Even so, customers and column readers want to talk to me about bugs—brown recluse spiders in general, and how to kill the little sumbitches in particular. Well, as it turns out, I do know a thing or two about brown recluse spiders, because I’ve kept a sizable herd of them in my house for about 20 years now. I’ve seen thousands of them in other people’s houses. I can pick out a brown recluse spider across a room. I know how they walk, I know how they run and I know what their little dried-out carcasses look like. I know where they hide (they like attics best), I know what they eat (other bugs), and I know when they lay their eggs (they start in the spring and keep going until late summer). From what I’ve read, not many people actually get bitten by brown recluse spiders, and of those who do, most have good outcomes. I also know that some people who’ve been bitten by brown recluses developed ghastly wounds, some have needed skin grafts or amputation and a few have died. Right now most of you people are thinking, “It’s good that you know all that, Jowers. Now just tell me how to kill them.” Don’t you know, I would if I could. But as far as I know, a neutron bomb is the only thing that would kill all your spiders and still leave your house standing. Heck, even if you soaked your house in gasoline and burned it right to the ground, chances are a fair number of spiders would survive the inferno, set up housekeeping in the cardboard boxes you’ll use to move, and start laying eggs in your new place next spring. You can’t kill them all. At best, you can manage them. Any good bug man will tell you that it’s almost impossible to kill brown recluses with insecticide because the spiders hide during daylight bug-man hours. Best I know, the only way you can kill brown recluse spiders with insecticide is to spray the deadly juice right on them. Some bug men think spraying or fogging brown recluse habitats is counterproductive because the spray probably won’t kill many brown recluses, but might just kill spiders and other bugs that prey on the brown recluses. Brown recluse spiders like hot, dry places. Most of the brown recluses I’ve seen were in attics, including my very own attic. So every now and then I’ll buy a bunch of glue traps and put them around places where my attic connects to the rest of my house. I put glue traps on the stairs to the attic and around the pipes that go through the attic floor. I put glue traps around the chimney. Brown recluse spiders also like basements, because basements are full of the bugs they like to eat. So, I put glue traps against the basement walls, and on the top of the foundation walls. I catch a lot of brown recluses in those glue traps. If you decide to use glue traps, remember this: The spiders in those traps can live for weeks, if not months, without food or water. Don’t assume that spiders in the traps are dead. Some of them might still be able to bite. Wear gloves when you handle glue traps full of spiders, and bag up the glue traps in sandwich bags. One other thing about glue traps: keep them out of the reach of children and pets. Any mammal trying to free itself from a glue trap will leave a trail of hair and glue all over the house. If you want to give yourself a creepy feeling, put on some gloves, stuff your pant legs into your socks and go up into your attic at night. Take a flashlight. Count the brown recluse spiders. I’ve read reports of spider hunters capturing dozens, if not hundreds, of brown recluse spiders in one outing. Here at the Jowers house, we take anti-spider precautions. We shake out our clothes, we stomp our shoes before we put them on and we keep our beds pushed away from the walls. We pull back the covers and take a look at the sheets and pillows before we get in bed. We look in drawers before we reach into them. We keep a little bottle of insecticide spray handy. And I don’t know about the Jowers females, but I check the underside of the toilet seat before I sit down. There are some things I just don’t want to risk. If you’re bitten by a brown recluse spider or if you think you were bitten, get to a doctor. If you can, take the spider with you, even if it’s mashed and mangled. Here in Nashville, Vanderbilt Hospital has a lot of experience treating brown recluse bites. If I got bitten, I’d go there. If you don’t know what a brown recluse spider looks like, there are pictures aplenty on the Internet. Just search for “brown recluse spider.” But try not to look at pictures of brown recluse spider bites on the Internet—they’re hideous and they just might keep you up at night.
