MERCERSBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – The Tuscarora School District has closed one of its elementary schools due to a problem with venomous spiders.
The decision comes after a meeting Tuesday with school officials and the district’s pest control management company.
A pest control company found the spiders in the school’s library in mid-July. This is the third time brown recluse spiders were found at Montgomery Elementary School. More
This isn’t sequel quality to “Merchants of Death,” but freaks the tar out of me.
If they applied that standard to other states, there might not be any schools open. I’m sure that every school in Missouri has brown recluse spiders.
Have they bitten anyone?
Why they have to be “brown?”
That’s RAY-CYST!
Couldn’t they just call em “Shy Invading Rat Arachnids?”
Put a huge frickin’ tent over the school and pump in the DDT. Problem solved.
Sevin dust will control and kill them. Or go to the pet store and buy a bunch of lizards, let them loose in the school and they’ll take care of them.
It’s amazing how many people have them in their houses and don’t know what they are.
The hands-down nastiest spider I know of. I have seen the damage they can do and it’s horrifying.
Black Widows and Tarantulas are nothing by comparison.
I once treated a home that I collected over 50 of them out of it.
In closets, behind and under furniture, in the cabinets of the kitchen, amongst the objects in the garage – a dozen young ones flushed out from behind one panel of plywood leaning on the garage wall.
They’re hunting spiders and don’t build a web to catch their prey. They hide – like a recluse.
They are fast runners. Their legs spread is the only thing that makes them look big. Once they die, they are a tiny ball of folded up legs and body.
This is probably the best photo I’ve seen of one. Even a dead one in a bottle of alcohol doesn’t look much like a live one.They are somewhat translucent, too.
A lot of spiders have a fiddle-like marking on the back so that’s not enough to identify one as a Recluse.
This pic is great. Save it if you want to compare to some spider you catch in the future to see if it’s a Recluse
They’re African-Arachnids.
Problem is – you can’t put Sevin dust in a lot of the places they hide.
They’ll be on the shelf in your closet behind something, in among your pots and pans, among your food in the pantry. in your couch, etc.
Regular chem application just doesn’t address how spiders are. Not being insects, they don’t do insect-like things that residual chems could affect them through.
You really have to do some kind of fogging to flush them out of all the possible hiding places.
https://drawception.com/pub/panels/2015/3-23/BC322qXPhz-4.png
Thank you very much for the information Dadof4.
I look suspiciously at the spiders I find since I have sewn for over 6 decades and have brought home or ordered fabrics from many parts of the world.
As a precaution for about the past 20 years or so, I usually pre-shrink (wash) any fabrics that are washable before I put them in their storage place till needed. I figure that will kill anything in the fabrics. Hopefully.
I haven’t had success in finding good info about the size of the Brown Recluse though.
I think washing will take care of any insect in materials you get. I would recommend that practice. Maybe not eggs, but certainly ones already hatched.
When alive, a full grown one can have a leg spread of about a 50 cent piece or so. About the size of a quarter would be a more likely sighting. The juvenile ones can be pretty darn small.
It’s unlikely they’ll stand still long enough to pose for a picture. A blur running out of its hiding place while you’re flushing can make one jump and run. I know ’cause that’s what I did.
Notice the odd abdomen shape. I don’t recall any other spiders like that in my daily work.
The #1 feature I recognize them by is the creamy, fairly even brown coloration that’s translucent. Not many spiders around that let light shine through like they do – barring the inconsequential, very tiny, clear ones that are around. The fiddle marking and abdomen shape are secondary confirming traits.
Also, if you see a spider in a web, you can be sure it’s not a Recluse.
My favorite local spider is a black and yellow garden spider. They have a shoe-lacing going up and down from the center and they rest right in the middle of it. They can get quite large. But they don’t screw with you.
I can’t believe I can’t find a better photo than this one. Their webs are neat and I see better ones than this example every day.
http://ipsite.org/335u
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@ other bob
What are you trying to say? Not sticking around to find out – I’m outta here? Burn them with your thrust flame?
I’m wondering if an infestation of what I thought were wolf spiders in a house on the Eastern Shore were recluse. I chased those bastards down with a canister vacuum. It became my evening and weekend sport when I took time off from doing work on the place. One of my tried and true (gale-force 10 hairspray, because spiders=exoskeletons) remedies wouldn’t work because those suckers were too fast. Your comment about no webs has me thinking about it.
Got bit by one in TX. Took five years for it to heal.