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Originally Posted by adee
 Sorry man, I'm not insensitive to your pain just trying to add some levity. I hope you're feeling better. |
No man, its all good. I just can't believe I couldn't put those 2 things together. I mean my god, talk about obvious. Yet I sat there reading your post and it just kept going right over my head. Again, I blame the venom, lol.
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Originally Posted by joefixit2
FOur words: Burn the house down
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Already been down that road, lol.
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Originally Posted by Hanky Panky
Two words: Pest Control!
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We have 5 cats. Trust me, that is all the pest control any one house really needs. We rarely ever see spiders, at least alive. We do find them squished here and there as cats tend to think thier toys and just stomp on them with thier paws until thier deal. In fact, I just found one on the stairs a few days ago that was killed by one of the cats (a harnless house spider). This is the first time I have ever seen a brown recluse in our area, which makes me think it might have come in one of the packages we got recently. We buy a LOT of stuff over the internet, which come from all over the country, and as I learned with my Amazon incident, they can and do hitch rides in those boxes on occassion. I am not sure how else to explain him being in this part of Michigan, or in my house for that matter.
The good news is we did throw out the box spring matress I was talking about and finally got a new matress set. So that's one worrisome area taken care off. My darkroom is in the basement and its cleaner than most of the other parts of the house. You could literally eat off the floor its so clean down there. And basements are usually where spiders tend to wind up migrating too when they do get inside houses.
So all in all, I am really not concerened. Again, my 5 cats provide more than adaquate pest protection in most cases and in this case, I am glad it was me that got bit and not one of my cats. I am not sure they would have survived a brown recluse bite so it was kind of a blessing that he bit me instead of my cats stumbling on to him.
Even so, I gave my house a good long look over. Pulled out cabinets on our main level, looked into all of the cabinets in our basement. Looked in all of the closets and even went up in the attic and laid a bunch of sticky spider traps. And all I saw was one harmless house spider. So I am fairly conifdent he was a loner and that we don't have to worry about any more Brown Recluse in our house.
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Originally Posted by protector2814
Jeese-Louise Orange Crush - I'm glad you're ok. I have a comic-book collecting spider story & figure this might be the place to share it. Before I got married & bought a house, I kept 30 some odd long boxes of comics on pallets in my parents basement. One day, I finished some lawn work for my dad & went down to my basement to take a nap on the sofa across from where I stored my comic boxes. I was laying down, looking on over at the 4-box-high, 7-wide stack and from underneath crawls the most enormous, hairy spider I've ever seen. There was a lot of light in the basement so I saw it clearly. I sat up & the thing froze, I'm guessing it registered my movement. It was as large as my hand. It was either a Wolf spider or a Dark Spider. I was incredibly freaked out. When, 5 or so years later, I had to move my comics, it was horrible. Here's what I remember it looking like -
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Did you trap it or kill it that day or did you just let it go back underneath your comic box stacks?
And believe me, I know first hand just how freaky really large spiders are. Besides the Amazon.com spider that dropped right on my lap, I have seen hundreds of large spiders down in Costa Rica, everything from Tarantula's to the worlds most deadly spider, the Brazilian Wandering Spider, which is a type of Banana spider. Its kinda funny, the venom of a Brazilian Wandering Spider usually kills people within 2-4 hours and it gives men a very painful erection during that time. They are actually doing studies on the venom as a way of possibly helping men with erectile disfunction.
The scary thing about Brazilian Wandering Spiders is they don't make webs. They wander around hunting on the ground (hence the name). So they are very difficult to see. I actually had one that crawled its way into one of my hiking boot while I was hiking/camping in the rain forest in Costa Rica. That is why you ALWAYS shake out your boots in the morning before you put them back on when your in that part of the world, or any par of the world that has dangerious spiders. Boots are perfect locations for spiders to crawl up into. Costa Rica is definitely not a place you want to go if big spiders really freak you out. They have some nasty one's down there, some of which grow to considerable sizes. They make most spiders in the northeastern US seem like tiny bugs by comparison.
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Originally Posted by omigeo
Wow to think that you had one in your location and for them to bite, is really uncommon since I believe they tend to be shy..
What matters is that your doing good.
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Yeah, most spiders and insects are shy and will only attack if they feel threatened. Maybe it was the movement of my arm since I was playing Xbox. I really can't say. What blows my mind is that it was able to crawl onto that part of my arm without me feeling it. What I think might have happened is that he was actually on the couch at first and not on me at all. I got up on a couple of occassions to get a drink and go to the bathroom. Maybe when I came back that last time, he was right there on the couch and I just didn't see it. Given the color of our couch, it would have been very diffult to spot him. He coud have crawled up the couch to the point where he would have been between my arms when I laid back. From there he could have crawled on my short sleeve t-shirt and then just jump down and bite me.
And your absolutely right. The important thing is that I am ok. I was able to react fast enough, get my extractor out and suction most of the venom out. It could have been much much worse had I not had that device. For those interested, here it is on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Extractor-Sti.../dp/B004AQFCMQ
Their $15.99 and again, worth every last penny. If you live in an area that has poisonous insects or spiders or you do a lot of travelling and camping/hiking in area's that have poisonous insects or spides, this is honestly one of the smartest $16 you will ever spend. I have now had to use mine twice, once with the Mojave Desert Sidewinder in Joshua Tree and the 2nd time with the Brown Recluse. That along with a quality first aid kit for camping are 2 items I deem absolute necessities when hiking/camping. You just never know whats going to happen and in many cases, you are so far from help that you could literally be dead by the time any help gets to you. Buy the Extractor!!!
