Finally, victory!
 

We started moving June 1, officially ended June 30, and I finally found the Black Widow that's been hiding in my sewing room since then. I knew there was one in here somewhere because I'd find those nasty sticky webs of theirs. I saw it last night, but it scooted away before I could get it. Vacuumed it up today. HAHAHAHA!!!! Take that, dreaded arachnid.

Inside the house? Yuck! Years ago I saw one outside, but never inside. They make a very messy web, right? Where do you live?

Congratulations, brave one!!!

Oh my! So glad it is gone. Do they travel in pairs? I hate bugs, spiders and snakes!

To be double safe when vacuuming creepy critters, I spray bug spray in the vacuum as it's running. Got to be safe.

Probably not - black widow. They eat the male after mating.

Soooo glad you finally caught it! I would not be going in the room knowing it was there. I hate spiders inside but love them outside, their webs seem very magical. I am trying to negotiate a contract with them now, me, inside, them, outside.

I killed a scorpion long ago but never found the mate if there was one.

Not sure how safe that is. I have a feeling that bug spray may be petroleum based. I wouldn't want to spray it near an electrical motor. You might check the label.

Glad you got her. I lived in Florida and knew about some of our local spiders and of course my garage had their share of the black widows as I'd find their sacks under the ladder rungs. Didn't know there are also brown widows too. Had a bunch of them also. Hate spiders with a passion but glad to know my kitty loves to chase them and catch them. No widows here in Iowa that I know of..............doesn't mean we don't have them though. I find spiders rarely now that my kitty is on guard down here in the basement. I heard or read that leaving basil around deters bugs of all kinds so I hang fresh basil in my garages and basement and it seems to be helping as I rarely find a web or spider around. It also makes the basement and garages smell better too.....................that is if you like the smell of basil.....I do.

OMG Don't do that!! It can explode!!

LOL, I lost count on how many of those little creatures my vacuum has accidentally ate in the past. Usually I leave them alone, if they don't chase me around the house, let them be.

She probably does this so he won't see how much she spent and the fabric store...........lol

Thank you, leonf and ptquilts! I didn't think about the flammability of it, but wondered about the way a vacuum might disperse the fumes. I'd also worry that the spider might somehow find her way out of the vacuum after it's turned off. If it has a bag, it might be advisable to dispose of that promptly, rolled tight shut and maybe tied up in a plastic garbage bag. With a clear canister I'd probably sit and stare, looking for signs of life, and somewhat afraid to empty it. Yikes!

In any case, it might be a good idea to call an exterminator, on the theory that if there's one there could easily be more. Also, these spiders eat other living things, including some scary ones, such as scorpions. There has to be something around that it was eating. When my DH was in college in Phoenix his was the only dorm room that never seemed to have roaches. When it was time to move out he found a black widow camped out in his closet.

my kitties just look at bugs of any kind going across the floor. their Mama evidently never taught them to hunt anything at all. but they are house cats. yes, i don't trust the vacuum to keep a spider inside of it. I go empty it into the garbage outside.

When we moved to our present house, there were several black widows in the garage. We called an exterminator who sprayed them. He comes on a regular basis to keep us bug free. But, when we lived in the country, a black widow nested in our dog house roof. We never knew until we removed the roof.

we live in the country and certainly get the spiders and crickets. We just spray with a good pesticide right about now seasonally. I also vacumn them up(did several today) and when I dump the bag I'll either take it out to the bin or if in the kitchen trash bag I'll spray into the opening before putting in kitchen trash so they don't come out.

I had so many spider webs on the front and back porch..yesterday I spent most of the day washing them off. Then I spray insecticide all around the porches. This morning I saw several black widows dead on the front porch. We have rocks on the sides of the porch and they build their nests in between the rocks. I intentionally spray on those rocks and crannies several times a year. The webs of black widows are very strong and they differ from other spiders webs.

The web of a Brown Recluse spider is also distinctive to the touch. I could trap a Brown Recluse every day in my mixing bowls. I put them down the sink followed by boiling hot water. Yet, I'd get another one the next morning. I don't think I ever ran through all the spiders, so I moved and did not take them with me.

Normally I don't mind a spider, but after seeing a lesion caused by a brown recluse which is flesh eating, I now must have my house spider free.

I majored in entomology in college. Go figure.....

When I was vacuuming wasps I worried about them getting out of the bag. So I would put a plastic bag around the end of the hose with an elastic.

Spoiler alert - none of them ever came back up the hose.

Don't believe she was spraying directly on the motor.....I can't see the motor on mine...it is perfectly fine to spray in the bag, which she should do....the spider may be living in the bag. A motor will not explode from bug spray.

Thanks, Battle Axe, for reminding us that the bite of a brown recluse dissolves surrounding flesh. When I worked at a hospital, one of the worst wounds I saw was from the bite of a brown recluse and it required hospitalization.

I make a bug and spider repellent that my aunt taught me. Buy a small bottle of peppermint oil, and one of basil oil.pour into a sprayer bottle with a quick squirt of dishsoap. Fill the bottle with cool water. Shake before each use. I spray around my doors and windows each time they are opened and along the base of the house outside and along the top and bttom of all my walls once a year. I have not seen a big or spider in years. I hate bugs. I want them all dead, yes, I know that is impossible and they do preform a service for us, but they get the whole world, as long as they stay away from me!

I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, and black widows were so common, we played with them with sticks. Never occurred to me to be worried. However, my sister was very afraid of spiders and would not get into bed at night without turning back each layer of the covers and turning out the pillowcase to make sure there was not one in her bed. From her I learned to fear spiders, but now we are friends again, as long as they stay in their area and out of mine. LOL

I am not usually overly bothered by wasps, but I was welding on a trailer one day and they seemed to be irritated. I turned off the torch and looked around. Oops their nest was in the coil spring on the trailer. That wasn't going to work. I fired up the torch, re-adjusted it and tested the flame length. I put the heat near their home and hit the oxygen lever. 1 1/2 foot of flame solved the problem for me. Crispy critters.

So sorry to hear of the murder of innocent creatures. Capital punishment for being seen. I lived with 4 black widows in Africa. I knew where they lived and we got along fine.

Good for you! Doing something is the best therapy, especially doing something creative on the sewing machine.

You're lucky it was only one. I have seen 19 of them in less than ten years. Yick!

In the farming sections of the USA, the MFA sells a concentrated liquid to spray around the outside of the house once or twice a year that prevents any bug or spider from coming in the house. Neighbor uses it because so many grands and great-grands craw on her floors.

What's MFA? (Something.... Farmer's Association?)

I usually leave spider be, except Black Widows when they are in a place I might accidentally get bitten. Then its survival, and one of us has to go. As far as what they refer to as "unnecessary carnage" on the What's That Bug? website, I don't just squish things willynilly. I saw a beautiful fat female Preying Mantis on the front porch as I left work the other day, and someone had squashed her. It made me so sad!

Sacramento, Ca. Just north of where Wildyard grew up.

I was a Landscape Architecture major, and I saw the weirdest looking centipede one night. I stalked the coffee house until I saw someone with an entymology shirt on so I could ask what it was. I went up to him and aked if he was an Entymology major. He said, "Well, a Post doc, why?" Lol, he wouldn't have been so stuffy if he'd known that I had no idea what a post doc even was at the time. I had to go ask a friend of mine who was getting her Dr degree what it was. Anyway, it ended up being a house centipede, about the most common one there is. But not in my life! When I was a child I wanted to be an Entymologist, so I'm a little bit jealous.

I waited on a woman in a wheel chair whose foot was all swathed in a huge bandage. She was bitten by a Brown Recluse in her BED!!!! right here in Sacramento. Ended up in a coma and almost lost her foot. Sh, sh, sh, shudder!!! I've never seen one of those and I really hope I don't. I have seen widows with a 1/2" diameter abdomen, out in the garden. I can grow some whoppers around here, lol.