Brown Widow Spider
Did you know that there are four types of Widow Spiders in Florida? They are the Northern Black Widow Spider, the Southern Widow Spider, the Red Widow Spider, and the Brown Widow Spider which will discuss in more detail below.
Although the venom of these spiders is not as toxic as the Black Widow, they are still very painful and can cause serious injury if not treated.
Because brown widow spiders (Latrodectus Geometricus) can vary from light tan to dark brown or almost black and may have different markings such as white, black, yellow, brown, and even orange on the back of their abdomen, they are tough to recognize! The picture below is of the red widow spider.
Brown Widow Egg Sac
You’ll notice the hourglass marking on the bottom of the abdomen, colored yellow or orange. The Egg Sac of the brown widow spider is not the same as other widows and has pointed projections, much like the old sea mines.
If you have pictures of this spider or believe a Brown Widow has bitten you, please post your comments below and send the photos to the email address at the bottom of this page.
covina, california
we just recently discovered all our black widows went brown. does one species kill and take over the others? where we used to see one or two black widows we now see four or five brown widows. i believe one of us will be bit soon because of their numbers.
There has been two brown widows on are porch. The first one i saw, i caught it in a jar. I took it to my school and my science teacher told me what it was. She idmeditly killed it. the second one i saw today. It also has and egg sac. Also, I heard that they are twice as venomes as a black widow. Also it is the first time i have heard of one i south carolina.
can brown and black wilow spiders be found
in pender NE?
Where are these spiders coming from and why are they all over the place? they
produce so fast and so many. They have only been spotted outside and there have
been over ten eggs; the web is super strong to take down.
YOU HAVE TO KILL THEM right away because if you don’t pretty much you might as well let them take over your house.
Couple days ago my boyfriend and I spotted the mother and her babies scattered along the driveway and then tonight we killed about 15 eggs and the mother.
What is the best way to get rid of these things?
(Orange County)-CA
We live in Charleston, SC and my husband does pest control. He sees Brown and Black Widows constantly. He’s seeing the Browns every single day and can now immediately identify its web. They aren’t even indigenous to the US, but came originally from Australia so my husband tells me.
I don’t see them often (thank goodness) but I did actually spot one at my bank today. Also please watch out for them at restaurants as well. They love making their webs under the chair that patrons sit on. Fortunately the Brown Widow is not nearly as aggressive as its cousin the Black Widow. Otherwise I think from the population of them, we’d be hearing about countless bites from them.
I thought I was crazy when I thought I saw a black widow making a nice little home for itself in the inner brackets of a pineapple plant in a pot in front of my office. The leaves near where the stalk will grow started getting closer and closer to one another over the course of a few days, and now seem to be pulled close together as if being stuck together with a glue. I thought I saw something down in the center of the leaves at the very bottom, but I couldn’t make out what I was looking at.
A few days after my discovery of the HUGE spider, I took a flashlight and looked down the center of what I now call “the funnel”. The spider was down at the bottom sitting near two sacs of eggs… They are definitely brown widow sacs, because they have the characteristic points that make it look like a sea mine.
I noticed a very small spider that looks similar in shape to the “big momma”, and I’m assuming its a sexually dysmorphic (sp?) male spider… smaller and less flashy. He seems to stay at the very tip of one of the pineapple leaves… far from “the funnel” and “big momma”…
Over time I’ve noticed weird webs being built and rebuilt. I’m not sure which spider is making the web, but today I noticed “big momma” wrapping up a nice wasp sandwich she had caught near the top of the funnel. I was amazed to see such a LARGE spider about to eat such a LARGE wasp… and so I sat their glued to the gory scene…
I think when she finally noticed me she got annoyed, because she seemed to turn to look towards me and then immediately pulled the wasp sandwich out of the web and brought it down the funnel towards her egg sacks…
I’m curious to know if this brown widow is responsible for BOTH egg sacs, as everything I’ve read seems to indicate one sac at a time…
This spider is bigger than most of the brown widows I’ve seen pictures of or read about… I’d say she’s probably at the heavy weight end of her species…
She’s beautiful, and now that I know she’s so dangerous, I’m happy to leave her be. My boss freaked out about having a venomous spider so close to our office, but I convinced her to live and let live…
I hope I’ll be able to post a picture ASAP… “Big Momma” needs to live on forever on the net… she’s definitely an amazing example of arachnid heritage… definitely gave me a big WOW!
I live in Orange County, California. Westminster. We have lived here about 10 years. Every other year, I find a black widow and squish it.
I got bit about 2:30 pm today. I was not even sure that I got bit.
The spider was hiding in our patio chairs. I was out reading on the back patio, and kicked my feet up onto a patio chair. I felt a pinching on my foot. I moved my foot to see what was causing the pinching, and found a brown widow. My foot had been laying on top of it, almost squishing it.
When I removed my foot, it tried to run away. I squished it.
I felt a cramping or charlie horse feeling on my foot directly below the ankle. There was no visible spider bite for the first hour or two.
I felt the crampy feeling moving up to my ankle area. The crampy feeling was weird, but had no flexed muscles, the muscles were flaccid, not tight. About every 15 minutes the sensation moved about 3-6 inches up my leg. When the sensation got to the top of my leg, I complained (a little) to my wife.
I went to the urgent care center, and they sent me directly to a room, and had a nurse come in.
The net result, is that I am a big guy (200 lbs), and it is a little spider. The venom is a neuro toxin, and will create the cramp/charlie horse/pulled muscle feeling.
They gave me an anti-biotic (as spider bites are known to become infected) perscription for 10 days, as well as recommended benadryl every 8 hours.
They also gave me a tetanus shot.
There is not much to be done for the spider bite itself, but continued observation. They are looking for signs of anaphalactic shock… Shortness of breath, sweating, tingling, headaches, etc.
The crampy feeling got as high as the top of my hip, after about 2.5 hours.
About 3 hours after the bite, there is a little red splotch, barely noticible on my foot.
I went outside to take my medicine out to the car, and noticed another brown widow on the front porch. I took pictures and will send them in. The spider was in the middle of the web, just hanging out. With the lights on, it was in plain view on the front porch.
The spider just ran away, up to the handle of the garden hose rack, where the web was anchored. In the handle there is a honey combed area on the back side of the handle. I found two of the prickly egg sacks.
I sprayed the area with wasp spray (what I had on hand at 8pm at night). The spider dropped out of the hose rack and ran around on the porch. I sprayed the egg sacks down. I packed everything into a ziplock bag.
It is 9:45pm – 7 hours later. The crampy feeling that traveled up my leg is gone. The site of the bite is now on fire/burning. There is an area about 1.5 inches radius from the bite that is on fire. The burning feeling is like stepping on a hot coal. When the wind blows on the skin, it seems to fan the burning feeling, almost like an extra-EXTRA strength BenGay ointment.
I am going to knock down all of the spider webs in the yards. I definitely do not want our kids to get bit by one of these venomous spiders. I think that this could really hurt a little kid.
Our next door neighbors have a little girl about 8 years old. The height of my leg, is about the same height as her heart. I would hate to see what would happen if the crampy feeling got to her heart.
We live in Southern California and I have lived here all of my life. Have always been aware of black widows. Many months ago I started noticing strange looking spiders that looked like black widows but had strange variations of brown and tan with white spots and an orange hourglass on the underside. I thought black widows had mutated until I researched it on the internet. I have de-spidered our patio several times by spraying poison,then wiping out the webs. I have found several egg sacs and killed them as well. These spiders reproduce quickly and are very prolific. Luckily they have not moved into the house. I just hope none of us, we have three sons, get bit. A friend of ours was recently bit and he spent a week in the hospital! By the way they are definitely nocturnal, so if you spray do it at night so they are visible.
ive seen this spider multiple times over the last year…and my wife and i have noticed several spider bites on them again and again. We have used a spray around all the nooks and dark areas in their rooms and it does seem to have an effect on them but on the outside of our house it is a different story. I kill an average of 8 per week and we live in east central Iowa. I am not sure what else we can do and I worry that one of these times one of our kids will be bitten and something very bad might happen…is there anything else you can recommend to keep this from happening again?
I saw this different looking sac from a spider right by the handle of our gate.I told my kids don’ t smash the sac . Then a couple of days later I saw long legs I put my groceries away I set out to look at the mysterious legs and odd shaped sac, that is when I spotted the diamond shape on the abdomen.I freaked and smashed the egg sac and spider. Then I found your web site.I am buying spray tomorrow!!!
Sorry I smashed before I took a picture.I hope to not come across any more but if I do I’ll snap a picture before I smash.(SORRY NATURE LOVERS)
I live in El Paso, TX. We just found 2 small spiders that look very much like the photos posted on this page. We weren’t quite sure what they were, but now we know to be very careful. Thanks.
I had been noticing alot of MESSY looking webs under my car port and under the plastic lawn chairs and tables.I was cleaning them off on several occasions but they kept coming back and it seemed to be getting out of control. I had noticed alot of egg sacs in the webs but not really seen any spiders. Yesterday my wife and I decided to spray some bug killer just in case.Within a minute of spraying about 50 if not more of these brown widows with a few black widows were everywhere. Went on the web to identify the spider and the very unusal egg sacs.Lucky no one has been bit.
Dicky G.
Refugio Texas
Location : Olde Town Orange, California
Our Yorkshire Terrier Died two years back, Stop eating, Figured she went blind, and just sat/laid for 3 days before we put her to sleep, She was 12 years old. Now we have a new two year old male. Tonight I went spider hunting and killed around 30 brown widows im starting to think my pet was bitten?? Anyways now I havent found any egg sacs but im goign to go look tomarrow. I only see them at night, all spread out in there web waiting. Anyways I use Ortho pest spray, I sprayed everything killed all of them I could see. If you have small pets, children or its just you if you see a spider kill it. I find them under our Outdoor Furnature be carful……………………..
I’m in North Fullerton, CA. Noticed odd egg sacks a few months ago; sprayed & squished sacks. Found more sacks and a mama spider on a plant today. Researched the web to discover Brown Widow Spiders! Yikes. Have webs everywhere, but don’t see any sacks or spiders. Am sure they are tucked away or hiding.
I’m frustrated with the different takes on riding our property of these dangerous creatures. Most say spray kills adults but have no effect on egg sacks. Professionals don’t seem to have much luck either. Suggestions range from any Home Depot Sprays to Wasp Killer to Lemon Pledge! Everyone is asking, but no one (or moderators) have an answer. It seems many areas in several states are becoming infested. I ask again … what’s the best way to erradicate these creatures??
Up ’til now my biggest garden problem were grasshoppers & white flies – now we’ve got venomous spiders! egads.
I live in Tustin, CA and had previously seen a couple of these guys about in our small back porch area but didn’t think much of it. I’ve noticed the webs getting much more numerous lately though so tonight I went outside with a flashlight and killed about 7 large adults that were hanging out on a ping pong table and a couple of lawn chairs. It’s freaky, to say the least, how quickly they multiply and take over a place. It makes me feel better knowing we are not the only ones in Southern California being overrun by these critters though.
I live in S. W. Florida and we have brown widows everywhere you look. They are particularly found of the rolled edges on the garbage cans. I have found as many as six on one can. Be careful when taking out the trash.
I live in Brea, CA and have been battling brown widows for some time now. The spikey egg sac is a clear sign. Banded legs, an hourglass etc. too. I’ve seen various shapes and a lot of different colors and patterns. I am on my third pest control company as the prior two failed their mission to remove them. They seem to reproduce very quickly and I’ve seen them as small as a couple of milimeters and as large as the size of a quarter. I killed 5 last night around my sprinkler timer…which has been up for maybe 5 days. One prior post talks about going out at night with a flashlight to find them.
That is the best way to do it. You have to spray them directly to kill them – I use whatever home depot has. YOu can’t kill them by spraying concrete with any sort of control liquid that says it kills for up to X # of months. We have 3 kids so I’m pretty obsessed with the problem. I’ve also been told, and have read, that their bites are no where near as dangerous as that of a black widow although the poison is more potent. They are apparently not as aggressive and inject less poison when they do bite. I’m not saying I don’t believe that, but I’m ignoring those facts and am constantly on it. You have to check toys and patio furniture all the time.
They like any little hiding spot. Look for webs that are look eratic in their design. They don’t make pretty round webs. We’ve made a conscious decision to keep our yard cleaned up. Any junk you leave laying around, side yards etc, will get infested. Clean your windows properly including the screens as well as the eaves on your home (which is out of character for the black widows I’ve seen). You basically just have to stay on it. I bet anyone in Southern California can find them in their yard at this point if they look. Long post – hopefully helpful.
Hi,
I am attaching a few photos of brown widows I found outside my house in
Los Angeles, CA.
The last three pictures were from a bay brown widow I snapped 2 weeks ago, the first
pictures from an adult I snapped this afternoon. I noticed it was dead
though.
Susanne
i live in southern mississippi a few weeks ago while i was at work i seen a brown widow since then i have seen more and more i killed at least 30 of them and now i have seen the egg sacks at my home what can i do i hate spiders
I live in gulfport mississippi on the coast and at work on the outsid eof your windows we have like 8 brown widow spiders first time i saw hem was this week they just kinda showed up but now that i know they are worse the black ones im gonna kill them… thank you…. and it sounds like they are everywhere
I am in Charleston SC and have found 5-6 of the brown recluses around my patio area underneath chairs, my child’s outside slide, near my doorawy in the upper corner. I saw the orange underbelly of these things and wondered what the heck they were. And now I know. Very good to know. Will be geting sprayed by pest control TOMORROW> It boggles my mind that some people are trapping these spiders…just kill them. They are so dangerous what would provoke you to want to keep a potentailly deadly dpider. JUST KILL IT PEOPLE!
I had never even heard of brown relcuses…good info.
I live in Naples and have recently found numerous brown widow spiders on my back patio around the pool. At first I thought they were black widows until I saw the pictures on line and found there is more than one type. Today I found and killed, with bug spray, five spiders with eggs. What can I use to get rid of these spiders? I have feral cats that stay on the patio so I must be careful of what I put down.
Hi Jim,
My daughter saw this black widow in our garage. I got our can of Raid and sprayed the black widow, it crawled underneath our elyptical machine and on to the wall, I sprayed it again. When I sprayed it the second time, I noticed a brown spider similar in appearance next to it and I sprayed that one too. I waited until they were done moving and put them in a glass jar. After finding your website we took pictures of the underneath. I never knew there were brown widows. Thanks for publishing the information/pics on your site.
Jessica
Huntington Beach, CA
I was glad to see that ,Luke, post #69, was writing from San Diego, CA too. I just saw my first Brown Widow yesterday at my grandfather’s house. I thought it was a black widow, since I am very used to them) but I thought it was strange that it was brown, kind of stripped, and the egg sack was spiked. I looked it up online to learn it was a brown. I didn’t even know that existed. We’ve been getting a lot more, and new varieties of bugs and spiders out here in the last few years.
We live in Palm Coast, Florida and in the last two days I have seen two brown widows. One on the outside above the door, with one or two long strands of web to the ground. She had already killed a huge wolf spider and when we opened the door she came out of a crack in the frame. The next day I found one inside, above the opposite door who had a web from the top of the blinds going down to the tile floor. That one came out of hiding when I moved the web.
This morning my 7 year old woke up with a tennis ball size and a ping-pong ball sized swelling that was warm, red, itchy and painful. Called the hospital and they gave me poison control. They told me if it was a certain kind of bite (I guess there are two different kinds) that she would have severe muscle cramps that feel like charlie horses. She also stated that when people are truly bitten they will be in screaming pain and beg to go to the hospital within 90 minutes of the bite.
I don’t want to be an overprotective mother, but when I read about the above and the bites having to be drained and antibiotics and all that, should I be listening to poison control?
We Just had the exterminators spray, and we were infested with approximatly 50-70 adult spiders, we didn’t think much of them when we saw a few, but unfortunately, we lost two beloved australian sugergliders to bites from the spiders so we looked closer and discovered the severity of our problem, Our local exterminator didn’t believe us till we showed him, and even took a specimen back to his office for research, the pesticide he used stated it could take as long as 24 hrs to kill them all, and trust me they are still coming out of hiding to die.
I will send a photo when I can get one in the next few days. The spider I found looks a lot like the one posted above by Beth (#19), but I don’t see any hourglass of any color on the abdomen, which convinced my daughter it was not a brown widow. I do, however, see some darker shape there (it’s hard to see with my bad vision since the spider is so small) and for the rest, it looks identical to Beth’s picture.
Both my daughter (age 19) and I were bit by what I concluded was a spider. Neither of us saw the spider that bit us, which apparently occurred in our sleep – hers a week before mine. Since we have large wolf spiders in the yard and sometimes found in the house, we thought it was that, but then I found this tiny, mean looking spider in my bedroom about a week after my bite and have determined it is a brown widow. I caught it and put it outside the front door of the house, where it is quite happy.
My daughter described her bite as very itchy and painful. We’re not sure if she had any other symptoms, since she was under a lot of stress at the time and suffered some headaches and whatnot.
My bite was the same. Incredibly itchy for several days, then red and hot. Now (2 weeks later), it is still visible, a dry, scaly patch.
An additional note related to this is that I have trigeminal neuralgia which was triggered very badly by the bite. This condition is generally triggered by a breeze or touch. Mine seems also to be triggered by allergies or toxins. It is a very painful at the nerve site when triggered and I become quite ill as well with flu-like symptoms. (The nerve enters the brain at the temple which is where the pain often occurs, radiating to the other areas affected by the trigeminal nerve (eye, ear, throat, jaw line, sometimes neck).)
The day after I found the bite, I became very ill which lasted for several days.
About a week after the bite, I discovered a host of baby spiders running around on the floor near my glass doors to the (very leafy) back yard. I killed all I found and put diatomaceous earth around the door and floor boards. Diatomaceous earth is actually diatoms — microscopic, pulverized shells that are razor sharp and suck up moisture, so that bugs either are eviscerated or dried up by it. It’s effective even on large bugs (waterbugs) if you use enough of it, and safe for human and animals (no toxins or pesticides), except you should avoid breathing the powder when you put it down (and keep your pets away until it settles). You can poof it with a turkey baster and leave it in cracks, nooks, or any area you think a spider might want to set up house.
To Jonathan, #41, since it’s been almost a month, hope you have found something to get rid of your widows, but if not, I used Spectracide Wasp & Hornet spray (available @ Lowe’s) today in my mailbox and it did the trick! Like many others on site, had not heard of Brown Widows and was not concerned with our mailbox tenants for several weeks, until I saw the almost neon orange hourglass on the female. Also killed a male and egg sac. Good luck!
We found out our garage and porch are both infested with Brown Widows. We live in Tallahassee, FL and found the first one in the garage. After calling the “bug man” to get rid of them (he did confirm they were brown widows and took several back to the office to show off), a very helpful Terminix worker sprayed and treated the porch and entire garage. We had to throw away our wicker porch chairs because they were so infested. I kicked them over and the bottoms of the seats were crawling with spiders and had tons of spiky egg sacks. We were told that they are pretty prevalent in this town but it was the first infestation for my neighborhood. We’ve had to retreat every two weeks since and still can’t completely get rid of them. With a small dog and a small child around, it’s really scary to cohabitate with these little spiders.
I live in Polk County Central FL, My sister brought her Jack Russell to the house because he loves to swim After running around in the pool enclosure and swimming the dog became suddenly ill. Climbed outof the pool and flopped on his side tongue hanging out and having difficulty breathing. The vet said it was an anephalactic reaction. All attempts to revive him on the way to the vet failed. The dog was 1.5 years old and in good health. Upon returning homestarted to look for a possible cause and found several live brown widows and numerous egg sacks on the underneath sides of the middle metal support of my screen room. I have since destroyed all eggsacks and live spiders but unfortunate for “Skippy” it was too late. Didn’t know there was such a spider until I researched what I found.
I live in Spring Hill, Floirda, which is north of the Tampa Bay area. The clinic I work for recently moved into a new building. We immediately started noticing the spiked egg sacks around the windows and around the bottom of the building. I researched on the internet and there is no question….they are definitely brown widow spiders. They have all the classic characteristics. I’m freaking out and have notified the owners. They promised to come spray but from the other comments I’ve read, I’m not sure they won’t keep coming back. I really don’t like bugs…especially spiders. God bless those of you who want to move them instead of killing them. I just hope they can get rid of them FOREVER! We’re lucky nobody has actually been bit…there are hundreds of them.
I live in San Diego, and I’m somewhat “relieved” to see that I’m not the only one in this area having an all-out war with the widows this year. I had plenty of black widows in the past (including 2 inside), but now the browns are much more common. After finding a mid-size one in a new web in the top of my front doorframe this morning (What a way to start the day!), I was about to go finally yell at my neighbor to clean out all the junk in his yard, but now I guess that won’t do any good, and I won’t blame him. It must be weather-related. We haven’t had much rain here the last couple years, maybe that lets them migrate around everywhere and populate.
No exageration, I have killed about 100 in my yard this summer. I flush them out with regular bug spray, then crush them or let them writhe in agony depending on my mood. They love the under rims of pots, under patio furniture, between trash bins, along curbs, in rows of rocks, and I found a whole community living all along an entire picket fence and chain-link fence. You can tell its a widow web if it seems like haphazard construction and is very strong, that makes a noise when you tear it. Some big ones have their main web close to the ground, but they rest up above following a long thick web strand to their hiding place. The longest I have found was 6 feet up above its web under a window awning. Yikes!!!
I live in Savannah Georgia and recently got bit on my right breast while I was sleeping. When I woke up there was a knot and redness all around the bite. It was so bad that I could barely move my right arm. I went to the doctor and she prescribed an antibiotic to help with the symptoms. Since then I have noticed spiders everywhere around my house. I knew I always had wolf spiders but wasn’t aware of the brown widow until today. I killed one in my shed and immediately looked it up on line. I’m pretty sure all the wolf spider babies that i’ve seen were in fact brown widow babies. I find the pointed egg sacs all over my house. Again I just thought they were wolf spider sacs. My main concern obviously is for my health, I have no children but I do have a 95 pound dog. Is there any danger to her or myself, and how do I get rid of them? I have pest control come once a month, but they say there is no way to kill them. Is this true?
Just wanted to note that we have what appears to be a variety of Brown Widows here in Huntsville, Alabama – next to Monte Sano. Both garages (one detached) have several spiders, webs and identifying egg sacks…the front porch…the potting shed. EVERYWHERE. Look too similar to the pictures here, but much lighter in color, a bit more tortoise with a marbled effect to some of them. I will take pictures as able.
‘Spent half my life in Southern Florida never seeing a Widow (or a scorpion), but since moving here I can not believe the quantities of spiders…and I LIKE spiders, but enough already! Being critter kindly and with a steady hand, I normally catch creepy crawlies under glass and escort them elsewhere, but now for the first time I condone spraying. Just too many to avoid. Relocate? uhm…not this time.
No longer user-friendly functional storage, it’s become an arachnid habitat.
I had my local pest control come back out again and have been attacking the spiders with hotshot spider spray. Some of the spiders have died, but my bug guy said spiders are HARD to kill because they dont groom like roaches and dont drag their bodies through the spray like other bugs. He suggested making sure there were no external lights on at night so it doesnt bring bugs to the area, and killing of their food source (i.e. spraying regularly to kill off other bugs) so they’ll go away or die out. Also knock down new and old webbing, this will also help you figure out if you’ve actually killed the spider or not. I’ve been thinking about going after them with a blowtorch too, seems to be the most effective way as Lisa C. mentioned if you can manage not to burn down your house, or flat out smooshing them and the eggsacs. We’ve had blacks and browns co-habitating in some areas of our yard (you can tell by different egg sacs) which really surprised me. I read on Wikkipedia though that mud daubers are the natural predators of widows and i’m thinking about catching a whole bunch to bring home (thus bringing in a whole other problem, but mud daubers aren’t poisonous). This is frustrating, I already had a great fear of spiders… now we’re overrun with poisonous ones.
I live in Perry GA, a small town in middle Georgia. We moved here from Upstate NY 4 years ago. We purchased the house we live in 2 years ago. They had a very informative article in the Macon Paper about Brown Widows and their “invasion”to middle Georgia. My husband and I started to look around our house and sure enough there THEY were, Mom and her Egg sacks! I feel like we are the only one that has noticed them in our area, everyone acts all sorts of shocked that we say we have them. We are loaded with them it feels like an infestation. I didn’t notice them at our other home but since we moved here and I read the article, I have my eyes peeled! Those evil devils are everywhere and as soon as I torch mom & her babies it seems another mom moves in. The article says you can kill mom with spray but the egg sacks are resistant to all sprays, the only way to rid yourself of 100’s upon 1000’s of babies is to suck them up in a vacuum or set them a blaze. I chose to set them a blaze. I torch mom too. Last Sunday I killed 9 moms and about 30 egg sacks that made their home in the little spaces on my garbage can that we got from the county. So please be aware, especially when you have children and play sets they like to hide in those as well!
found 2 brown widows @ front entryway now that im looking i see them, or eggs everywhere! my yard is infested!
my question is how to you get rid of these brown widow spiders completely – we have used an exterminator for the house and I have even sprayed double strength Demon WP all around the exterior of the house, the outbuildings, the fence, etc. but these are still showing up. is there something that you can do to rid your yard completely of these venemous spiders???????????
i have found more brown widows than black widows
i had just recently found that widow spider in bike and it was the size of a black widow except it was brown
hey i saw your site and find it great. I live in central florida and just moved into a house that has a screen in back with ingrown pool,the back hasn’t been kept upto date with cleaning so the other day I went out to hose down all the webs and clean up, well I didnt think anything about it because im from up north and all we really have are wolf spiders so I started spraying and then moved a chair when I found a brown widow spider… At first I thought it was a black widow because the first thing I seen was the red glass on its bottom side.
So I went to walmart and got bug srpay and spider spray to kill them. I sprayed everywhere and then today I went to just go around again and spray again, and what do I see, Another brown widow spider with egg sacks, that wasnt there the other day. Is this normal? do they really lay eggs that fast and dont die with bug spray that was just sprayed? ( i know they die when you spray them)
Also I cought one to show my roomie, since he didnt believe me, tryed taking a pic of it but my cam on my phone doesnt really come out clear, but it looks just like Beth’s pics above…
What can I do to get rid of them? I have a 5y.o boy so i dont want him to bit among my own self, since i have bad luck with getting bit…
OMY also I have Brown Recluse Spiders in my back… from count the other day i have almost 8 different spiders in my back…
I live in Sarasota Florida and have recently found a few brown widows in our backyard. They like to hide in the kids toys, bikes, slides, and bins full of toys on our lanai. I am really creeped out I don’t even want to let my kids play outside anymore. Will a regular pest control service kill theese disgusting spiders? I am having extreme anxiety over this I know there is more if just in two days, not even searching for these I have found two. I do not even want to go on a spider hunt. What to do???
i live in charleston south carolina…i know all about the black widow and i see them all summer long doing hvac work, but today was first experience with the brown widow. working on my car i notice a widow like spider and not knowing what it was found this site which helped me identify it. it was the size of a half dollar and had 3 egg sacks..i went to the shed to get a jar and noticed another one in a web in the corner..is there any reason that all of a sudden the brown widow would populate my area..i have black widows in my laundry room and brown widows in my shed!
I live in Lakewood, Ca and found this in the back yard.
We have totally become overrun by brown widows! I saw one at the beginning of the spring and noticed the black joints and hour glass on it’s abdomen. It had made a nest in our kitchen window. I had the bug guy spray it and thought that was that. The webs are very interesting though almost like the nylon spiderweb stuff you get at halloween and we had it all over our brick wall and behind the trash bins. Tonight we killed one with the abdomen the size of a really large blueberry.
They dont seem to mind being semi exposed either which really concerns me. We found one nest under the picnic bench where my kids play, they have nests under the skinny brick ledge under our doorframe and in between the screen and windows like i mentioned earlier. One round of spraying from the bug guy killed a few of them but now i see the egg sacs everywhere. Is there anything we can do?
I am a custodian at a school in Tustin, California. I kill, on average, 20 black and brown widows a week. I was confused about a year ago because of the different colors and patterns of widows I saw, and the weird spikey egg sacs I was finding. With a little research, I discovered there was such a thing as brown widows. The last few days I have been hosing down my entire campus (summer vacation-no one there…) and I have washed out and killed probably 50.. It’s a miracle I haven’t been bit…
No photos (I’m not crazy enough to get near enough with my cell phone camera and that’s the only camera I have), but this site just confirmed that I have a brown widow in my mailbox. I didn’t know what it was till I saw the hourglass spot yesterday, and I didn’t know there was such a thing as a brown widow. Well, sure enough there is. It’s spun a web right at the entrance and has a couple of spiny egg sacs. There are some older spiny egg sacs under the mailbox, so maybe this one hatched from one of those and just stuck around. I’m going to kill it before it bites the mailman.
We’ve had some other spiders on the mailbox, but never a widow spider – just some red or black ones that were small and spindly. This thing has a round body the size of a chickpea and long skinny brown and black stripy legs. Creeeepy!!!
brown widow, black, red, pink, whatever…is a widow.
Just look at it’s belly-then youll know you dont want to be bunk mates.
Me working construction, and around the house, widows like dark, cool, and even dampness.
Ive kept spiders as pets, and been tempted by the widow, but then again-NO WAY!
They need to be relocated or destroyed.
I was just bitten this morning by a brown widow spider, which I had picked up with the morning newspaper outside my office. I didn’t know I had been bitten, until the middle finger on my right hand starting throbbing. About 20 minutes after the throbbing began, I had muscle aches and cramping all the way up my arm and in my armpit. I went to my doctor (taking the spider with me), and he said there was nothing they could give me. The doctor called the National Spider Hotline (didn’t know there was such a thing!), and the woman on the phone told him I would be in pain and have muscle aches and cramping for the next 7 to 12 hours. My doctor gave me a prescription for pain medication, but I just took an 800 milligram Motrin and it has helped enough to make the aching bearable. I’ll try to update more tomorrow, but I am hoping that in 7 to 12 hours, I won’t have any more pain!
Oh! I took a look at my shoe (to see the spidery remains) and it was indeed brown colored. I’m still not entirely sure it was a brown widow but everything seems to indicate it was. what should I do?