South Carolina Homeowner's Guide to Preventing Venomous Spiders

If you own a home in South Carolina, there is a good chance you're aware of the threats black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders can pose to you, your family, and your pets. These two types of spiders are infamous in our area. What you might not know are the strategies that can help prevent venomous spider bites and reduce conditions around your home that can attract these spiders. Here's what you need to know.

Avoid Venomous Spider Bites

Black widows and brown recluses have no desire to bite you. But they will. If you understand what makes these spiders bite, you'll have a better chance of not being bitten.

Most of the time, encounters with these spiders do not result in a bite. When a black widow or brown recluse is approached, it runs away. The reason many bites occur is that the victims of the bites accidentally startle or trap one of these spiders. You can avoid doing this by:

• Looking before you sit down.
• Watching where you place your hands.
• Wearing gloves when working outside.
• Inspecting under your covers before you get into bed.
• Examining towels or clothing before picking them up and using them.
• Shaking out shoes before sliding your feet in.

Another important way to avoid getting bitten by one of these venomous spiders is to understand where they prefer to hide. If you put your hand into the wrong place, you could get a very unpleasant surprise. Both of these spiders will:

• Hide in secluded locations in your yard such as under decks, patios porches, stairs, and sheds.
• Hide in brush, woodpiles, leaf piles, and other organic debris.
• Hang out in damp areas where the bugs they feed on tend to congregate.
• Get into attic spaces and hide around, or inside, stored boxes.
• Tuck themselves into any location that looks like a safe hole, even a clump of towel or a bedspread on an unmade bed.

Reduce Venomous Spiders

If you want fewer of these spiders in your yard, the place to start is to remove lawn clutter. There are many objects that can be used as hiding places for these spiders. Do what you can to remove hiding places such as toys left out in the yard, construction materials, building materials from renovations, stored appliances, old furniture, etc.

Some places spiders hide are more complicated to remove. But with a little thought, there are ways to keep those spiders out and away. If you have a garage, barn, outbuilding or some other structure with a secluded space, a close inspection and the application of sealant materials can help keep these spiders out. You can also keep the vegetation around these structures trimmed low to make them less inviting to venomous spiders that happen into your yard.

Stumps are perfect locations for brown recluse. They hide in hollow spaces within stumps and also in holes that often develop in the ground as the stump deteriorates. It is a good idea to remove stumps if you want less trouble from brown recluse spiders. Holes created by groundhogs, moles and other lawn-damaging pests can be ideal for these spiders. Unfortunately, you can't just fill those holes in if you have a yard pest. You're going to have to get rid of the pest first in order to solve the problem!

DIY Venomous Spider Control

Monitoring for spider activity and eliminating spiders is a complex task that most homeowners aren't equipped to handle. If you're seeing venomous spiders in your yard, or worse, inside your home, contact a licensed pest control professional as soon as possible to have the problem resolved. The risk these spiders can present is far too great. Don't trust your safety to DIY control methods. Make sure those spiders are properly dealt with by investing in professional pest control services for your home.

If you live in the Greater Lexington area, call us! The Original Bugman Pest Elimination, Inc. is QualityPro Certified by the National Pest Management Association. Only 2% of pest control companies in the U.S. have been awarded this mark of excellence. That means you'll get the highest level of service from beginning to end. Get started by requesting a free pest control inspection. We'll help you figure out what kind of problem you're dealing with and present solutions that will work to get those spiders under control.