Brown Recluse in Barn

[YellowHammer]

I've got a brown recluse problem in my barn, I try to keep it as clean as possible but it is a barn and so is open, dusty, I do a lot of work in it, and it has lots of brown recluse spiders.  "Lots" as in I found three in the bottom of one of my cardboard sawblade boxes this afternoon, cold, but still kicking.  My pro pest guy is scared to go in (not really, but kind of) and yes, the majority of spiders in the barn are positively identified as brown recluse, which are very common in N Alabama, along with black widows and scorpions.  I pay him to spray the barn and about the only thing that survives are the recluse spiders, because he says they don't wash themselves so are pretty immune to most modern pesticides, which is also what I have read on the Dr. Google.

So does anyone have any particularly effective ways to get rid of these guys without actually burning the building down, which isn't an option.

They are pretty "reclusive" and not aggressive, but that doesn't matter much when I see them doing calisthenics in my welding helmet.  I've tried the perppermint thing, tried fumigating but the barn is too open, even the DeltaDust doesn't seem to work, for example, the blade box had Delta Dust on top of it but the spiders were in the bottom.  I've got glue traps down but sawdust and glue traps don't work well.  

Any ideas?   

     

[rusticretreater]

Import wolf spiders.  Put sticky cards in infested areas.

[thecfarm]

Sevin, there is a bag put out by sevin for bugs on a lawn.
What about borates.
Good luck.

[customsawyer]

I wonder what is so different from your place than mine? Must be that I don't clean it as much. Let it get messy and they might move out.
I keep my eye out for them but don't see very many.

[Peter Drouin]

Like anything else food and the environment, take one or both away and they're gone.

[GRANITEstateMP]

I take back my earlier complaints about the cold snap we are in up north, at least we don't have your critters!

I'd move!

[Nebraska]

What are they eating is a good question, if they can't be successful foraging then the population will decrease. I wouldn't think a blade box would be a great hunting area unless the can get in and out easily. Not a spider expert by any means. 

[YellowHammer]

Spiders and scorpions are just normal here in North Alabama.  They are literally everywhere outside, the problem is when they want to come inside.  Houses and most closed buildings can be kept clear, but open barns and work buildings are difficult.  These are open buildings, there are always bugs in them, from wasps, mud daubers, stinkbugs, fire ants, other spiders, flies, bees, scorpions, carpenter bees, even low flying birds. 

Brown Recluse are one of the few spiders that like to eat dead insects, so even if a "normal" bug gets killed by the insecticide once it comes in the building, the spiders have a ready made feast and will eat everything but the legs.  If that spider dies, then others will eat it and leave it's legs behind.  It's pretty cool to see the remains, a bunch of legs in a circle, with no body.  Kind of like seeing a plate of crab legs at the Red Lobster.   

Unfortunately, brown recluse spiders are especially attracted to cardboard and paper because the paper material mimics the rotting tree bark where they naturally hide in the woods. They often build their nests and rest in cardboard boxes, any paper, furniture, and other undisturbed areas. So if there are any openings in the taped edges of a shipping box, they will get in and have a spider condo.  Imagine how much stuff a business likes our gets by FedEx and UPS every day, and when we put that cardboard box down, it becomes a spider magnet.  So I go around with packing tape and seal any cardboard boxes up as best I can, like the ones holding spare parts and stuff I don't need immediately, using roll after roll of tape.  Last year we invested lots of money ($thousands) in big sealable plastic containers and that certainly keeps them out of my stuff, but doesn't clear them from the building.  However, if I stack cardboard boxes on top of each other, neatly, then I make another spider condo.           

I always use these really cold winter days for a little excitement to go on spider patrol because they aren't moving very fast.  I guess it's a lot like a rattlesnake roundup in Texas.  Then when I find a wad of spiders, I spray them with contact killer, or like yesterday, I put all the cardboard boxes in a pile and watch them scream as they burn. 

Just good old Southern fun. 

My "Redneck Shop Vac" for clean up is a 4" flex hose connected to my big dust collector to suck em up.   I have a pest guy come in and do a perimeter spray of our house and outbuildings, so he is using commercial grade chemicals which I guess work, I can't tell.  He's puts out about 20 glue traps that we occasionally change out, but just the normal sawdust being blown around the work buildings just sticks to the glue and they are pretty useless unless they are in the cabinets.  I may try to find some "dustproof" glue traps?

I'd been thinking maybe some kind of powder, like diatomaceous earth, but reading further, it seems it can cause lung cancer if disturbed and inhaled.  I hadn't thought about Boracare, I have a five gallon bucket of the powder, I might try and just spread that out on the floors.

Whatever I put down, I need to not be harmed by it being blown around since we work in these buildings

Last year I put boxes of mothballs in some of my tool cabinets as an experiment, and that seems to help keep them mostly spider free.  I may need to get a 55 galln drum of them and spread them everywhere.

Not sure what else to try?

[TroyC]

I use a product called Demon. Works really well. Does not kill bugs immediately but when they crawl thru a treated area they shrivel up. It comes in a small pouch that mixes easily with water and is not terribly expensive. No smell, only very slight residue on non-porous surfaces. Treatments supposed to last 3-4 months. Keep it mixed in a 1 gallon sprayer and you can do spot treatments anytime you see a bug. It does not require a license and I understand professional bug people use it also. I spray when I leave to go out for a few days and always find dead bugs when I return.

[WV Sawmiller]

Robert,

   If they like to eat dead bugs do they ingest and die from the poison in bugs killed by pesticide? If so looks to me like you could attract a bunch of bugs to some rotting meat (or a UA poster) and poison them then feed them to the fiddlebacks and hopefully they will get enough second hand pesticide to do them in.

[Raider Bill]

I use a product called Demon. Works really well. Does not kill bugs immediately but when they crawl thru a treated area they shrivel up. It comes in a small pouch that mixes easily with water and is not terribly expensive. No smell, only very slight residue on non-porous surfaces. Treatments supposed to last 3-4 months. Keep it mixed in a 1 gallon sprayer and you can do spot treatments anytime you see a bug. It does not require a license and I understand professional bug people use it also. I spray when I leave to go out for a few days and always find dead bugs when I return.

I use this or Cynoff on my rentals. Pretty effective. Watched a palmetto bug walk over my spray line then flop over on his back within 6 inches.

[TroyC]

Talstar is my lawn/outside spray. Has the Cynoff been discontinued? Quick search showed it to be a Demon knoff-off, just wondering if it might be cheaper. Cynoff appears to be liquid, Demon is powder similiar to Boracare.

[Raider Bill]

The Demon and Cynoff I use are both liquid concentrate I get at the local feed store.

[YellowHammer]

I will try some Demon/Cynoff.  I'm glad they are not restricted, I used to have a pesticide license but have long since let it lapse.  I'll just take my 3,500 psi pressure washer and load a few gallons in and spray the entire building?  

I'm not sure if they die when they eat other dead bugs, but it's pretty cool how they will go right up the edges of the glue traps and eat the parts of the bugs, like the back half of a cricket, that is hanging off and not on the sticky part.

Of course, I guess that could be other bugs doing that too.  

I've still got more cleaning to do in the next few days, I'll see if I can catch a few for photos.  Or I may just stomp on them, it depends how I feel at the time.   


 

[SawyerTed]

I've used Cyzmic CS a generic of Demand CS.  Both are residual pesticides.  Probably not much different than the others that are mentioned.  Can be used inside or outside. 

Just offering couple more options depending upon what is available.   

A key to effectiveness is sticking to a frequent interval as allowed by the directions.  After a few months, I've been able to extend the interval and maintain effectiveness.  

We had black widows galore.   Cyzmic CS worked.  

[YellowHammer]

So, this afternoon, while it was 27F, I went on another bug hunt, and I thought you guys might like some pictures.  I went through a few blade boxes, only three of them, and I lost count of the live and dead half eaten carcasses I found.  

Some pretty cool stuff, so here is one that was pretty cold but still a little upset, he kind of bowed up on me, and I took a close up before I "exterminated" him.  Notice the trademark fiddle on his back?       

[YellowHammer]

Here is one that got his rear end eaten off by another, but with the characteristic long spread out legs.  Here are three in this photo, on the box, can you see them?  When they get cold they kind of curl up, but it's only temporary.

[YellowHammer]

Here's what fell out of the bottom of one of the boxes, onto the stairway as I was carrying them outside.  One of the litter beggars landed on the stairs.  Notice the fiddle again?  I squashed him with a love tap.   These things have a very characteristic profile and once you see em you never forget what they look like.  So yeah, I have a brown recluse problem in my barn. 

[aigheadish]

I think I'd wear gloves... I don't mind bugs but the pictures of body parts that have been bitten by brown recluse have worked on me.

[Nebraska]

Move north.   
Zero degrees here now.

 Problem solved for 6 months or so. 


Would vegetation free apron of concrete around the buildings make any difference?
They use an apron of crushed rock around hog confinement buildings to reduce the mouse issues.  (Not cure it helps).
The rodents supposedly don't like to expose themselves to the open areas. 

[YellowHammer]

A concrete apron?  That's interesting, I haven't heard that but it makes sense.

I think I'd wear gloves... I don't mind bugs but the pictures of body parts that have been bitten by brown recluse have worked on me.

Oh yeah, gloves are a necessity.  Oddly enough, according to my Dr, who has treated me for a couple nasty spider bites, probably not brown recluse, but spider nonetheless, the venom is bad, but not the only thing to worry about.  He says in his experience, the worst thing is that Brown Recluse, and most spiders, are Staff carriers, and when they bite, they inject a person with Staff and then that gets pretty bad.  I've had two that were bad enough that the Dr. said as he pumped me with antibiotics, "If it keeps getting worse, go to the hospital." So pretty much a bite from any spider is bad.

I was wearing some of the rubber surgical gloves moving stuff around the last time my bug guy was here spraying, and he told me they were worthless, the spiders fangs go right through them, he knew from personal experience.  So he and I both wear the much heavier rubber mechanics rubber gloves.  

So I've put up with this for many years and now I guess I'm about to go a little YellowHammer Overboard on them.  Total War!!!

I'm going to order some Demon or equivalent, I'm banning all cardboard from any of my buildings, I'll put boxes of mothballs in every cabinet and I guess every drawer, and I don't know what else.  I picked up a professional glue trap yesterday that I had placed right next to those blade boxes, and between the cold and the dust, it had zero sticky left.  The delta dust was ineffective, the pictures of the boxes with spiders in them were covered with delta dust. 


    

[Nebraska]

I had another thought a bit ago. They make the salt guns for shooting flies, you could trick one out with a custom barrel and target scope and set up a hunting blind in the barn and whack spiders off from 20 or 30 feet.   
Sorry couldn't help it.  

Although I could have fun with a spider rifle. 

[Cedarman]

Never see a spider in our mill.  Would ERC sawdust have any repulsive effect?  Put some in couple of boxes and some without and see if they will make a home in the ERC.  Just a crazy thought.  A lot of insects do not like ERC.  Will not kill them, they just go someplace else.  Since a lot of bugs don't like cedar there is no food for spiders.  Carpenter ants and carpenter bees some exceptions.

[aigheadish]

I feel I could invite you to go Yellow Hammer Overboard with the stinkbugs at my place... One sitting on the dining room table yesterday, just hanging out like it was one of my kids. I hate 'em (the stink bugs) but they are much less likely to give me a disease or rot a leg off. 

Cedarman- that's an interesting idea! 

[Hilltop366]

Yesterday in my work shop I noticed a dead spider in a drain pan with a thin film of engine oil in it. There it sawdust in it too so it got me to thinking that maybe you could experiment and make a cardboard trap/box with a shallow dish of oil in it? Maybe use veggie oil incase a pet finds it too.

Patent pending.