Is that a brown recluse spider in the corner of your ceiling?

Brown recluse spiders seem so abundant these days that you see them building webs all over your house, and most people have no idea that the spider they are looking at is a recluse.

Spiders are spiders, right?

When I started working as a pest control technician, I had no idea what a brown recluse looked like. Oh, I knew they had a violin-shaped mark on their back, but you have to get very close to the spider before you can recognize that mark.

If you get that close, you will be much closer than security demands.

My first month as a technician I worked with another technician as an apprentice, visited several clients and learned how to inspect and treat pests. My instructor, and resident entomologist with the pest control company, told me that brown recluse spiders were not a threat here in Indiana.

The truth soon proved otherwise, and luck was with me when I learned that truth.

During my training period I studied local pests and their habits, and a book I read had pictures of the brown recluse. I gave them nothing but glances, but those brief glances anchored a blurry image in my mind that triggered the alarm the first time I saw an inmate in one of my client’s buildings.

It was in the basement of a major hospital that I made my first inmate sighting. When I looked at the spider moving around its web, something about the legs looked familiar. For me, the legs of a brown recluse are distinctive; they are very long and thin. I remember thinking at the time, “They look like those photos I saw of brown recluse spiders.”

I caught that spider on a sticky board, took it to the company, and looked at it through a microscope that night. Sure enough, there was a violin shape on the spiders’ back.

From that moment on I had a definite and permanent image of brown recluse legs in my head. That is an image that never faded, I see it as clearly today as I did that day, almost 10 years ago.

That image saved me from several bites over the years.

I once opened a small box, looked inside and saw what I thought was a game of those legs running for cover. I dropped the box, put a glue board on it, and used a long tool to move the items inside. A few moments later, he had two brown recluse spiders trapped in that glue board. A few meters further along the wall, I opened another box to see another inmate in residence. I also have it on a glue board.

If you see cobwebs around your house, be careful when approaching them. Brown recluse spiders are everywhere these days. I have found them in my bathtub and often in my warehouse.

Find some photos of these spiders; familiarize yourself with the appearance of your legs. Get a picture of those legs fixed in your mind well enough that you will at least recognize a potential brown recluse if you see one.

Don’t risk getting too close to these spiders. Their poisonous bites leave you with some nasty wounds that won’t heal anytime soon and will sometimes spread through your body.

When you think you see one, understand that you probably have a family. You will probably need to treat your entire home to minimize infestation.