"zob" <zob@ cox.net> wrote in message
news:fnu2841aouec9rgmgsjcp9fiac7h528l06@4ax.com...
> Suzanne,don't you live in the West? I know that Black Widows are
> prevalent here in the South, but I didn't know that they were common
> in the west. Learn something every day.
Black widows are pretty much all over North America. I've certainly had
them everywhere I've lived.
> I wonder what is bringing all the arachnids and daddy longlegs in your
> house all of a sudden?
Eh, it's just that time of year. No biggie. I mean, we usually have a
bunch of spiders up on the walls near the ceilings, so that's nothing new,
and the black widows tend to thrive during the summer. They like cool,
moist places, so you often find them in outbuildings, woodpiles, porches,
and apparently, window wells. We used to have them in our sheds and garage
(probably still do), and I have seen them in the window wells from time to
time, but this is the first time I've seen THAT many. (I found one in my
11-year-old son's window well last night too. I think we are up to about
ten now, with at least two dozen egg sacs.)
> I got a laugh out of you using Fantastik to kill the black widow. It
> reminded me of the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where the Greek
> father thought that Windex was the cure for everything!
When we lived in Houston and had their usual red fire ant problems, one day
I was cleaning in the kitchen, and happened to come upon a trail of ants.
Disgusted, I sprayed them with Fantastik, meaning to wipe them away
afterward. Imagine my surprise when they completely stopped moving upon
being touched by the spray! More experiments showed that Fantastik is THE
ultimate bug spray. If you spray a flying wasp, it will stop in mid-flight
and drop before you've completely stopped the first spray. Small bugs go
down instantly--much faster than with Raid. Larger bugs (roaches, crickets)
need a couple of sprays, but it works on them eventually too. I haven't
gotten much luck with spiders, though I usually don't spray spiders anyway,
so I don't have a whole lot of experience with them.
What's weirder is that I've also tried other cleaners, like Windex,
Pine-Sol, Oxy Clean, and Formula 409, and NONE of them work as well as
Fantastik. There's just something in that particular brand that does it.
And it has to be regular Fantastik--no special scents or formulas.
--S.
