Spiders, Spiders, everywhere....Help!

doctorwayne said:
Well, those webs that I get on the layout are the same as the ones in the rest of the house, and there are spiders on them.
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Often times cobwebs get stuck in spider webs to. after all, cobwebs are dust.

I don't mind spiders in the house, but it does "bug" me when I get cobwebs in the layout room. I don't know if they're the ones responsible for the webs, but the ones that I see most often on the layout are very small (about a quarter of the size of the head of a pin, and are orangey-red. The other common ones here are just house spiders (like house cats, only nicer, 'cause they don't shed),;) fairly small, pale-coloured ones.
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I don't recognize your small orange ones (they might be unique to your part of North America), but it seems those other "house spiders" are pretty much universal. I don't really see them coming down by my layout though.
Then again, your layout is massivesign1 That big Gern industry's silos look like a good spot for a web.

I will say though, that the webs on your loading dock look from the photos to be just cobwebs from dust though. Even house spiders have a structure to their webs, even though they can look totally random. Its possible your RS3 crashed through a web, but i have to say it also has that cob web appearance, althought it is harder to see.

In this photo, you can see a classic cob web. this is all dust. its all small hairs and chains of static dust that holds together in what looks to be a cob web.

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regardless of causation, alittle dusting will probably help remove most cobwebs from the layout.

My favourites are the black and white jumping spiders - I don't think that they even build webs, but they're very aggressive. If you have a good complement of spiders, chances are that you at least don't have too many centipedes, as centipedes will kill spiders. I'll take the spiders any day. :rolleyes::-D

Wayne
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Yeah, the jumping spiders are my favorite to. they aren't as threatening as wolf spiders, and they seem more interesting anyway. They do "bungie jump" though, and so anytime they do leap they do leave some silk behind, but its nothing.
 
Their might be a reason for so many spiders around, you did say 'ten thousand webs" I would look further into this and have a pest control guy come by and see if you have an infestation that is gathering all these spiders
 
Isn't there some sort of rule that we, as humans, are never more than 2 or 3 feet away from a spider pretty much at all times?

Speaking of spiders, has anyone ever been about 80+ floors up in a real tall building, and seen huge spider webs (with huge spiders) on the outsides of the windows? :eek: I remember being in the John Hancock building in Chicago and seeing this. All I kept thinking was what other bugs were living 800 feet above the city streets that would draw spiders up there?
 
While spiders are innocent creatures and all that, their presence in certain areas of our lives is neither acceptable or desirable. Model train layouts are one example of such an area.

I live in the woods, too, and insects are always a problem; however, field mice, pack rats, voles and similar critters are even worse. I suspect that anyone's respect for the sanctity of life would change dramatically when they found their car disabled by a field mouse which had chewed through the wiring. Next time you go to boot up your computer and it burns out because a tiny spider ahs shorted a critical element, leaving you out a lot of money and severely inconvenienced, I also suspect that your love of these creatures will undergo a drastic and sudden change. Significant parts of our daily lives are not compatible with unrestricted Nature.

Unto everything a time and a place: Big forest - small house. My house -my time and my place. Forest - theirs.
 
I have an issue with spiders in my garage layout too. Most of the ones out there were black widows. You can tell from the type of web that is about. I used 2 bombs last November, then I turned off my space heater for a week when it was about 5 degrees outside. Now that spring is starting here, I have noticed that more spiders are coming out of the woodwork (haha). Of those I have taken out of the garage, none are the dreaded black with red hourglass. So far.

Of course, this is what I get for living in a house that was built in 1912 and the garage in 1922.
 
Isn't there some sort of rule that we, as humans, are never more than 2 or 3 feet away from a spider pretty much at all times?
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I probably could have lived ithout knowing that....

I am mildly aracnophobic so I didn't check out the link (thanks for the warning) when we renovated our house and took down 6 large pine trees we had spiderod of all kinds coming into the house. Here in the interior of BC we have reletivly mild winters so the bug kill off isn't that large so the wolf spiders grow fairly big. The largest I've see was about 3 1/2" across including the legs. Being the hero that I am I threw a book on it to kill it and sucked the remains into the vacum cleaner.

However since we got our cat a year ago we haven't had any invasions in the basement since. You should see the predatory insticts of this fellow when he finds something crawling acroos the floor.
 
sgtcarl,

Here are directions for posting photos you have in your computer:

1- Click on Go Advanced

2- Find the paper clip with the down arrow at the top of the reply box - click on it

3- A pop-up window will appear -- in that "manage attachments" window, it says "upload file from your computer", and next to it it has a "browse" button, and next to the "browse" button it has an "upload" button.

4- click on the "browse" button and find the file on your computer, then c lick the "upload" button. (remember file size and 72K restrictions)

5- after the file has been uploaded - click on "Close this window"

6- THATS IT!!! -- the picture will appear underneath whatever text you type into the reply box.

Feel free to start a thread with your pics.

We now return to our previous discussion about...SPIDERS! Ugh. The mention of Black widows freaks me out! I can't imagine dealing with those critters in MY HOUSE!
Ralph
 
just yesterday i found a black widow's nest in my fire station (of all places), so i decided to bomb the garage (were my layout is located) & went in this afternoon to find them dead.

but i am sure i will find more.
 
rfrr said:
just yesterday i found a black widow's nest in my fire station (of all places), so i decided to bomb the garage (were my layout is located) & went in this afternoon to find them dead.
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You couldn't just scoop it out? that seems so much easier...

but i am sure i will find more.
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Once again, i question the point of bombing the whole layout for blackwidows. garages are their favorite place, and they will always come back. In the end, you kinda just released lots of chemicals for nothing.

i'm not a "bug-hugger", but i once again, i think people overreact WAY to much to the little arthropods that we share a home with. AS dangerous and painful as a blackwidow may be, it probably wouldn't have done any harm (although i'd still remove it).
 
Well, he should clear the spiders from his layout nonetheless. Perhaps build a cover afterwards, to prevent any more from showing up. They could get in the way. Oh! This reminds me of something. On Wilbert Awdry's first layout, there was a point when he hadn't operated it for some time, and a mouse:mrgreen: had moved into the tunnel. He drove it off by repeatedly sending his model of Thomas at it at full speed.sign1sign1sign1
 
ZeldaTheSwordsman said:
Well, he should clear the spiders from his layout nonetheless. Perhaps build a cover afterwards, to prevent any more from showing up. They could get in the way. Oh! This reminds me of something. On Wilbert Awdry's first layout, there was a point when he hadn't operated it for some time, and a mouse:mrgreen: had moved into the tunnel. He drove it off by repeatedly sending his model of Thomas at it at full speed.sign1sign1sign1
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They would only show up more with a cover!

the fact of the matter is, spiders and similar creatures are beneficial, and they aren't ever going to harm you. just leave them alone, unless they have managed to become outragous in number. In the end, they will keep other bugs out.
 
I beg to differ. Here in the South we have black widows and the infamous recluse.
This guy hides in rags, cloth in the closet, and anywhere it is dark and are more dangerous than the widow in my opinion. You don’t feel the bite most of the time and by the time you notice it the flesh begins to rot and you are in trouble.
Just my thoughts.
 
Goattee said:
I beg to differ. Here in the South we have black widows and the infamous recluse.
This guy hides in rags, cloth in the closet, and anywhere it is dark and are more dangerous than the widow in my opinion. You don’t feel the bite most of the time and by the time you notice it the flesh begins to rot and you are in trouble.
Just my thoughts.
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However, both of these spiders rarely give bites that cause extreme harm unless your body is already weakened. Necrosis from the Brown Recluse happens only rarely, and in the case of the black widow, the spider is so small that in most cases, there is not enough venom to do serious harm (that said you should still go to a doctor if you get bit because you never know).

In the end though, its kinda pointless to bomb you garage. Unless you seal every possible entrance, they will keep running in from the outside, And you can still get bit up by them. Its an exercise in futility.

Like i said before, unless you have a totally excessive amount of arachnids in you layout area, just scoop them up in a cup or something and kick them out.
 
tetters said:
I had one small spider on my layout the other day. I used one of my locos to chase it off the tracks. It was kinda of funny.
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sign1 sign1 sign1 I had a small spider on my layout the other day too which kinda surprised me since my layout is upstairs and in my room lol. But i think they have all retreated and were seeking shelter here in southern Cali cuz of the weather cold change. I just went and grabbed some toilet paper and mushed the little guy, kinda felt bad after..... :eek: sign1
 
Last tour at work a coworker got bitten by a spider... he said he didn't know what kind it was... but by the time we were relieved from duty his calf was turning black and moving up toward his knee... I shudder to imagine a spider bite that potent... he did of course go to his physician and has been treated...

Dave
 
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