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Welcome to another episode of the faith pest control Podcast. I’m Mike Stewart, your host and we’re here today with pest expert Fred Talley, the faith pest control services all the fine folks at Jasper, Georgia, Blue Ridge, Georgia Ellijay, Georgia big canoe, Georgia, really anywhere in the north Georgia mountains, but mostly based in the Jasper area. And Fred is the expert, the go to guy when it comes to taking care of your pest problems. And today he’s going to talk about something we’ve all heard about, but I don’t know a lot of information about it. So Fred is going to tell us all about the brown recluse spider, the brown recluse spider, Fred, what is this guy? Do we have him in North Georgia? And what do we need to be aware of? Well, Mikey, the brown recluse spider is actually found throughout the south central and kind of Midwestern United States. They are, we are on the fringe, I would guess you’d say in North Georgia, there have been cases, I personally only know of one in the last. I’ve been in this business for 22 years. And I’ve only knowingly seen one case of brown recluse spiders, but the according to literature I’ve read they are here. They’re actually it’s fairly rare to find them outside of their native range. In general, the brown recluse is a spider that’s widely over reported, and is actually less than common than the public perceives it to be. You know, occasionally a few spiders could possibly be transported to a non native area, you know, inside boxes or furniture. However, infestations, you know, as a result of that infestation seldom become established. Despite how famous the brown recluse spider bite may be, as well as the large number of client claims of supposed brown recluse bites, they’re surprisingly very little information regarding it’s those occurrences in many states and these spiders, as well as their distribution have been studied at length, the southeastern margin of their ranges crudely align east and west through Georgia separating what’s called the northern Piedmont from the central coastal plain, but the southern coastal plain. They’re readily found in Tennessee to the north and Alabama to the west, but they are not native to nor they often found in Florida. The brown recluse spiders are the likelihood is very good that they’re native to North Georgia but not native to South Georgia. And with that comes a zone of attrition not a finite line, but a very wide zone, you know of somewhere in between. Though variable in size. Adult brown recluse spiders, for the most part, with their legs extended are about the size of a US quarter. They can range from a dark brown color to a tan color, but they’re typically uniformly colored, meaning no stripes, no bands, no modeling. Their legs are long and thin have no noticeable spines or hairs on them. For lay people the most distinguishing feature of a brown recluse is a dark violin or fiddle shaped mark on its back with the neck of the violin pointing towards the rear. That’s common for people around especially local people to call it a fiddle back. This fiddle or violin shape is consistent and adults, but it’s less obvious in juveniles. A more definitive feature of the brown recluse is their eye pattern. Now most spiders have eight eyes. The brown recluse extra has six eyes, they have three pairs of two eyes each kind of arranged in a semicircle on the front of their face. However to see this you did you will have to have a pretty decent hand lens in order to be able to see it because their body is so small. So I mean you can could understand why this would be a more definitive feature. And due to this feature alone, you can see why many harmless brown spiders are mistaken for brown recluse in nature brown recluse spiders live outdoors under rocks, logs, wood piles, other debris firewood piles, however, they are also very well adapted living indoors within the And they’re resilient enough to withstand the winters in unheated basements and the suffocating heat. In the summer temperatures here and attics. They can go many months without food or water. They haunt typically at night or in the dark in their praise is typically in safe and they don’t care if they’re dead or alive. They do not use a web to catch their food. The Suspended webs you might see strong long walls and corners, ceilings in outdoor shrubs and stuff in are almost always associated with other types of spiders such as cobweb or sour spiders. During the daylight hours, the brown recluse typically retreats to dark, secluded areas, they’ll often line their daytime hiding places up with regular webbing, irregular webbing, which is used they will use that to form their egg sacs, the adult the females will, adult females seldom move far from their retreat during the day. However, the males and juveniles are more mobile and tend to travel further and consequently, they’re more likely to, you know, wander into shoes, get in your closet, get on your clothes, get in your bed at night, stuff like that. They can at times be seen crawling on floors, walls, and other exposed surfaces. If you generally it’s an issue of overcrowding, hunger, a recent pesticide application or some other environmental factor, the brown recluse will mature in about a year have an average lifespan of two to four years, the females produce up to five egg sacks and a lifetime in so infestation levels can vary greatly ranging from from one or a few spiders to several 100. The the the egg sacks contain about 40 to 50 eggs. When the tiny spiders emerge they’ll gradually increase in size in a mold in that first year. It takes them a year to get from juvenile to adult. They molt five to eight times to become an adult. In the shed skins of the juveniles are actually very distinct. They have very distinct outstretched parents, but they’re almost image immeasurable help in determining if you have confirming the infestation. As with most other spiders, a brown recluse is not as not aggressive. It’s very common to live in a building that’s heavily infested with them and never be bit. Actually we have a house. That is their main problem is brown recluse spiders, and I have not made personally but my company has serviced it. I know since 2017. And I’m I’m not aware that they’ve ever been bitten but that’s the only case of brown recluse that I’m aware of. Most bites occur in response to the human body pressure. When a spider it gets inadvertently trapped against your bare skin, whether it be in the chair or the bed, whatever however there we stick in your sheet foot into a shoe with no sock on. Some people are bitten when they when that pressure is exerted. That’s when they’ll buy it. Other bikes can occur, moving stored items putting on a piece of clothing that a spider may have chosen for its daytime retreat like inside is your shirt, brown recluse have very small things and cannot bite through clothing. So they have to get to your bare naked skin in order to bite you. In reality, the initial bite is actually painless. Oftentimes, whomever is bitten is unaware until three three to eight hours later, when the bite side you know becomes red, swollen and are tender. The majority of brown recluse bites He’ll then about three weeks without serious complication or the need for medical help and other cases the person bitten may develop an A new necrotic lesion destroying some of the body tissue.
Often there can be a central blister in In that lesion, and as the venom continues to destroy the tissue, the wound can expand up to several inches over a period of days or weeks. The ulcer can persist for several months actually leaving a deep scar. Sometimes, but not often, bites in early stage will produce systemic or localized reactions. Along with fever, chills, dizziness, rash or vomiting. The severe reactions are actually more common in children and in geriatrics in in patients that are in poor health. If you are bitten by a brown recluse, you should seek medical attention immediately. spider bites are difficult to diagnose even by physicians without actually seeing the spider as it bites. They don’t know and you don’t know if it’s a spider bite or not. It’s difficult to diagnose a brown recluse bite from the wound alone. Many many medical conditions mimic the necrotic looking sore from a recluse by including bacterial and fungal infections due to diabetes, pressure ulcers, gangrene, brown recluse are difficult to eradicate largely because of their sacred habits. Virtually any dark undisturbed area can serve as harborage There are many such places inside homes barns, garages, warehouses. Likely hiding spaces, though include cracks and crevices, corners, wall floor junctions, especially behind clutter, furniture and stored items in the house. reducing clutter allows fewer places for them to hide, and can enhance the effectiveness of treatments that can also live behind walls meaning in the wall void. Inside the void of concrete block foundations and infested garages, attics, basements crawl spaces, the spiders in sacks and shed skins are often found along the joist, the seals and rafters as well as under the role in insulation. And living areas they’re there sometimes inhabit crevices behind beneath beds, furniture, inside closets and clothing inside shoes and other kinds of stored items. As always, at Faith pest control, we offer a free consultation we offer 100% make you happy Money Back Guarantee you higher faith pest control to get rid of your bug problem. And at the end of 30 days, you’re not 100% Happy, we’ll come back and retreat your home for free. And we’ll keep on trading it for free and tell us until you tell us that you are happy. If that still doesn’t make you happy, we’ll give you back every penny spent on the original treatment. Plus, we’ll pay you an additional $25 for your time in trouble just for fooling with us. Bottom line is this you’ll be happy with the service we provide or you won’t pay a penny period. If you feel like what I’ve said makes sense. Call fake pest control today 770-823-9202 and asked to speak to me Fred tally. I’ll be more than happy to speak with you and answer any questions you may have. Well, Fred, that cleared up the mystery of the brown recluse and I appreciate all your great information. You know, we do this podcast as a community service for all the fine folks in Jasper, Georgia and surrounding areas in North Georgia. You can subscribe to this podcast and all your favorite places, mostly like Apple, Google, Spotify and Amazon. And you can also go to the faith pest control website to listen or read this information. So until next time, this is Mike Stewart for the faith pest control podcast.
