Comment by cantankerous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cantankerous | Hacker News Reader

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I've lived in Portland OR, Mid MO, and the Kansas City area. In mid-Missouri, the brown recluse is the standard house spider. Pretty much every spider in my house there was a brown recluse. I had a weird bruise-y/necrotic bite on my hip that I assumed came from one that got in bed with me. It healed up fine without any medical intervention even though it lingered for awhile. I suspect a lot of people get bitten over the span of their lives but the bites aren't really noticeable. Spiders get in your bed or get into your clothes sometimes. It takes a bit of work/luck to get a recluse bite. They're not aggressive and they're not looking for trouble.

The West Coast, in my experience, has very little on the Midwest when it comes to spiders and bugs. In Oregon I was blown away by the lack of bugs. I could leave my doors and windows open at night and nothing seemed to come in. Unreal! The only major thing Portland seemed to have on the middle states is slugs. Waking up in the morning to find slug trails in my kitchen and in the dog bowl was a weird experience. Live and learn!

I live in the Santa Barbara area, and bugs are way less, probably because of how dry it is compared to the midwest. In mid MO I've seen ticks large enough to keep as pets!

However, we do have a lot of black widows. They aren't super aggressive towards humans, but they tend to go in places that you only sometimes visit (the back of that one drawer in your toolchest you don't use very often, woodpiles, Christmas decorations in attic or garage, etc.) I put on gloves before going to any of those locations because I'm told even though it's non-fatal to healthy adults, it's supposed to be excruciatingly painful.

Don't forget to check if they're in your gloves too!

Yep, I put my hand into a glove once only to find a spider there. Despite my general affection for spiders, that was not a happy moment.

This is my paranoia, and why I always squeeze old work-gloves flat from the outside before putting them on.

Our exterminator told us they're terribly common and difficult to 'solve,' especially in a house with a wood shake roof.

He suggests ignoring them, unless you find they've wiped out all the other spiders in your house. The brown recluse is, apparently, the apex spider in mid-Missouri.

Even then, sticky traps are the best recourse; because they're reclusive loners, they don't spread poison to others.

Interestingly, I had a similar bite in Portland growing up. I assume the hobo spider got me in bed, but I definitely needed medical intervention, and a little over 20 years later I’ve got a nice silver dollar size scar on my butt cheek.

That’s also how I came to learn that even though I had grown up assuming Oregon had brown recluses, what we really have is hobo spiders with a similarly necrotic bite. Eastern Oregon has some, but it would be a real shock to find one in the Willamette Valley.

If you want bugs just venture over to central or eastern oregon. Flies, mosquitoes, spiders of all types, and other bugs galore!

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