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Hoser wrote:

I heard of a neat way to kill roaches.......baking soda. Just spread some of it in the areas they seem to populate, and as they scurry across the stuff they will ingest enough of it that when it gets to their digestive system it will start to bubble and expand. Seeing as how they have no way to get rid of the gas build up they just basically get killed from the internal build up of pressure. They don't blow up or anything like that (that would be really cool if it did happen though) they just die within a few minutes.

I think that explanation was conjured up by someone who had a really nasty vendetta against the critters The explanation I've heard, and which seems far more plausible, is that the exoskeletal breathing mechanism is interfered with -- basically, the roach gets coated in soda and then suffocates.

I imagine you could get the exact same results with flour, except that would attract all kinds of unwelcome pests, and any flour you missed cleaning up under the baseboards and such would eventually hatch out a new generation of grain weevils.

Using poison to kill roaches is a dead end. I've lived in New York City my entire life, and no matter what I've seen done with poisons, deterrents, and traps, the roaches keep coming.

The only foolproof method I've ever seen is to stuff steel wool into every opening and crack in your apartment: between the floors and moldings, pipes in the bathroom and kitchen, gas line behind the stove, vents in the bathroom, etc. The only way you get roaches after that treatment is to bring them in from the outside.

You can probably avoid all critter problems that way, not just roaches.

I have like a million spiders around my place so I don't even bother killing them any more and just let them be. Ants are more annoying because they have the guts to crawl on you. Spiders usually only web themselves onto you if anything.

ssidbroadcast wrote:

Luckily in Seattle, WA cockroaches only seem to appear in the crappiest of apartments, and they don't get that big. At least, certainly not QUARTER sized.

On the other hand, the Pacific Northwest is the spider capital of the country because of the moderately cool wet winters, which they like very much.

Okay guys,

So gf was over today, and SCREAMED when she saw this bad-ass Matriarch of a hobo spider at the top of my storage room bead-curtain:



Note that she still has the dead body of her former mate STILL IN HER CLASP! She had a darker tone than the others and was definitely slightly bigger. Welp, sorry gf, I guess the cat is out of the bag.

Later that night, after she went home. I killed TWO more spiders of the same size and genus. This time, I got creative with my termination method, and used a can-air for computer dusting to literally FREEZE them to death:



This is the first one (btw, forgive my **** camera). The condensed colder-than-freezing mist out of those cans definitely slows em down if you get a good blast on em. It helps to hold the can upside down for this. Then once they're slowed down, slightly hold down the trigger a little just to let a continous stream of the stuff build up. I eventually got it COVERED in white frost in this manner. The second one even SHATTERED when I smashed it (hard-crunchy, as opposed to squishy) The first one I froze I threw outside intact. If he's still there tomorrow morning where I left him, I'll know for sure he died of freezing temperatures.


Welp, I'm off to bed...

Hoser wrote:

I heard of a neat way to kill roaches.......baking soda. Just spread some of it in the areas they seem to populate, and as they scurry across the stuff they will ingest enough of it that when it gets to their digestive system it will start to bubble and expand. Seeing as how they have no way to get rid of the gas build up they just basically get killed from the internal build up of pressure. They don't blow up or anything like that (that would be really cool if it did happen though) they just die within a few minutes.

I've personally witnessed this effect in Sea Gulls. In younger, and more than likely stupider, days I lived right off the beach in Satellite Beach FL. I was out on the beach with a few friends one evening and we witnessed the annual hatching of the endangered Loggerhead Sea Turtles. The gulls, would swoop down and grab the baby turtles and then fly up high and drop them to the beach below. This would be repeated until baby turtles were softened up enough to be easy to eat. The behavior apalled a few of my friends enough that we headed up to a burger joint near the beach, bought an order of steak fries and then went to Eckerds and bought a box of Alka-Seltzer. We spent the better part of an hour breaking up Alka-Seltzer tablets and then stuffing the pieces in to the steak fries. Apparently gulls like fries more than turtles. They also drop dead in midflight and plummet to the ground when they eat Alka-Seltzer. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. But, as I saw it, there are one too many gulls out there and not enough sea turtles.

You coulda just used a pellet gun--more humane

And jesus that is one big spider. I like spiders but it sounds like you could stand to bug bomb your place

Joined the forum JUST BECAUSE of this topic. Whee!

1. I will echo the above poster: Earwigs FTW. Anything with a pincer is... well.. UGH.
2. I had a mexican orange-knee tarantula for a pet for 8 years. Talk about low-maintenance! Plus an excellent conversation piece. Harmless, though, like an 8-legged hamster*

Oddly, big *@#^ spiders don't bother me, but the standard creepy-crawlie house spider gives me fits. And I still don't trust daddy longlegs not to feast on my flesh. What is it about these little things?

----
* True fact: I've been bitten by every single rodent I've ever owned. Never bitten once by the spider.

ssidbroadcast wrote:

Okay guys,

So gf was over today, and SCREAMED when she saw this bad-ass Matriarch of a hobo spider at the top of my storage room bead-curtain:

Dang man, those spiders are CRAZY!!! HUGE ASS SPIDERS! You're a spider killing machine!!!

Found this one in my new back yard the other day.

Snap, PRIME1. What the heck kindof spider is that? PS: My rules for outdoor spiders are much more merciful. Leave the spider, destroy the web if it is in my way.

ssidbroadcast wrote:

Snap, PRIME1. What the heck kindof spider is that? PS: My rules for outdoor spiders are much more merciful. Leave the spider, destroy the web if it is in my way.

I have no idea. I have another pic of a cool looking spider I need to find. It built a multi-square foot web in our gazebo a while back. I let him be as well.

EDIT: Found it.

Ick, you people and your big arsed spiders. I see a spider, it dies. Sorry. Just don't like the idea of something chewing on me, and spider bites are annoying as all hell.


Even moreso if they're poisonous.

ssidbroadcast wrote:

Snap, PRIME1. What the heck kindof spider is that?

Yellow Garden Spider. Very pretty. Fairly common in my neck of the woods, too.

Inkedsphynx wrote:

Even moreso if they're poisonous.

Every spider is poisonous. That's how they eat.

(Isn't that a cheerful thought? )

PRIME1 wrote:

Found this one in my new back yard the other day.

Whoa...the aliens ARE among us!

PRIME1 wrote:

Holy **** how big was that spider???

rrussell wrote:

Inkedsphynx wrote:

Even moreso if they're poisonous.

Every spider is poisonous. That's how they eat.

(Isn't that a cheerful thought? )

I meant to humans. I thought that was quite obvious...

Inkedsphynx wrote:

rrussell wrote:

Every spider is poisonous. That's how they eat.

I meant to humans. I thought that was quite obvious...

That was one of my favorite answers when asked about my dear pet. "ALL spiders are poisonous...." esp. in front of a kindergarten class. Boy, didn't their eyes got big at that point!

We had a garden spider living in the field behind our house for a while. They are gorgeous beasts... even more so when they're fifty feet away from the back door.

Garden spiders ARE kind of cool -- they're big without being ugly, most have unusual and rather beautiful markings, and they crouch in a funny way that makes them look more like a small, hunting animal than the Immortal Arachnid of Terror (which tends to describe black widows, a lot of common house spiders, that ugly piece of deathbait living in the corner of ssidbroadcast's storage room, etc.).

I leave garden spiders alone outdoors, and I might even move one from indoors to outdoors if I found it there -- which doesn't happen often, because they seem to understand which side of the wall is theirs. All other indoor spiders WILL die.

idchafee wrote:

Holy **** how big was that spider???

Think of an acorn with legs.

He was like my pet for awhile, until one day he was gone for whatever reason.

The hardest part was remembering NOT to walk into his web during the day (when he was hiding).

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/ ... _webs.html

Eww...

FubbHead wrote:

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070830_ap_spider_webs.html

Eww...

Looks like something out of Lord of the Rings!

We have a cat so I don't see many spiders or insects indoors. But outside is a different story. I showed my daughter something I used to do when I a kid and found a web outdoors with no spider in site. I'll find an ant nearby and kind of cripple it a little then pick it up and drop it in the web. Within a split second the spider will usually appear and tackle the ant. My daughter thought this was the coolest thing ever after she got over the initial shock of how fast the spider appears after he feels the movement on his web.

BKA wrote:

We have a cat so I don't see many spiders or insects indoors. But outside is a different story. I showed my daughter something I used to do when I a kid and found a web outdoors with no spider in site. I'll find an ant nearby and kind of cripple it a little then pick it up and drop it in the web. Within a split second the spider will usually appear and tackle the ant. My daughter thought this was the coolest thing ever after she got over the initial shock of how fast the spider appears after he feels the movement on his web.

That's really weird - what kind of ants are they?

We have those big black carpenter ants in our yard, and when I drop one of them into a (e.g.) wolf spider's web, he'll run out, tap it a couple of times, then go back to his tunnel, disappointed.

What?!? Do they taste bad, or something? Picky damned spider...

rrussell wrote:

BKA wrote:

We have a cat so I don't see many spiders or insects indoors. But outside is a different story. I showed my daughter something I used to do when I a kid and found a web outdoors with no spider in site. I'll find an ant nearby and kind of cripple it a little then pick it up and drop it in the web. Within a split second the spider will usually appear and tackle the ant. My daughter thought this was the coolest thing ever after she got over the initial shock of how fast the spider appears after he feels the movement on his web.

That's really weird - what kind of ants are they?

We have those big black carpenter ants in our yard, and when I drop one of them into a (e.g.) wolf spider's web, he'll run out, tap it a couple of times, then go back to his tunnel, disappointed.

What?!? Do they taste bad, or something? Picky damned spider...

The spider is probably either not hungry, or hitting it with it's venom and waiting. Spider venom starts the digestion process for the spider, as it begins to break down the prey's matter. It's like our saliva, to an extent. So the spider can't just run out and begin chomping down, they aren't designed that way.

rrussell wrote:

BKA wrote:

We have a cat so I don't see many spiders or insects indoors. But outside is a different story. I showed my daughter something I used to do when I a kid and found a web outdoors with no spider in site. I'll find an ant nearby and kind of cripple it a little then pick it up and drop it in the web. Within a split second the spider will usually appear and tackle the ant. My daughter thought this was the coolest thing ever after she got over the initial shock of how fast the spider appears after he feels the movement on his web.

That's really weird - what kind of ants are they?

We have those big black carpenter ants in our yard, and when I drop one of them into a (e.g.) wolf spider's web, he'll run out, tap it a couple of times, then go back to his tunnel, disappointed.

What?!? Do they taste bad, or something? Picky damned spider...

I typically use the smaller black ants, but we do have the big black ants you described also. As you and Inkedsphynx stated the spider usually just sticks the ant with venom and then goes back into hiding. But sometimes they will drag the ant closer to the entrance of where it is hiding.

http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Giant_Sp ... 08184.html

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 48b6d.html

If you want to avoid toxic poisons (and have a little fun), try using "canned air".
You know the stuff you are suposed to dust the keyboard with.

Just turn the can upside down, back a couple of feet away from spider, and shoot.
The fluid comes out really fast, so expect spider to go flying if he isn't holding firmly to something.

The thing is, as the fluid rapidly evaporates, it produces extream cold.
The spider is instantly FROZEN and covered with frost.

I've personally had a few fall from a wall or celling and shatter into bits when they hit the floor! (Really - no fooling.)

Other things work even better, like "chip cooler" and sports sprays - but those are harder to find and often not on hand when needed.

Spider eradication and a new sport all in one.

Inkedsphynx wrote:

rrussell wrote:

What?!? Do they taste bad, or something? Picky damned spider...

The spider is probably either not hungry, or hitting it with it's venom and waiting. Spider venom starts the digestion process for the spider, as it begins to break down the prey's matter. It's like our saliva, to an extent. So the spider can't just run out and begin chomping down, they aren't designed that way.

No, I dont' mean taps it with his fangs - I mean with his feet! Pat pat pat, and leaves. Doesn't wrap him up, nothing. The ant just continues merrily on its way.

I'm thinking that's WHY we have so many *!@^$ ants in our yard