Pregnancy and brown recluse spiders

intheversa

Any momma's to be out there living with brown recluse spiders? I live in St. Louis, Missouri. They're pretty common for our region. We bought our house a little over a year ago. After having an exterminator confirm it we found out that our house was infested with brown recluse spiders

Since then we've done all the necessary things to get rid of them. Unfortunately like most of the Midwest we've had non-stop rain and it's driving them in. My exterminator said he can increase our spraying frequency or we can bomb the house. We talked about the fact that I'm pregnant and that bombing it would not involve chemicals, only suck all the oxygen out of the house. I still feel like I would need to sterilize all the baby stuff again to be safe.

I'm talking to my doctor Friday about medication in case I get bit. I may not even be allergic but I had a bad reaction to a bite as a child so my DH and I are being really cautious. Anyone else going through this or has gone through this before? Thankfully they're not agressive but we're seeing so many lately that we're worried about an accidental bite and I don't want anything to hurt the baby.

beckles112

I'm about an hour south of Cape Girardeau and I've seen several huge brown recluses in my house in the past couple months. We've also had a ton of rain. My husband sprays at least once a week and we set out glue traps to catch them. It's freaking me out! One night I was finishing some homework in bed and I got up and saw a giant one crawl out from under my pillow. I should probably talk to my doctor about medication just in case, as well. Bluh....I'm about ready to just set my house on fire.

jkarayusuf

Brown recluse spiders are highly venomous so you need to be very careful. It doesn't matter about having an allergy to them bc their bite causes necrosis about half of the time. They are not an aggressive species (hence recluse), but double check shoes, towels, or clothes before putting them on. I would do whatever you can to get rid of them. And yes, rewash all baby items and your own if you get your house fumigated.

JaqiDec04

Would packing up some of the babies items, and then bombing the house without it in there be an option?

This would make me very nervous, especially if you can't get this handled by the time the baby comes.

intheversa

We set up glue traps all over the house. We haven't found any in a few days but I'm being really careful. We have an exterminator that is coming out to dust and spray regularly. 

I think we're trying to avoid bombing as much as possible. We have 2 dogs and a cat and I'm not too eager to find a place for all of us to go for 6 hours. If we do it, it will be before my showers in August, that way I won't have too much baby stuff in the house just yet. It will make it easier to clean, I would even consider packing up all of the baby clothes, blankets, etc. that are already on hand and just moving them to my parents house until it's over. 

My doctor told me to watch for bites and be careful with cluttered areas. Right now our spare bedroom is a disaster. I have to work on cleaning it out next week so I'll probably wear long sleeves and gloves when I do. 

edavis926

I think I would go for the idea of moving out all of the baby stuff and having the exterminator do whatever he can. But I'm also irrationally upset (I think it's more complete disgust than even fear at this point) by spiders and probably would have burned the house down by now...

intheversa

Well since the rain finally stopped we haven't seen any. And honestly before all the rain started we had seen a total of 3 for the entire season. Now that's not to say that they're gone, but our house may not be as infested as we're afraid of. 

Here's my resistance with bug bombing. Bug bombing eliminates any that are currently in the house, it doesn't prevent others from coming in after. Also I live in a wooded area. There are 27 trees on our property alone. That doesn't count the woods behind our house. We bought this house from a flipper who bought it from an older couple in their 80's who were hoarders who never left their house. According to all of my neighbors (who have never had a brown recluse problem) the house was extremely dated and run down when they moved out and it took days just to clear out all of the junk. Clutter and overgrowth are the ideal habitat for a brown recluse. Since I've been home these last two weeks (I am doing the stay at home mom thing for a while) I've eliminated all of the cluttered areas around the house and my DH and I are working to move our wood pile farther away from the house. All the overgrowth and ivy are gone. The yard is maintained. We also have the house sprayed every other month. We never have any other bugs coming in anymore so we're eliminating their opportunity to hunt.  And we're having people come out next month to replace the insulation in the house and seal any cracks where air is getting in. So hopefully with all of the work we are doing we will be eliminating the problem. 

So while we might bug bomb to eliminate any others still in hiding until we get the other house problems fixed, it won't do any good. We bought our dream house in our dream community, completely updated, with a lot of old house problems that you're not going to see until you've lived there. And our goal is to fix as much as we can before the baby arrives in October.

1stimemom2

We are in central Missouri also and we are having the same problem. All the rain drove a bunch of them in our home. We are spraying again next week but I already haven't seen any since the rain stopped. I am still pretty nervous though because I am horribly scared of spiders and have never been bitten while other family members have and have had have found out they are allergic and had horrible reactions. One bite almost killed my dad in less than 24 hours and he is a BIG guy. I say do everything you can before the baby is born.