Spiders!

[To Be Quite Honest]

NSFW!

Seriously wtf are you doing!

NSFW!

NSFW!

WHYYYYYYYY!

NSFW!

[Rifleman]

The solution is simple, and even The Simpsons covered it once.

Get some birds to eat the spiders. When there are too many birds, release some snakes into the yard to eat the birds. When the snakes become a problem, get some gorillas, who will kill snakes on the spot. Then the winter will come and kill off the gorillas.

[burn_this_city]

They probably hatched recently, over the next while their numbers will decline. They're completely harmless so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Once the mosquitos show up the spiders will be the lesser of two evils.

[return to the red]

In relation to the spiders, I'm not a big fan of spraying but this year they became so intolerable we called the Orkin man.

Originally Posted by flylock shox

I have no solution to your spider woes.

However, since you have pulled off the extremely rare consecutive and properly used sequence above you deserve some recognition.

Kudos.

Hopefully this alleviates some of your spidery distress.

I would have preferred to see him use them incorrectly on each one to see the mass hysteria it would have created around here.

BTW Hysteria was such a great Def Leopard album!







Squirrel!

[Mass_nerder]

I think the problem is the same in most new neighborhoods. Must be caused by the lack of mature vegetation, like Circa89 said.
I remember growing up in Douglasdale in the early 90s how many spiders were around, and actually still are at my parents' place, although I always attributed it to the proximity to Fish Creek.
My friend's house in Bridlewood has the same problem too.

[troutman]

All those spiders must be eating some other pests. Remove the spiders, and you may be infested with something worse.

[KTrain]

I live in Elgin (other side of 52nd from you) and we have the same issue. Last year I used a couple cans of spider killer and sprayed the top and bottom of my fence, along the deck railing and basically anywhere they have protection from the elements.

It did the trick.

It probably killed all the bugs in the area. I guess I don't care for my backyards ecosystem.

[Huntingwhale]

Learn to live with them in harmony.

[CaptainCrunch]

Could be worse.

It could be BEES!!!

[GreenLantern]

I hate spiders, so much, but I can't stop reading this thread.

When I got to this point and there were not any pictures yet, I was sad.

What is wrong with me..

[wookster]

I live in Cranston and they are very bad here as well...went to use the BBQ on Monday and killed 27 spiders on the BBQ alone before using it. What makes it worse is that I used the BBQ the day before as well. My trees in the back yard are litterally covered in them and I'm kinda scared to check out the fence line.

[Jordan!]

[shermanator]

Originally Posted by troutman

All those spiders must be eating some other pests. Remove the spiders, and you may be infested with something worse.

Ya...like herpes...

[Otsy]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Ever watch "Infested"? Is it like that?

At least Calgary is pretty much free of anything too harmful. Kelowna is full of black widows, and I am not sure, but I heard some say they found brown recluses around.

Anyway, I am sure once they have eaten all that is to be eaten, they will die off or start moving elsewhere. My cat finds spiders fun and will just eat them if she sees any. On the bright side, you have a healthy ecosystem in your yard.

The brown recluse are probably being mistaken for Hobo Spiders, very similar. My basement suite in Kelowna was full of them. Probably killed one a day. Nasty little things.

I live in Copperfield now, and last year was awful for spiders. Haven't noticed as many yet this year, but my one neighbor does no yard maintenance so that really doesn't help as it's just a spider haven over there. My wife hates spiders and wouldn't even eat on the deck cause spider webs everywhere on the railings. First step done last year by taking off all the railings. So really just have the fence to deal with. We did find some spray though that worked quite well last year. Don't recall the name off hand, but it was a little more expensive but worked. I'd never seen spiders react to anything like that before.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Otsy

The brown recluse are probably being mistaken for Hobo Spiders, very similar. My basement suite in Kelowna was full of them. Probably killed one a day. Nasty little things.

In BC hobo spiders are found, but the giant house spider is much more common:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_house_spider

In a basement suite I was in Vancouver I used to live in, I found a couple of spiders aorund 3-4 inches in diameter. They were tough #######s. I couldn't kill them with a broom, only pin them temporarily. It took 5 or 6 good wacks with the broom pan to finish them off. Thankfully, I've only ran across them a few times during my time in Vancouver.

[Otsy]

Definitely Hobo spiders around our place. We'd put them in a glass jar and compare to pics on some sites to find out what we were dealing with.

[rohara66]

My place was infested with spider slast year (also in Copperfield) and it wasn't too bad during the day.... but $#%^$&%$^#!!! at night it was like a damn horror movie! Gives me shivers just thinking about it.

I sprayed spider killer around my front door, garage door, window wells and back deck area a couple times through out the summer and it seemed to help.

[To Be Quite Honest]

Originally Posted by captaincrunch

could be worse.

It could be bees!!!

BEADS?!!!! This no caps thing is lame.

[CaptainCrunch]

Bee's

[Ashasx]

I once found something that looked like a dead, translucent scorpion in my basement, about an inch long.

Am I imagining things, or is this normal in Calgary?