I just found a brown recluse in my bed...
 

So It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm watching what was going to be my last episode of Stargate SG1 for the night before rolling over and going to sleep. For 30 minutes I keep feeling something but it's so light I passed it off as a stray hair or a thread tingling one of my body hairs. My dad was bitten a year or two ago and I've been turning my sheets and pillows before sliding into bed every night and since I'd only been there for 30 minutes or so, I really wasn't all that concerned since I hadn't seen a spider in our house in months.

Well after the 3rd time of getting annoyed I figured I'd just get up, do another check, pull the loose threads off my covers so I can get back to sleep.. Well I pulled the cover back and saw the ugliest little monster crawling across the bed.. I immediately knew what it was but booted my computer and googled it hoping to see some harmless recluse look-a-like but no luck, The only spiders mistaken for Recluses seem to be cellar spiders and wolf spiders both of which are common here and I'd easily identify.

I've read about the spider's bite, I know that they don't like to bite people but I also know people don't instantly feel the bite. It's not until 4-8 hours before the bite even becomes red. I however have started feeling "bites" everywhere on my body..

My 5:30am bedtime just turned into a 9am, or maybe 12pm bedtime, hell it might be a 5:30am bedtime tomorrow. I'm just setting here feeling new itchy spots pop up every few minutes hoping I didn't get bit and hoping if I did it's somewhere that I can easily attend to the wound. Well, I do have the spider floating in a cup of rubbing alcohol, I don't know if he's dead yet but I'm sure he's drunk as hell. Hopefully with the spider if any wound develops I can get medical attention before it leaves a hole in me.

Sigh.. I should be a little more optimistic. I didn't squash the spider and he seemed very health when I caught him so here's hoping he wasn't threatened enough to defend himself. Well I'm on the 3rd episode of SG1 season 2.. I guess I'll finished off the season and try to get back to sleep...

I apologize to everyone that's reading this right before bedtime. I'm sure you'll have no spiders.. I mean what's the chances that it'll happen to 2 TFPers in 1 night, right?

Feel free to share your stories of bites or close calls.. I'm sure I'll be hanging around the forum a few hours.

Man, I found a snake in my laundry room not long ago. Given where I live a was a little concerned whether it was poisonous. I grabbed some long leather welding gloves and a snatched him up. Wasn't easy to catch. I snapped his neck and took him to a friend who said "deadly, very deadly." Doing laundry now almost always gives me pause. So, I'm sleeping fine but thinking about sending all my laundry out.

Wow... scary thought. I'll keep some good thoughts for you.

I found a snake behind my toilet once. They must get in through the dryer vent :)

In my old city of residence in Cali, it was all too common to find a black widow spider crawling amongst your old tools in the garage. They were fascinating to observe as long as you noticed them before they noticed you.

I got bit by a black widow in my bed several years ago, on my boob....wasnt fun and I had a reminder (big scar) for a long time. Nice perk of getting breast reduction done 2 years ago....the ugly scar is gone.

Surprised me though...as allergic to insects and such that I am (have to carry an Epi pen) the reaction I had to the black widow was very light from what the hospital told me, I didnt even need epinephrine.

One night I was laying in bed and along comes this big gnarly brown spider. Now, usually I just shoo spiders away because I don't take a life unless my safety is in jeopardy. I tried to shoo him and he attacked! I pushed him away and he bolted straight back towards me, so I sat up and prepared for the ensuing brawl. I took first swing. He dodged it! That's right, he fucking side stepped my punch. He then lunged straight at me. I had to think fast. I jumped up and grabbed one of my Docs all in one swift action and swung. I turned him into a waffle spider. I brushed his guts off the blanket and layed back down.

Me 1
Rabid Spider 0

Pics or it didn't happen.

oh man, where do i begin.

Age 8: i pulled a blanket off of a lemon tree to warm up with before school. I felt a sting on my side and saw a black widow scurry away. No one believed me, they saw it as another elaborite excuse not to go to school.

I was at school later, feeling sick. The Teachers thought i was full of shit too. I was feverish, in pain and dizzy. later that day i went down on the playground.

all throughout my life woody (or huntsman) spiders have been fucking with me. al though they arent poisonous, they are very big, lightning fast, and fucken freaky!

a week or two ago a was trudging through a field in my back yard when i spied a spider on my shirt. I squinted, looked close, and seen the trademark fiddle. i then did a small "GET IT OFF!" jig and scurried to the house to examine myself for a bite mark.

as for snakes. i used to catch them all the time as a child. Indigo, Rat, Tree, and black racers (if i got the sneak on them.) I few timesi had to take coral snakes, pigmy rattlers, and diamond backs, and cotton mouths out of our laundry room. we lived right on a lake.

as for your bite. I think you'll be fine. all that itching you feel is probably a figment of your imagination. Just wait a while and see if you can find a red patch that screams out "somethings fucking wrong!"

okay, its coffee time for me.

ahh, the age old battle of Spider vs Shoe.

I was living in Arizona.
I was 14.
I was taking a shower.
The crank-out window with no screen on it was open a few inches.
I saw the legs first.
It was a palm-sized brown furry spider.

I froze.
It seemed like hours before I could move.
I moved.

The broken toe was worth it.

wow...almost like a haiku.

http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp...lusabrown2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...es.reclusa.png

Damnit.


Between the OP's story, Will's map, and the fact that I've seen about 4 or 5 stray german cockroaches in this hotel room, you've all got me bugging out (no pun intended, seriously).

Hawt.

ive seen brown recluses in central florida.

that map needs an update.

Edit: just to fuck with you paranoid tfp members, heres a photo of a brown recluse spider bite....

http://thefuntimesguide.com/images/b..._bite_Day9.jpg

okay, it took nine days for it to advance to such a state, but still...

That rexed. Here you go:
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/6...erbitedgs2.jpg

news story recently in au about a python that came up out of someone´s toilet in their apartment, a few floors up...

Shit, that from a spider bite? Ahh, those bastards are no longer allowed in my house.

Side note, not too many deadly insects and reptiles living in Ohio, we watch a lot of nature shows. (So there are reasons why our parents settled here.)

Yeah, brown recluse bites are bad news. I was bit in Basic Training in Missouri. I was VERY lucky that it was a small one and I got attention for it quickly. I have a VERY small scar below my right thumb on the palm of my hand.

Missouri, FYI, sucks. We regularly encountered poisonous snakes, spiders and other critters in the field. Oh, and deer ticks. And other nasty things. God I hat that state. The Ozarks are not THAT pretty!

Well It's been 9 and a half hours.. There's no distinguishing mark anywhere I felt the spider. I do have what feels like a pimple or a mole starting on the back of my right leg though, I didn't feel the lil bastard anywhere near my lower body so I'm holding out hope that it is in fact just a pimple or another bug bite from my fishing trip yesterday..

I really wish people wouldn't post pictures of the "really bad" spider bites and say, "Here's what a bite from a brown recluse looks like." That's just an extreme reaction.

Probably the guy put his hand in a glove that had a recluse in it and it kept biting him. Most bites, while they are usually painful after a while, don't get as bad as the picture of that guys thumb.

My pictures are better.

If you haven't enjoyed any major tissue necrosis yet you will probably be fine,
unless there are thousands of them lurking just beneath your bed.

Perhaps your room is positioned over an ancient spider burial ground.

I would have to move.....spiders and me don't see eye to eyes.....ewwww

Seriously though when i travel to southern states i search my hotel rooms for these 8 legged fangs of death killers.

Meh, brown recluses are poisonous, but you don't know fear until your 12-year-old self wakes up, goes to the bathroom, and accidentally kicks a tarantula in an area of the country where they supposedly don't live.
A classic urban legend.

I got bit by a brown recluse several years ago. I spent the night at JJ's house and got up to go to my summer physics class. I had a little bump on my leg that looked like a mosquito bite but hurt instead of itched. I had on a skirt so I would check my thigh every once in awhile. The class was 3 hours long and by the end of it I was having trouble walking and the area had about 15 little bumps. I called JJ and we went to the quick care. Sitting in the waiting room I could feel where the next bump would emerge and we watched the area grow as the middle started hollowing out.

They put me on very strong steroids and antibiotics. When I went to the pharmacy, the pharmacist asked why I was put on such strong steroids. I said a spider bite and she looked baffled. I showed her my thigh and she was disgusted. The scar has faded, but it was a scary, painful, and gross experience.

I always shake shoes, clothes, and look under the sheets before climbing in bed. I'm not as scared as spiders as I was before the bite though. I fought one and won, but I really don't want anymore fights.

That classic urban legend was on Reuters, CNN et el a week or so ago:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oddlyE...28660720080620

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...se-quarter.jpg



I am feeling them all over me, and I live in Canada! One good think about living here, there are no real bugs! Everything we have here is pretty small and pretty harmless.

If you want to complain about wildlife, you should move here. 7 of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world are Aussies, we have a few pretty nasty spiders and don't get me started about the koalas!

OMG your in Canada. I have to admit that i just checked around me after looking at that picture. I am freaking out right now.

eek

i find myself googling spiders all the time, i should just get one and get over my fears already. i had two in my side stairs window and i left them until they started to hatch a plan of attack. i believe they were orb web.

my skin just crawled off my body....

Hope that's not your opening line.

You had a poisonous fucking spider in your bed and you DIDN"T kill it? WTF?

Throughout the summer we typically have black widows in several places outside the house. I get rid of them as soon as I see them. I'll let most bugs and spiders live but not if they are poisonous.

He put him in a cup of Isopropyl alcohol, he's dead. I think he was just preserving the spider to show medical staff if needed.

Ummm.. that's like the vagina on clavus' foot but like a bigger gianter more bodacious vagina and on his hand.

Ah, missed that part. I guess I was looking for the part where he completely obliterated the spider.

nope, thats after nine days if you read the whole post.

Man, I'm glad, after reading through this thread, that we don't have brown recluse spiders here, though people are so paranoid about them that they often mistake other spiders for brown recluses (this is very common elsewhere too). We do, however, have black widows and hobo spiders. We're coming up on the hobo spider's active season. Usually they stick to crawlspaces and don't venture out into the house, because we also have these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_house_spider They're fucking huge and look scary, but they're not, and a hobo spider population cannot coexist with a population of giant house spiders--the giant house spider will eat hobos for breakfast.

Spiders scare the bejesus out of me, but I also really appreciate spiders like the giant house spider and I wouldn't ever squish one--they eat all the other creepy crawlies I really don't like. Last week a giant house spider skittered across our living room floor--it was easily the size of a half-dollar coin. I captured it and released it outside. It took all of my willpower to do so. Yuck. But then I think of all the bugs it will eat, and I feel better.

If I see one on me I do the frantic spider dance..yet,
I love to watch them spin a web,
and then catch a moth to feed them.

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...6561ca8c_b.jpg

i feel the same way. my old mobile home in florida was riddled with huntsman spiders.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lockspider.jpg

they would scare the living shit out of me, but i knew that they kept other creepy crawlies out, so i didnt mind.

damn, those things were fast.

wow, that web is beautiful. its kind of messed up how spiders can be so creepy but make something so beautiful.