How I Overcame my Fear of Spiders when Black Widows Infested my Backyard
People fear spiders. It’s just a fact. I was one of those people.
I am a man, now in my mid-30’s, and I once feared spiders. As I delve into why I had such a fear of spiders, the internet explains that it is “because arachnophobia can develop in a person because he or she sees the reaction to spiders of others with the phobia.” Since the internet says it, it must be true.
I now know that I am not alone in my fear of spiders. I know this because I have heard many firsthand accounts from female co-workers about their husbands demanding that they come into another room to kill a small house spider.
I will share how I overcame my fear of spiders, and it all started with an invasion of Black Widows.
Maybe it’s because they’re just creepy. Spiders don’t seem to belong to this planet. They glide, they jump, and they rappel down effortlessly from who-knows-where and land on an unsuspecting victim as he sleeps with his mouth open, of course. The spider will then inevitably crawl into the victim’s mouth and then it’s all over. It’s just like a scene from the classic movie, Arachnophobia. And a similar incident also happened in the recent movie, The Sisters Brothers (2018), starring John C. Reilly. His character in the movie became very ill after a spider crawled inside his mouth and bit him from within.
But let’s be real. This doesn’t happen that often. Many people are deathly afraid of common house spiders and its quite unnecessary.
I would probably credit my fear of spiders to my mother screaming and then yelling, “Get it! Get it!” and then demanding that someone kill the thing. But it was a dumb fear (as I say in hindsight). The fear was based on my worst-case scenario that this tiny little harmless spider would take an acrobatic leap and jump up onto me and sink its microscopic fangs into my soft flesh and I would die from a spider bite. I mean, that has to be the absolute worst-case scenario, right?
This must be the reason that most people fear spiders because I can’t think of another reason why so many people have such a strong fear of spiders. There are several poisonous ones in the U.S., which include the Brown Recluse, and the Black Widow spiders.
My earliest recollection of Black Widow spiders was growing up in North Carolina as a teenager. I flipped up with metal water meter cover in the front yard, and I vividly remember seeing that evil spider lurking in that dark hole underneath. I obviously wanted nothing to do with that nasty spider, so I did what any typical teenager would do, and re-cover the hole, and run away. Maybe I told someone, maybe I didn’t.
I will now tell you how I overcame my fear of spiders: I faced a horde of Black Widows, single-handedly, and lived, and I don’t recommend that you ever try this at home, because I risked it all.
15 years later, I am 30 years old, and a new homeowner, living in Alabama. One day, I’m out in the backyard, and I walk by a wooden birdhouse in the backyard. The sunlight reflects just right, and I notice something odd inside. I think to myself, “What was that?”
I wasn’t quite sure, so I proceed to investigate it further. This was an old and flimsy birdhouse, and I easily knocked the roof off of it on the ground, and sure enough, there was a Black Widow inside with her large, white egg sac. So I do what any typical man that fears spiders would do, and I WD-40 it. I take ’em all out. I have learned that WD-40 is quite effective to eliminate any and all harmful insects in the absence of having the professional insecticide on hand.
After the birdhouse incident, I don’t think too much of it. I chalked it up as something that happens in nature. Because nature does weird and sometimes scary things in your backyard if you allow it.
Not long after I discovered a Black Widow egg sac behind a partially hidden area behind a slat in the privacy fence in the backyard, maybe 10 feet from the location of the birdhouse. I put on the rubber gloves and take a stick and knocked the egg sac into a small pimento jar, and used WD-40 on the Black Widow. The egg sac hatches from within the jar a day later and tiny little translucent spider babies, barely visible to the eye — are crawling around inside. I drop a black cricket in there, and the following day, he was looking very satisfied. I honestly had no clue what would happen, but the cricket apparently wins.
This was still not the end. It was actually just the beginning. I later found another Black Widow behind a downspout, next to the brick grooves in the outside of my house. I took care of that one. Then there was one in the sandbox. Took care of that one. They just kept coming, but I felt confident that I had gotten all of them, and eventually this would end.
Sometime after, I put an above ground garden in my backyard, using cinder blocks. That was a big mistake! Little did I know that Black Widows love the insides of cinder blocks. However, I had thought that I had taken care of the Black Widow problem, but I was sadly mistaken.
After a period of time, I started finding Black Widows in almost every cinder block hole, nook, and cranny. I had the rubber gloves on one day, armed with the WD-40 and I was just going at it. I felt the need to fight them head-on. After feeling confident that I won this battle, I went out to the store and purchased a spider killer and blasted the backyard with a good coating.
After this battle with an army of Black Widows, I can definitively say that I kicked my fear of spiders, after successfully taking on so many of the “mother of all spiders” (or so I think).
Since that life-changing event, I actually happened to discover a great method for seeing the many spider residents in my yard at night — but I hope and pray that these are just the common grass spiders.
Spider Eyes Sparkle like Diamonds
If you want to see something really cool, go outside into your front yard on a clear night and have a flashlight or headlamp on. The light beam must be positioned from your forehead, as if it was a third eye between your other eyes. If you look carefully, you can see the light sparkle and reflect off the eyes of the spiders in your yard.
If the light is positioned on your forehead perfectly between your eyes, you can see the grass spiders as the LED lights reflect off of their eyes as you look directly at them. I found that to be pretty cool, but my neighbor’s wife found it to be quite unsettling. He also asked me to not mention it to her, or she would never come outside again.
Disclaimer: If you find yourself in a similar situation with Black Widows, don’t take any unnecessary risks! Call a professional and let them handle the situation. Black Widows are not a spider that you want to risk getting bitten by. Don’t take any chances with this potentially deadly spider.
