Has anyone ever found a Black Widow spider in their mailbox?

[Will Carry]

Or is someone trying to send me a message? The little she-devil had made a huge nest and was hanging on the door where you put your finger to open it. I my 55 years I have never seen this.

[Jonnin]

that is odd. They like dark, maybe damp areas and this is very unlike them. I have found maybe 5 in my life, and ALL of them were on the ground, outside, and in a dark area like move an old log and there it is. One lived in a stump in our yard that we had drilled holes in to rot it out, found it as we did the final removal of the stump. I took that one to school (alive, in a jar) and my science prof had a minor cow (deadly critter in a glass jar with kids all around), killed and preserved it.

[Reservoir Dog]

Never found one in my mailbox, but if I did.............I would never get the mail again!

As I have said before: ALL SPIDERS MUST DIE!!

[Just2Honor]

I agree with Jonnin. Odd place for a Black Widow but you can never say never with nature.

[Just2Honor]

Resevoir Dog, the main diet of the spider we all call Daddy Long Legs is other spiders. Their mouth is way too small to bite a human so keep them around and you'll have less of the other kind.

[Guest RobThatsMe]

I flipped up my motorcycle seat one time to check the battery, and I had one under the seat in a small web. YIKES:eek:

[pitt2magic]

Two houses in a row I found them in my water meter box. Now if I ever have to get into a meter box for anything I am a bit nervous. I am surprised that one would be in a mail box or anything that you use everyday.

[UncleJak]

I have had other spiders in my mailbox with webs. Never a black widow, but I don't think it's unheard of. They can be moved in overnight with a full web.

[Motasyco]

I had one drop on me while I was under my wife's vehicle not long ago. They're really more common than most people think.

Many years ago I captured one and put it in a small clear plastic box and gave it to my son. He thought it was pretty cool and yes, he knew that he shouldn't try to handle it and why. It was so cool, he took it to school to show his buddies. That didn't turn out so well. He never let the Black Widow out of the box but the school administrators were not amused or impressed and expressed, to me, clearly, their displeasure.

[Jasongar8]

The only place I've found one is in my water meter. Everytime I open it now I am extra careful to check for them.

[vontar]

I flipped up my motorcycle seat one time to check the battery, and I had one under the seat in a small web. YIKES:eek:

I can beat that.

Came home from college did the same only I found a small black snake. Worse part, I was checking the battery and I had already been trying to start it. I had already been on it trying to push start it and roll it off a hill and put it in gear to get it to fire, both of which failed. Second I had dad pulling me down the road before I go it to fire. Found the snake after I had the engine running and I was checking other things.

As as as black widow spiders, I have found a few in east TN out in the woods but you never know where something like that is going to end up. As others I don't care for spiders.

[Dolomite_supafly]

A few years ago they were really bad around my house. Seemed like they were in every place we looked. It was also the year we saw the biggest one we have ever seen. Its abdomen was about the size of a dime maybe even a nickel. I had never seen one this big before or even one since.

We spent a day going around killing every one we could and haven;t had a problem since.

Dolomite

[Mechanic_X]

My friend bought a house off of 109 in Lebanon. Has a shop behind it that was crawling with them.

[Murgatroy]

We had an immature one living behind the IR card reader on the front door at work last year. Scared me pretty good.

Spiders are the only creepy crawly that give me the heebie jeebies. I have learned to deal with it though, my wife literally shuts down at the sight of bugs. I don't mean jumps on a chair and screams, I mean falls in the floor and in incapable of movement.

I grew up in a semi-superstitious home, so I can't kill a spider in the house, and normally I let them be if I find them outside. When my wife finds a spider, or a cricket, or a junebug, or a grasshopper I grab a magazine and I relocate them to the front door.

Sadly my daughter is picking this trait up from her mother, so I am doing my best to nip it in the bud right now. Bugs, snakes, lizards, they are all earth's creatures same as me, and if I can help it, I will not end their travels. Not a religious thing, not a hippy thing, just a moral thing. I don't feel right ending a creature's travels if it doesn't directly interfere with mine.

Now, if it has the ability to seriously wreck my day, I am not gonna try to relocate it. So if I find a Black Widow under the hood of my car while I am changing the oil, and I can't avoid it, yeah, it is gonna have a swift meeting with my boot. But if I can, I will avoid it.

Edited August 14, 2011 by Murgatroy

[Ebow1]

I think I can win this one. Back when I had a beard, woke up one morning and went to the bathroom. Felt something funny in my beard, scratched it, and a brown recluse fell out.

[brooksjr]

YES

I have found them in a mailbox on more than 1 occasion. I've also found them at work in old wet pig mat. We've had brown recluses show up in gaylords of material as well.

Edited August 14, 2011 by brooksjr

[pitt2magic]

We have a winner!!

[brooksjr]

We have a winner!!

What do I win?! Or was your comment the prize...lol.

[mav]

I don't think it would be unusual for one to get inside of a mailbox. I saw quite a few of them when I opened the cover on our water main. I still don't know how they got in there.

The spiders I don't like even though they are harmless are those big black and yellow garden spiders. They just look menacing.

[Guest coldblackwind]

Haven't found one in my mailbox, but I've found a ton of them in my barn. I know theres at least one nest of them in there...cemented into the floor but I find live ones quite regularly, and convert them into dead ones. On the upside more black widows means I find less brown recluse than at my last place!

[peejman]

I keep my grungy, yard work shoes next to the door in my garage. First thing after I got up at 5:30am, I decided to go turn the sprinkler on. So I went into the garage and puledl those shoes out to walk around outside. I as typically do, I thumped them both on the floor to shake out any unwanted visitors, lest my bare feet have company in the shoes. A great big female Black Widow came tumbling out. She met an unfortunate demise shortly thereafter.

A friend and I were hauling a bunch of concrete landscaping blocks from his house to mine. They'd been stacked up behind his house for about a year. We found 15 Black Widows while moving the blocks.

There's a good reason why the guy who comes to read your water meter wears one welding glove.

[Guest Broomhead]

We have an inordinate amount of brown recluses in and around the house. The wife and oldest daughter freak and holler for me to get/kill it. They are the only spider that I have ever had try to attack me just as soon as it would retreat. They will always meet a swift demise when in the house, the youngest, 19 months, isn't scared of anything and has bad reactions to insect bites. Outside or in the shed, where the huge ones are (abdomens the size of chili or navy beans), will be swatted/shuffled off of what I'm after, but will usually live. The odd thing, there are Daddy Long-Legs in the shed that are 3-5x the size of the recluses, but there are still a lot of recluses in there.

[Guest db99wj]

When I was a teen was in my kitchen and big ole spider came across the floor, I did what anyone is suppose to do and stomped it, with that stomp, it killed this big ole spider, what it didn't kill, was the hundreds of little baby spiders there were on her back, I became Lord of the Dance that day.

[Guest coldblackwind]

When I was a teen was in my kitchen and big ole spider came across the floor, I did what anyone is suppose to do and stomped it, with that stomp, it killed this big ole spider, what it didn't kill, was the hundreds of little baby spiders there were on her back, I became Lord of the Dance that day.

Ha! My mom did that once, I'd forgotten about that!

[Guest nasdaqtrader]

Before I escaped from NJ, living on a large farm, I actually did find one in the mailbox, near the back of the box in a little web. In TN they appear to prefer water meters. I found a large one inside the house in a web attached to the freezer. At least they don't move around much. The nice thing about living in TN as opposed to NJ is that you can shoot the spiders on the wall in your house with bird shot and your neighbors won't give it a second thought.