If you find a brown recluse spider in your home, your first instinct is likely a feeling of concern that there may be more of them. Brown recluses aren’t as dangerous as many people think—especially because they aren’t aggressive, preferring to hide alone in dark, quiet places unless provoked—but they can still cause physical harm and thus should not be taken lightly!
What Makes it an Infestation?
Because they are solitary creatures, finding one brown recluse spider doesn’t necessarily mean you have an infestation on your hands. Brown recluse spiders aren’t swarming invaders like many other household pests, but they do reproduce very quickly. A female brown recluse can produce as many as five egg sacs, and each of those can contain hundreds of eggs! If a female brown recluse has the chance to lay eggs in your home, one single spider can quickly multiply into an infestation.
Signs of a Brown Recluse Infestation
Homeowners should know all the possible signs of a brown recluse infestation so that they can deal with it right away rather than waiting until it becomes a serious problem. Here are four signs the brown recluse presence in your home may have reached the point of infestation:
1. Spider Sightings
While finding a single brown recluse spider in your home doesn’t automatically mean an infestation, it does mean you should be on the lookout. If that one spider is female, it is possible they will produce and lay egg sacs in your home at some point. Even if it is just one spider for now, DIY spider control methods don’t usually work for brown recluses, so you should still contact pest management for a brown recluse sighting.
Brown recluse spiders are most easily identified by the violin shape on their head and thorax, plus the fact that they only have three pairs of eyes instead of the typical four most spiders have. That said, they do bite, so don’t get too close when trying to figure out if the spider you find is a brown recluse!
2. Spider Webs in Corners and Tight Spaces
Because of their preference for dark, small spaces, you’re most likely to find brown recluse webs in corners and crevices around your home—especially in dark locations like under desks or in the garage. Their motto is live-and-let-live: you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you. If you see a brown recluse, you don’t have to be afraid. Just leave it alone and get in touch with pest management pros who can help keep you and your household safe!
Brown recluse spiders don’t design their webs to catch prey, so the design is much more irregular and loose than a typical spider web. A female brown recluse will build her web very thick and dense in order to create a nest for her egg sacs.
3. Egg Sacs
Brown recluse egg sacs are two to three inches in diameter, loosely woven in strands of off-white silky web to protect them. If you see an egg sac in a brown recluse web, contact a pest management service right away! Time is of the essence. The moment those eggs hatch, you will have a larger and difficult-to-handle infestation in your home.
While these eggs can take up to a month to hatch, unless you watched the spider lay the eggs you won’t be able to tell how long it will be before the baby brown recluses come out to play. So we’ll say it again—contact pest management as soon as you find an egg sac in your home.
4. Noticeable Decrease in Other Pests
One perk of any spider infestation is the built-in pest management they bring to the household. Brown recluse spiders eat smaller spiders and insects, including swarming varieties that can cause a lot of damage to your home.
Brown recluses can relieve your home of termites, ants, mosquitoes, and other Kansas City pests. Still, trading one pest for another is less than ideal! If you’ve struggled with another pest infestation and suddenly notice the problem going away, that may be the result of brown recluses hunting nearby.
When to Call a Pest Management Company
There is no wrong time to contact a pest management company about a potential brown recluse infestation. If you see any of the above-mentioned signs, Advantage Termite & Pest Control is ready to create a custom treatment plan to protect your home from infestations of all kinds!
If you’re looking for year-round pest management services in Kansas City or the surrounding areas, give Advantage Termite & Pest Control a call and say goodbye to your infestation woes!
