Sunday, October 26, 2008

More Spiders and Stuff


First, a reminder of Autumn. We don't have all the sugar maple reds that we used to in Indiana, but we've had a gorgeous Fall anyway. By now, approaching the end of October, we are used to the weather having turned much colder. It will, but so far we've had lovely weather and the yard and garden remain beautiful. Lois' autumn joy (above) is a special delight.





And now the spiders. Or, if you prefer, spiderman (as my car pool mates call me). We have tried vacuuming out the bed, plugging up holes in the wall, everything except setting off Konk (a pressurized aerosol that kills everything in the room -- but I can't quite imagine sleeping in the residue). And I have still gotten bitten each night for the past three weeks. We have found two different friends who have had the same problem, so we know more about what's going on; but we still do not know what kind of spider is involved.
I did get a brief respite by sleeping in Nevin's room for two nights, well covered up. Last night I returned to my own bed, attired thus:

Socks tucked over the sweatpants, gloves pulled over the sweatshirt, and a mosquito net over my head. I'm not sure that it actually worked: things tend to gap when the wearer is asleep, and I may still have gotten a bite. But it gives me some sense of taking action while we try to find the spiders. If I hadn't killed one crawling over my ear a couple of weeks ago, I would think that the bites came from something else. But one of the two friends who had spiders described the nest she found: 20 some spiders quite small (1/2 inch across) and perfectly round (body like a little ball and legs also making a circle), a tan coloured body. The description matches the one that I killed.
They may be in our mattress, which is quite old. We can of course replace it. They may be in the wall. We'll do some spraying of baseboards and see what happens. Eventually I hope we get rid of them, and I can return to lying in bed comfortably, without putting on a suit of spider armour.

4 comments:

KGMom said...

You look like you are getting ready for Hallowe'en.
I can't think of anything helpful to offer. I will, of course, keep checking here to see how the saga of the spiders turns out.

Faithe said...

I, too, am interested in how things will turn out for you. If this were my husband, he would probably move out of the house. Abandon it forever!!! He has "spiderphobia." Hang in there; you'll eventually find the last one and rid yourself of the bites.

Denise said...

Okay - your spider attire is hilarious!! I am still laughing (Gail is too, by the way)! It goes to show that we will go to great lengths to prevent something nasty. I hope you can get to the bottom of the spiders and soon. I would not like this at all! We just did our version of Konk because we also are having been having spider problems. Not to the degree you are, however, but I was tired of seeing so many scurrying across our floors. We must not be as willing to wait it out as you have been doing. By the way, if your mattress is older than 10 years, they (the proverbial “they”) recommend that you get a new one. I worked for a chiropractor for several years and she would ask people how their mattress was and if it was older than 10 years, she would tell them to get a new one.

Denise said...

Oops - I forgot to say that Lois' garden looks beautiful. Lois and Donna have such beautiful flowers and yards.