Brown Recluse Spider Webs: What To Do If You Find Them In Your Home Or Yard

Brown recluse spiders (Loxosceles reclusa) are the stuff of nightmares for arachnophobes, and with good reason. They are tiny, rarely seen out in the open, and venomous. The bite is seldom fatal, but it can be serious. The necrotic venom destroys tissues surrounding the bite, and if it spreads, a wound can develop that takes months to heal completely, if it ever does. Consequently, if you happen to come across a brown recluse web, it's best to treat it like an emergency, because where there's a web, there's very likely a spider nearby.

How do you know the web you found belongs to a brown recluse? First of all, do you live in the brown recluse's natural range? These spiders are found east of the Rocky Mountains, west of the Appalachians, and from Ohio to the Gulf Coast. Second, the web is in a dry place close to the ground, and it isn't like the webs that most spiders weave. Because it's designed to provide a retreat for spiders rather than to catch prey, it looks like a jumble of off-white, silky sinews with no clear pattern. 

You might find one indoors in a closet, garage, or basement. They can also be found in storage boxes, stored clothing, bedding, and other dark, dry places. Outdoors, these webs are common under rocks or logs, or inside old tires and other debris. If you find one outdoors, you can safely walk away from it, but if it's indoors, you may wish to do something about it.

If you come across a web that looks like a brown recluse web, don't panic. The spider to which it belongs is shy and isn't likely to bite unless you directly disturb it. Even if it does bite, the wound will probably heal on its own — although it may take some time. There are no confirmed cases of death from a brown recluse bite in North America, so you can relax somewhat. However, when you find a brown recluse spider web in your home, you should put on protective gloves before you touch anything in the vicinity.

Even if you're wearing gloves, it's not a good idea to disturb the web, because the spider is hard to see and could climb onto another part of your body. You can get rid of spiders with insecticidal sprays and dusts, but a better idea is to use sticky traps. They are known to be effective and easy to monitor. If you catch more than one brown recluse, you know you've got an infestation, and at that point, it's time to call a pest control expert. 

If you can see the spider, try catching it. Place a wide-mouth jar over it, slip a piece of paper underneath the mouth, then flip the jar over to trap the spider. At that point, you can kill it or take it into the woods, far from where anyone lives, and release it.