Chesapeake Bay North - SPIDERS!

[BruceK]

You guys will be giving Wayfarer nightmares.
We found a Huntsman(scary looking,grow to about 3" across, said to be harmless) on the boat recently. Relocated,using a towel,to rarely used boat.

 

[Duallysb]

Spiders...

We are also on the Chesapeake and we have tons of spiders. We have little tiki diffusers from bed bath and beyond that are a huge help! We keep them in our cockpit

 

[georgeasarvey]

We have a 58' Hatteras LRC. We had spider problems with the hardtop covering the Mezzanine deck where we have most of our meals. We don't have any enclosures around the top. In our first travels from Florida to the Chesapeake we found it was customary, in GA, SC and NC, to paint porch ceilings with light blue chalk paint. Nobody seems to know why spiders don't like it. So we tried it and it worked. We spent one summer in Great Oak Landing Marina on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and another summer in New Bern, NC. We are now on our third summer in Palm Coast, FL. No spiders anywhere on the boat.

 

[Wayfarer]

You guys will be giving Wayfarer nightmares.
We found a Huntsman(scary looking,grow to about 3" across, said to be harmless) on the boat recently. Relocated,using a towel,to rarely used boat.

I don't know what you're talking about, I LOVE spiders!

... On a completely unrelated note, I'm going to attach this picture so that the hellbeast posted above doesn't keep triggering my fight or flight responses every time I scroll by.

 

[jimisbell]

I think anything with more than four limbs is evil. Spiders are not harmless. I told a county agent one time when we were discussing the Tarantulas in my lawn, and he said they are not poisonous (they are not, just very dirty) and harmless, that they were not harmless. If I step on one in my bare feet while retrieving my newspaper, you will find me dead hanging from a crotch in the tree branch where I jumped.

 

[jimisbell]

I’m surprised to say that there doesn’t seem to be a spider problem here in Longboat Key (Sarasota), FL, but then there didn’t seem to be an issue when we lived in Key Biscayne (Miami) either. Maybe they just bomb the hell out of these islands, I dunno. We see pest control trucks all the time. Now, no seeums, that’s another issue.

No seeums are easy. Just put a Bounce Fabric softener sheet in your shirt pocket and stick one to every port hole screen on the boat.


Horse flies or Cattle flies are one of our big problems on the Gulf ICW. Cattle graze on either side of the ICW and the flies will hang upside down on the Bimini (they are used to hanging upside down on the belly of cattle). They will take a bite out of you that leaves a bleeding wound. Just saturate the underside of your Bimini with a 25% DEET, or more if you can find it, and it will last for a couple of days. Then do it again. If they cant land they will go away.

 

[Me and Boo]

This year was worse than previous years. The marina did a kill of spiders a couple of times and it was effective. Now only the mud dabbers are a problem.

 

[Tom.B]

We found vacuuming them off just after dark then again the next night gets the remaining and keeps them gone for weeks.
That was Bohemia River, MD

I am with you. Once a month I will get two of Bess’ shoes, put one on each hand, wait until dusk when they are ALL building webs, and just smash them. They are gone for at least another month and uses no chemicals, takes just a few minutes, and is fun for the whole family.

 

[LaBomba]

Not sure where this is available but we use SpiderBan and spray all around the dock, the lines, fender adjusters, fender holes and other places the buggers hide. Use a pump sprayer on a calm day. Lasts for a couple months.http://https://www.wilsoncontrol.com/en/products/insect-control/wilson-spiderban-concentrate

 

[Gulf Comanche]

Get a bunch of mud dauber wasps, those are spider killing machines. I was pressure washing the boat and hosed down a large mud dauber nest, a bunch of spiders came tumbling out of the nest so hosed them off into the water. Pretty soon the fish showed up and ate the spiders. The wasp catches and stuns the spiders and walls them up in the mud nest with her eggs, babies hatch and eat the still living spiders.

 

[AusCan]

Grow a spine people! Lived with these guys for almost two years.

Yes, we get plenty of redbacks around the house at home, but none at the marina.

Their bite is painful but very rarely fatal.

 

[Sangraal]

It’s been our experience that in salty water conditions spiders tend to be less of an issue. In fresh water they are more so. My wife discovered that diluted peppermint oil repels them. No harmful chemicals for you or the boat and it smells nice too!

 

[JESSEDIVER49]

Thank you everyone for the excellent ideas & products for consideration!

 

[sbu22]

Late to the party, but they've been epidemic this summer on the Lake P southshore. Usually very few, if any in the marina.using rattle can Home Depot spider spray with some success. A couple of other brands were worthless against our particular spiders. Lasts a couple of weeks on exterior. Haven't needed it inside - don't think I will anyway.

 

[BruceK]

Drift, but strange. At home this week I found a green frog, 3-4" long, in an upstairs toilet bowl. I`d flushed the toilet and saw it clawing its way up the bowl to hide under the rim of the bowl. I flushed again removing it from its refuge, wrapped it in a tea-towel and released it outside. Can`t see how it got there except via the sewer, and not even that makes sense. That toilet contains a toilet and nothing else, no exterior window, no basin. I doubt it entered the house and went up 2 flights of stairs.
Neighbors 2 houses away have a frog pond they created, not far from a small creek. "Build it and they will come", one of the many pond frogs makes a sound like whacking a plate on the water surface. Where there are frogs there are usually snakes,so far we`ve seen none.

 

[keith c]

Spiders

I have a spider problem on my boat located in Madisonville La, north shore Lake Ponchatrain! I never see a spider during the day but at night they are all over the boat! Every night I am on the boat I spray all webs/spiders directly . At first I was killing 40 to 50 per night. After third night its down to 10 or less.
This is an on going process however!

 

[sbu22]

Misery loves company, Keith. I've not seen anything like this in the past. Think it somehow sources from the extended Bonne Carre opening.

 

[sbu22]

Spent today scrubbing spider dung off my 2 yo Awlgrip. Some are stubborn. Awlgrip says to use one of their solvents, MEK, toluene, etc. to remove. Scary but necessary, I suppose. Nasty little buggers.