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Chiral

redbacks..hundreds of the fuckers.

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I knew i had a few Redbacks under the rims of a few pots and from time to time would nail them, but last night I was able to watch them all come out and spin up new webs right where I had cleaned up with a dustpan brush around this whole bunch of pots lined up near my back door. They came out in their hundreds last nice the little bastids, I took my torch and got down and had a really good look at how many there might be, I lost count basically. I have to find a way to eliminate or at least put some sort of serious dent in their populations cause my daughter plays and pokes around right where they hang out and this scares the beejesus out of me.

they have definitely multiplied over the last 6 months as last night i saw heaps and heaps of very young ones out hanging suspended in their webs, there's a heap of middle sized ones and the odd big fat fucker too.

Am I going to have to pull out every single pot in my yard and clean under each pot lip to control them or is there a decent spray I can use to seriously cut their numbers, they really creep me out cause where i saw them come out from last night, I have stood, weeded, placed my hands almost right on them...this one reason I hate plants in pots, the lips on pots are just friggin hideouts for em and it's only a matter of time before i grab a pot carelessly and get nabbed by one. I'm seriously contemplating re-potting every plant into terracotta pots as they have no lip, it's quite doable as I found a place that sells thousands of those pots and it's $10 for 6 pots.

I'd hate myself if my daughter or missus gets bitten cause they sit out there everyday and I now see they are virtually sitting right amongst an army or redbacks.

please help.

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that does not sound fun.

I would suggest some sort of oily spray that sticks around with some heavy penetrating essential oils like sassafrass, neem , mint eucalyptus sprayed every day. I think your change of pots is a winner. Or maybe you could smear some kind of putty/grease into the pot lip with essential oil in it. Vaseline?

just in case check out first aid procedures.

all the best

http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/features/spiders/redback-riddance.asp

Edited by cocalero()

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Vigilance mate, gotta keep at em. Other than use a pesticide there aint much you can do but kill em as ya see em. Whenever ya see a web destroy it, the spider will come out later on or that nite and rebuild the retarded tangle of shit redbacks call their webs. I was considering getting the outside of this place sprayed after i saw how well the isects were kept at bay especially the flies but I have a lil population of geckos here and a very adventurous tree frog, i dont think they would hang around too long if i got the place sprayed. Redbacks generally dont bother me, they are slow and dont travel much so are easy targets, the spiders that i hate are the whitetails, scary lil bastids them. They only ever seem to be inside and they take off when ya try kill them, have found them in clothes on more than a few occasions.

Get a smoke, sit on a chair in front of the redback area and make a nite of it :P

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I can safely assure you that getting your garden sprayed in the Sydney area will not stop the problem at all. If I noticed one thing, it actually eliminated the redbacks competition to increase numbers. They just go into hiding or try and move into your house!

Standing collections of cacti pots are the worst because predators aren't gonna sneak their way through a million spines to get to the bottom lips where they live. Spread your potted stuff out, try and figure out what they are eating. Fight the food source as they will probably be much easier to control and if you control the food supply you control the redback population.

Make the habitat less hospitable for the food (obviously you're a good gardener if there is enough other insect biodiversity to supply such a large number of redbacks). I like fly traps especially, wood ash is good too.

But like passive said, don't underestimate the ability of one night of hard spider killing work to convince them to move into your neighbours backyard. We even control our dogs fleas this way.

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Collect em up and donate them to the boys yeah is christmas after all! :wacko: (Prisoners shooting-up on spider venom)....NSW prisoners have been caught keeping deadly redback spiders they milked for venom to inject themselves for a hit, and growing a marijuana plant on prison grounds.

Authorities also discovered quadruple the number of weapons found last year and double the amount of drugs, official records released by the NSW opposition show.

The four spiders, kept at Grafton prison, were discovered on February 19. It is suspected they were found by inmates at a prison nursery.

It is believed their venom was milked and then watered down to be injected for a high. link http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/07/1094530591631.html?oneclick=true

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A strong vacuum cleaner can do wonders in such situations and avoids you having to get too close to them.

Also really good for sucker type pests like aphid/white-fly and ones that hide out in hard to reach spots like Mealy.

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Use any pesticide surface spray from a supermarket to kill them, and any eggs they have ready to hatch.

Other advice is to use gloves when handling your pots, and maybe use an angle grinder to cut the lip of pots if the spiders bother you.

I have no idea if a redback bite hurts at first, but I dont think anybody has died from the bite in a long time. ie, I imagine the bite hurts like hell at first, so you go and get medical help.

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We even control our dogs fleas this way.

 

I'll send my dog to you hahaha. Last time the poor bugger had fleas I turned him over and checked his balls and holy fuck there were heaps. The poor bastard had hundreds in between his balls and his thighs, i would have been their all night :P.....

Red backs LOVE warm places. They seem to be very communal being able to share the same places for webs with literally hundreds in one area. Look under out door spas (eeekk). You need to do some serious research if your daughter plays there. Ring around as I have found most Pest Controllers to be a pretty dodgy bunch. If you do get someone in make sure you check the sheets for the chems they will use. As someone on here said tho, make sure you don't just kill the competition.

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I have no idea if a redback bite hurts at first.

yep they hurt, but no more than a sharp jab initially, though the little ones can fang ya and you dont notice.

very slow moving poison so the bite area gets quite sore(i also got nausea and headache),also why i think no-one has died from them in a long time.

when having a bee swarm removed years ago the pest exterminator sprayed them with pyrethrem(spelling?) and then said we would also be free of redbacks as it killed them as well,not the hairy kind of spiders only the smooth body types he reckoned.

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That sucks mate. Whatever you do, do not spray fly spray on the soil in your pots around the time that you water. I did in a few and a fews days later it had made a real mess of a couple of plants.

Good luck with. The vacuum cleaner idea is gold. As is squishing em.

I agree PD whitetails are a worry.

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Well i went and bought some spray called crawly cruncher, it's in a squeeze trigger bottle and the active is diazinon, I switched the nozzle to stream and got to work shooting jets of white pesticide up under the rims where i saw them last night...holy fuck they didn't like that one bit, they dropped out from under the rims by the dozens...shoulda seen me like a little girl dancing around avoiding them as they dropped out and tried to make a run for it...across my thongs, anyways they hate this shit and must have killed about 20-30 of the bludgers, not a hundred percent sure if the spray kills them eventually cause I stepped on em as they fled their hideout. later i went back and stuck the vacuum nozzle up all around the underneath and sucked out anything that was there, now I've gone outside and this is the time they are active and can't see a single reddy...I'm sure they are still around prolly just moved their red ass's back further into the garden...that's fine as long as they stay back there, they can party all they want.

i have a huge skink colony at my place, I mean literally thousands of them, they are so damn cute and fun to watch, I'm surprised they don't feed on the reddy, in fact there is about 20 different species of spiders in my yard and most are really cool but those redbacks are just too dangerous around kids, oh and the dragon flies, damn they are mental, scare the shit outta you went come buzzing into the yard, their like small Cessna planes some of em.

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its probably just a seasonal thing, nature is well geared to climate etc

november is generally the fly blows back down, they blow with the wind so to speak transgressing up and down terra australis the wet season up north feeds the migration. the little redback is only doing its job......eat flys, the delicate nature of ecology prevails.

personally i dont mind spiders, they keep pesky little bugs at bay better than it would be without them, children seem to survive ok from a bite(redback) most of the time, not overly dangerous compared globally.

Edited by santiago

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With regard to the fleas thing, I once had an infestation when my neighbours got a new cat, and the bugger came into my house covered in the things. I had a huge hairy dog at the time, and I couldn't get in to the fur to pick them off. I used a bit of 'wool mix' detergent in its bathwater, and it kills the buggers instantly - beaudiful!

After that, I Frontlined my pooch, and within a day it had walked around the house and killed all the remaining fleas as they jumped on board. I don't often use nasty chems, but in this infestaton Frontline was my friend. The cat still came over and dropped fleas, but they never lasted more than a few hours if the dog was dosed.

But yeah, for getting fleas off an animal, a small handful of wool mix in a bath is great.

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Be careful using Diazinon around your kids man, it has been banned in Australia and other countries for this reason, Im not quite sure how you were even able to buy it?

They used to/still do sell it under the counter at hydro shops as a last resort for spidermite.

http://www.safe2use.com/ca-ipm/00-12-09e-epa.htm

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenproblems/a/Diazinon.htm

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Apothecary.

I have every brush and comb imaginable. :rolleyes: Trouble is, a Newfoundland who doesn't enjoy being brushed is not easily deflea-ed this way! And this Newf had one of the thickest coats that any breeder who met her, had ever seen. It was hard enough to brush her just to keep the knots and loose fur at bay.

Still, she had the silkiest coat I've ever seen, and it kept her warm and dry in the water! Just a bugger to hunt for fleas in...

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Without stating the obvious chiral, i do care that your family DONT get bitten by spiders, i guess your right it aint ideal, but they have been sitting out there for probably sometime now and nothing has happend yet, forget about them i reckon man, when i worked in the nursery industry i used to pick pots up under the rim all the time, spiders do live there, but if you pick your pots up with a lil bit of gusto in most cases you crush them with your finger tips. -Dont look- thats my tip!! ( silly yes and flame me for it if you must but you can be too careful sometimes, and soon enough something will happen in the garden that will take your mind off the spiders.

Was pulling some guttering down the other day at this place and on 2! seperate occasions felt something run up my arm, i didnt look i just shook them off, with out seeing what they were but they felt big and had noticable wieght.

Now youve got me paraniod about spiders arrrggghhh!!

Edited by Mr G House aka shameless

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8ba24218.jpg

5f27d0af.jpg

This massive mofo i'm too scared to get in its way... Its between a 10c and 20c piece in size... biggest red back i seen in a while!

I gotta walk under it every day to get the moto in/out of the garage!!!

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Just read that article Dale Cooper, good one. Daddy long legs and Black House Spiders are definitely the way to go. Biological controls rock!

Yea right WoodDragon, I forgot about long haired dogs, sorry :P As an avid flea hunter, I would like to see your collection of combs ;)

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best way to get rid of a bee swarm is a high pressure hose. drown em out. this happened to us, there were bees swarmin around the front door and in and out of a cupbourd next to the door... opened it up there was 1000s of them there! so we called bee keeper. they said hose em and it worked all right, just a carpet of bees on the front verandah

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best way to get rid of a bee swarm is a high pressure hose. drown em out. this happened to us, there were bees swarmin around the front door and in and out of a cupbourd next to the door... opened it up there was 1000s of them there! so we called bee keeper. they said hose em and it worked all right, just a carpet of bees on the front verandah

 

Well that's all well and good but you're advice should be in the "please help I have a bee swarm infestation" thread... :innocent_n:

Look I'm all for letting things live and play their part but I cannot not protect my daughter to save a few pesky spiders, besides I have only sprayed at the boundary to where they are most likely to come in contact with her, past this boundary is left alone and all the bugs, spiders and other creepy crawlies can set up mini doofs and party all they want, but keeping the walkway and the seats and outdoor furniture redback free is a must...I found about 20-30 redbacks just around under the edge of the outside table and under the leg rests of our wooden chairs, now this is way to close for comfort IMO, as a spider only has to roll around the topside a few mil and a leg would be in contact with them. so so far i have managed to spray neatly and directly on their little hideouts and flush a few out from under lips and ledges, now I'm relatively happy that they won't cause a problem to anyone, I'm sure the vast majority spread the word the other night and pulled back into safer territory, and so long as they stay back there it's all good.

Thanks for that info Andy about Diazinon, you don't expect anything you can buy off the shelf at woolies to be too harmful...wonder how they managed to stock and sell it then...it is out of control potent shit that's for sure and it does kill on contact and not much is needed, stinks too.

thanks for all the advice, the vacuum one was very practical.

Edited by Chiral

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do you guys get hunsmen spiders there??

also get a black headed python whilst your at it ;)

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Just my two cents on this;

In different places I have lived I have noticed that the red backs like particular environments to live in. They have this kind of priority rating for what type is best and move down the chain of suitable places in the list as those places get inhabited by the bigger red backs or other creatures.

Sheets of corrugated iron are very popular, tiles leaning against a wall to make a kind of tent are pretty rated, moving down along the line are rocks and the like that they can live under. In a completely natural setting this is the only environment I have found redbacks, (under rocks) with the old funnel web prefering to hang out under wood, (preferably nice logs with lots of nooks, near some tussocky/dead grass). I think that reducing the number of suitable places for the buggers to live is probably a good idea. This is where I will be starting when I move in the next few weeks to the new house as there are some redbacks there that I have seen in the few visits I have made, so I'm sure there are more there.

I also have a young son, nearly three and a couple of older kids so I'm not fucking around worrying about using pesticides for the initial kill. I would rather decimate the population of redbacks and get rid of the habitat that they thrive in, (such as the situation you are describing with the pots etc) than have to go through the drama of having a redback bite.

on a further note however, when I worked in the building trades there was one particularly tough nut builder who would pick redbacks up with his hands. They are very uninclined to bite and non-aggressive which is a good thing. I just don't like the possibility of the kids playing around with one to the point that it gets aggrevated enough to bite. Although they are hyper poisonous they certainly are nothing compared to funnel webs who have the biggest attitude problem I have ever come across! I have alot of respect for those spiders and would always catch them and move them away from our house(s) rather than killing them.

okay, maybe that was a dollars worth of comment and not two cents ;0

peace

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