Wolf Spiders: Anyone else finding them at home?
In the past, I've seen wolf spiders in our garage every once in a while. Suddenly, starting a couple of weeks ago, I'm finding 2-3 a day... in the house! I'm freaking out. Anyone else seeing more of them this year?
(And they are definitely wolf spiders, I don't need ID help. I know they are not that dangerous when they bite you, but they are incredibly creepy.)
Rebecka ...............creepy and somewhat aggresive!
Use to have them years ago when I lived in Saratoga Springs, NY. Never did find a way to get rid of them. Sorry :(
abbadabbadooooo 
GC I have not seen any this year yet, but last year one made a nest in one of my bushes. If I would step near the bush, the thing would race out at me trying to protect its nest. I am not generally one of those people who is afraid of spiders, bugs, snakes, etc. but I must say that wolf spiders scare me a bit because of their size and how it always seems they are "watching" you.
Happy Homemaker 
Tracy We also had that problem and was told that we would have to get the humudity out of the basemen/house down to 35%-40% and we also had it sprayed quarterly. No problems since.
Meeeee 
A little off topic but not. I have found this very creepy looking bug, once last year inside, and once this year outside. I have no idea what thes thing is. I kept the one last year in a bottle and looked all over the internet trying to identify it. This time I got a picture of it. It kind of looks like the size of a quarter, looks the front of a grasshopper and the back of a mosquito, brownish green, and has little pinchers at it's mouth.
SeeintheReality 
pumpkin43 SeeintheReality,
Looks like a cave cricket. They can be really small or grow to be big. The jump and are nasty little things.
Samething I said earlier in thsi thread you have to have the humidity low to keep the pests out
Not to scare you but it is dangerous if a child is bit. www.greentargetpestmanagement.com/spiders.html
JGII
Meeee, definitely not a cave cricket. I've had a lot of experience with those hideous creatures. My parents had them in their basement. Also where I worked I was in catch basins on the side of the road. They were full of cave crickets sometimes. That is the only bug that could make me scream. LOL Quick story, I was working in a basin 1 day and there were cave crickets. It was pouring rain and the rain kept putting my torch out. So we decided to take break. Sitting in the truck with my rain coat on I felt something on my side. I pulled open my coat and there was a cave cricket inside my coat. I screamed, jumped out of the truck, and ripped my coat off in the pouring rain. Wish I had a camera. LOL
Anyway, the insect I posted about has wings. Folded up like a grass hopper.
This picture is definitely a cave cricket.
A couple of years ago I saw a freakin big wolf spider hanging on my sweat jacket. At first I thought, that's not real! The kids and I play jokes all the time leaving fake spiders, snakes, even frogs around the house to scare each other. So I thought it was fake! Until it moved! It scared the crap out of me! And I'm not usually squeamish when it comes to bugs, spiders, etc. But this thing is creeeeeppppy!!
When we first moved into our house, we saw a lot of those cave crickets in the basement and some made their way upstairs. I hated those things! They are hard to catch! We had a problem with the radon in the basement, and since I didn't know what they were called and never saw them before, I always called them Radon Hoppers! LOL I think I finally got the real name of it from here, on good ol' HL a couple years back! Luckily I don't see those little suckers any more.
SueR Cave crickets don't bother me too much. I don't have any in my house, but my parent's basement always seems to have some.
Spiders on the other hand... If I see them inside, they better watch out if I have any "weapons" close by (shoes, vacuums, blow torches) because I shoot first and ask questions later (sorry to all you arachnid lovers out there).
Mark Mc. eewww. Hate spiders. One time I had a huge wood/tree(?) spider on my shoulder. I noticed it and screamed at my then 8 year old son to whack it off. He freaked and said "no it's too big", so I then proceeded to run in circles screaming and all the while ripping my shirt off. Thank god we lived down a private lane and I didn't have neighbors watching. To say the least, that incident put me over the edge with spiders and I freak even at the tiniest ones now.
I have those cave crickets in my basement too. My house is old and most of the basement is dirt floor. My neighbor once called it a camel cricket so that's what I have been calling it. But mine definitely looks like "Seeins" picture so now I know what it actually is.
Get a couple of young cats....bug problem solved along with any mice as a bonus:) Can't wait for Fiona, our young one, to see her first Cave/Camel Cricket ( I believe they are the same thing).
blackcat I put glue boards in the unfinshed area's of my home. I doesn't cost much and catches many bugs that would otherwise enter my house. Also, no chemicals are sprayed. Its a simple but effective solution.
Nosila When visiting my Mom in VA we went to the local farm market and they were selling "Hedge Apples" and apparently they keep spiders away.
http://hedgeapple.com/
"Wolf Spiders: Anyone else finding them at home?"
No, they always seem to be out when I call on them.
It might have something to do with my black pants, white shirt and tie and the Book of Mormon I carry around for kicks... but they never answer the door (-;
ianimal I had a ton of those cricket spider looking things in the fall in my basement, I never went down there unarmed...I would whack them with a shoe until they were dead and then make my husband get the carcass when he got home from work.
If I see one of those wolf spiders in my house, I'm moving!!! lol
lovee I researched the cave crickets and apparently camel cricket is another name for them. They were called this due to the arched back they have. Whatever you call them, they are gross. LOL
As far as spiders though, I haven't really seen any inside. In the crawl space, yes. LOL The problem with me and spiders is I know a guy who was bitten by a brown recluse spider.(spelling?) And he ended up having to have surgery and had a chunk taken out of his forearm to stop the spread. So now every spider I see (except long leggers) being as I don't have a spider description data-base in my head, I freak out assuming its one of those brown recluse spiders.
UGGGHHH! We had those cave crickets when we lived in the apartment. They were coming up from the basement. I remember the first time I saw one it moved so fast across the floor and I jumped up out of my chair to get something to hit it. When I turned around it was gone, so I looked behind the chair and it was like one of those scary movies. The cat was facing away from me and very slowly turned her head to look at me and all I saw was the long legs (a lot of them) hanging from her mouth lol!!
Of course when I was describing it to Dh the next day he thought I was exaggerating. That night he was in the shower and another one came out. I ran into the bathroom and told him he needed to get out and kill it. Needless to say he was a little annoyed ( he is still thinking it was a small bug!) He comes out and sees it and says Oh Sh%T!!! get me a shoe or something. Well this is when we found out that they jump! The thing was jumping right at him as he was trying to hit it. I laughed so hard because (although he would never admit it) I think he was even a bit scared Ha!Ha!
JRT 
jrsemom 
Ugh! I just googled the Brown Recluse Spider and it's disgusting! Not only the spider, but the images of people bitten by one. Nasty! Not something I really wanted to see so early in the morning. I gotta stop googling EVERYTHING! lol
Ok, well to the spiders we probably look nasty and since we step on them and kill them left and right we are "nasty".
iJay yeah SueR, thats why I get a little nervous when I see a spider. Aparently it doesn't take long for it to eat a large area of your tissue. Gross.
And iJay, I bet we do look nasty to them. However, I don't care what they do outside, but stay out there and I won't kill them.
We have these really cool spiders in our house. I don't know what they are but they look a bit like daddy long legs in that their bodies are tiny tiny and they have long legs.
They range in size from itty bitty to the size of a half dollar.
Whats so cool about them is if you disturb them while in the web, they will spin SO FAST you can't even make out that they are a spider.
I wish I could figure out what they are.
This guy visited with us a few years ago...It's hard to see with the shadow, but I put a sharpie marker next to it to get the size comparision...ugh thank goodness he hasn't revisited.
Cherie I dont know why u guys hate them what u dont know statistically we ate these spiders everynight when we`re asleep.....
vrtd 
Lady Jayne where can I get glue boards? lots and lots of them - I HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE SPIDERS-------------
I was bitten by a spider last year and the pain and agony I was in. I still have a big scar where the venom was eating away at my tissue. Till to this day I still have numbness where I got bitten.
I never was scared of them until last year
SeeintheReality: Holy S, I'm laughing so hard. The rain put your TORCH out??? I can see you in some old black and white Frankenstein movie with your torch, lol. Hey, are those wolf spiders really, really, fast? I hate these brown spiders that appear inside when the weather starts to get cold. They move like lightening. You'll be watching TV and one will be crawling on the carpet. The minute you approach it with a kleenex, BAM, it's off like a rocket and hides under the sofa. Now you're all freaked out thinking it's gonna come back out and crawl on you.
Bruin I don't mind the spiders, I was sitting in my chair downstairs and thought I saw something on my guitar case moving but thought nothing of it and then I looked and saw one of those bad boys on my guitar case. So I just grabbed a cup and stuck the bugger in a cup and put him/her outside.
I have a tarantula as a pet so spiders don't scheeve me. Camel crickets on the other hand I have no love for and centipedes HECK NO!!! I prefer a basement of spiders to a basement of camel crickets and centipedes
JaceyLane Seeinthe reality, the pic you posted, well we call those cricket roaches, I have been leaped at and it was quite intimadating! I will take wolf spiders over stink bugs at this point! If only the spiders would eat them!
sandy t I just remembered something. My father put down sticky traps to catch the cave crickets in his basement. These things are so ridiculous that they would get a leg stuck and jump really hard away from it ripping their leg off. Leaving it on the trap and then running to hide. So at some point you'd see a one legged cave cricket.
A couple of years ago I was working as a caregiver for a woman in Harmony.. A fuse was blown and I had to go into the basement to fix it..No one had been down there in years. I started on my way and it was kinda dark. It looked like there was stuff all over the walls,(literally all over from the floor to the ceiling) and when I got closer I realized that the "stuff" were actually tons of cave crickets...they were startled by my presence and started jumping all over the place.. I freaked out and ran back upstairs..I attempted twice to go back down again to flip the breaker but just could not..I finally called the neighbor Allan who owned the apple farm next door and he came to help..He went into the basement and immediately came back up to get a flash light and put a jacket over his head..Which made me no longer ashamed that I could not go down there bc he was hesitant about the bugs and covered himself..The exterminator came a couple of days later and there were trash bags full of the critters..I had nightmares about those bugs for a very long time, and I never want to see them again...Yuck...
reedfamily I have only seen one of those cave crickets and it was dead in a bucket. I couldnt even look back in the bucket and its probably still there. I am not scared of much but certain bugs will make me go running.
As for spiders i dont mind,i know they do alot of good and will even sometimes let them go outside.
There are some cool bugs i get to see like Praying Mantis and Assasin Bugs too.
The one bug i cant even see a picture of without cringing is roaches. I remember my fathers apartment East Orange over a deli and there were so many. One time looked under the sink and they were so thick all over the pipes. I found even frozen ones in the freezer. I see a movie or a commercial with roaches and i am instantly creeped out.
KKDL get a big tall glass vase couple oz water in bottom and you can catch cave crickets
Caged Animal I'm laying in bed as I was looking at this thread. I am sooo itchy and feel like things are crawling on me!! Definitely checking my bed before going to sleep! Grossssssssssss!
Anom KKDL~many years ago while living in an apt in Brooklyn we had what they call now Madagascar Hissing Cockaroaches..they were majestic in size it was absolutly the most frightening and disturbing thing you ever saw..i remember my boyfriend at the time stomping on one while wearing his construction work boots..the crunch was so loud we both screamed! Thinking this thing was dead we started to look closely at it when it got back up on its legs and ran!!! OMG!!!!!! you couldnt put a dent in thezs disgusting creatures!!! and they actually HISSSSS when you swat at them..we were both so completly freaked out living there, we were really afraid of them!!! we felt like hostages...anybody ever see the movie Joes Apartment?? Pretty much just like that! only they didnt sing and dance!
Ginger I've done some research on cave crickets and found that they could be kind of beneficial, as they eat mold, mildew, and stuff like that. However, If they could stay down in the crawl space that would be fine with me. But ever since we started this thread, they are somehow getting upstairs into my house. I have sprayed the outside of my house and then the inside thinking it would keep them out. But I have seen 1 or 2 a day hopping across my living room.
My next step is bombing the crawl space. I REFUSE to climb down into the crawl space to spray with those things down there.
Ugh, I don't think I could stand it if I see a single spider of any type in my house. We only really get stink bugs that I've seen and the occasional bee might get inside. I think we used to have the cave crickets at our old house, I'd have to ask my mother about that one. But I just remember going down in the basement and having the bloody things do like crazy leaps at the walls and ceilings. Thankfully only a few ever escaped the basement but I do remember my sister catching one once. We had an old, tiny plastic fish tank and she caught one to bring to school to ask her science teacher what the hell had been in our house because those things spooked us. Don't remember what the teacher said about it but they were always soooo creepy.
But I gotta say, my worse fear is always spiders and i regretted opening the thread when I saw the picture of the wolf spider. Gotta say, that is one down side of one day visiting my older sister because where she lives, they get massive spiders, some the size of dinner plates.
And I have to agree with Anom, I'm laying in bed too and I keep checking to make sure nothings on me where I feel itchy. Stink bugs seemed to sleep during the day in my house. They only start bothering me in the evening.
We have the wolf spiders as well in our house. Trying to figure out how to gt rid of them. ANy ideas truth in in ohow to get in rid of them I would love to know. taking a shower that is that last thing i want to come in the shower with me
Plus with 2 small girls in the house, id rather them not get bitten by the spiders.
We have them in our home from time to time and esp around the house outside. They are aggressive. We use an electric bug zapper to fry them, then flush them in the toilet.
Had a few last summer. Dont know which is worse, the spiders or the stink bugs.
botheredbyu Omg I'm having nightmares bout this one wolf spider in my bedroom!! It was sooooo big and aggressive...never saw something so aggressive!! I didn't have my contacts in and something in my gut told me to turn around in my basment bathroom ...I did and saw the huge brown thing coming at me! I thought it was a huge camel back cricket so I jumped on my toilet and grabbed a cleaner that was by the toilet n just started to shoot ....it ran back out of bathroom into my bedroom....took a deep breath n went to put my foot on the ground to grab my contacts and it started to aggressively charge from my bedroom back into the bathroom right at me!! Like in straight attack mode!! I flew back onto the toilet n started to spray...it ran out of bathroom n into my three yr old daughter room! Now I'm in tears rushing to put contacts in sobi can even see what I'm up against...and it was a brown wolf spider !!!! My husband found n killed it after hereing me yell ...don't know how my daughter never woke...but never saw a spider act like it was bigger than me!
Bethany I see one or two per summer, just killed one the other night on my retaining wall outside!! Gross!!
tripsy I have them every night lately, they must come in under the door and I see them scuttling across the floor...yuck! I always have a glass ready to trap them. I don't like to kill them so I take them for a long ride the next day. The other night I caught 3! Never had them do anything but try to run away from me though(fotunately!)
Jams Monday morning while leaving for work, a big black Wolf? spider came running into my apt in Budd Lake. It hid quickly and I couldn't find it. Had to get to work so I just left. Fast forward to Monday night. I'm home and a friend comes over, opens the door and screams to me. You got a spider down here! I come to the stairs and sure enough it was the same big black spider. I throw him a paper towel. He took the towel and crushed the spider as hard as he could. Asked me if he wanted me to throw it outside or if I wanted to flush it. I said I'd flush it as I don't like to litter. As I was walking to the bathroom the spider started to crawl out of the towel. I through it in the toilet. The spider moved onto the top of the towel and was in the toilet looking at me as I flushed it. I still have that image in my head, the spider was unharmed. Not even a leg broken. It went down and I flushed again. Don't think it is coming back up but I can't stop thinking about it. I see small spiders all the time and they don't bother me one bit. This thing was completely black, looks a bit like the Wolf spider pictures but had a smaller body and I didn't notice any bogus eyes.
I've been in this Apt for 15 years and never seen anything this big before. About the side as the palm of my hand. Any idea what this was? Anyone seen any in North NJ this year?
acurtis Had 1 in the garage yesterday and 1 in the laundry room last week. They are HUGE! GROSS!!!!
I just had Terminex come and spray specifically for wolf spiders. They also put out glue traps. I do not like seeing them!
Enrsjr acurtis,
You are BRAVE!!!
First, I could never touch anything like that not even wrapped in a paper towel.
Second, flushed in the toilet NO WAY.....even if it does not come back up, no way...
I've never seen one and I just hope I never meet one either.....
ET 
Antimony I have a little book about spiders that says wolf spiders make nice pets.
Anyway, they're harmless. Nice if you can simply get them outside. No mess; everyone is happy.
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