As the seasons change, spiders come crawling

WICHITA, Kan. -- These are the lazy, hazy spider days of autumn.

Walk through the garden at night or early morning, and their webs cling to your face and clothes. Some creep into our houses and garages.

"With the change of season, people are seeing them come in and tend to think of them as worse than before but really, we are not seeing a huge influx this year," said Denise Dias, a Kansas county extension agent who specializes in home environments.

It's time for the orb weavers, the big yellow-and-black spiders who weave webs in open fields and flower gardens.

And it's time for wolf spiders, hobos and black widows.

You normally don't see spiders during the day. They come out at night to feed and seek warmth.

"With cooler evenings and dew and mist, their webs are easier to see," said Schanee Anderson, curator of education at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita.

Most are harmless, but the black widow is poisonous.

Black widows, which are found throughout the nation, tend to stay outdoors in wooded areas or the dark, cluttered corners of your garage.

But if you have an infestation, some may crawl up the legs of your beds and into your comforters, nestling near soft body parts. When you flinch, they flinch. When a spider bites, it uses fangs to pierce the skin and deliver venom.

The bite of the black widow can injure blood vessels and stop blood flow to an area.

Jim Mason, a naturalist at the Great Plains Nature Center, said the best advice for keeping spiders out of house and yard is to eliminate clutter.

Spiders look for places to hide. Outdoors they lurk in wood piles, leaves and garages. Indoors, they look for clothing, shoes and basements.

"Don't leave clothes on your floor," Mason said. "Eliminate clutter."

Look for glue traps, sticky tape that's flat and can be placed along edges of rooms and other places where spiders can hide.

"Spiders will get stuck in them and you can dispose of them," Mason said. "You do not have to introduce toxins into your home."

And remember, spiders can be beneficial.

Without spiders, we would have more mosquitoes, flies, roaches and crickets.

"They are our first line of control when it comes to other insects on the planet," Mason said. "They are the most numerous type of predatory animal on Earth. Without them, we would be neck deep in insects."