RAP SHEET

Brown Recluse

Loxosceles reclusa

high CASE #MWP-0009

Hiding in your closet since March. You've already shaken hands twice.

How We Take Them Down

  1. Broad interior insecticide treatment, focusing on storage areas, closets, and undisturbed spaces
  2. Residual dust application in wall voids, attic areas, and crawl spaces
  3. Glue board monitoring to assess population size and confirm activity locations
  4. Reduction of harborage conditions — clutter, stacked cardboard, and stored items
  5. Perimeter treatment to intercept spiders entering from outside

Prevention Tips

  • Shake out shoes and clothing before putting them on, especially stored items
  • Store off-season clothing in sealed plastic containers rather than cardboard boxes
  • Reduce clutter in closets, storage areas, and basement corners
  • Inspect and shake out bedding that hasn't been used recently
  • Seal gaps around baseboards, pipes, and wall penetrations in storage areas

Fun Facts

The brown recluse can survive 6 months without food or water. Your "decluttered" garage is still their favorite vacation home.

Despite widespread belief, most recluse bites do not cause severe necrosis — the majority produce mild, localized reactions. The dramatic worst-case photos online are real, but not typical.

The violin marking is a useful identifier, but it's not perfectly reliable — look for it in combination with six eyes arranged in pairs (most spiders have eight) for a confident ID.

Brown recluses are found almost exclusively in the central and southern United States. If you live elsewhere and think you saw one, you probably didn't — but call us anyway.

Field Notes

The brown recluse earns its reputation not from aggression — it’s actually one of the more conflict-avoidant spiders out there, and its name means exactly what it says — but from the consequences when a bite does occur. That necrotic venom can cause a wound that takes months to heal and, in rare cases, requires surgical intervention. The real danger is the accidental nature of most encounters: this spider hides in clothing, shoes, and boxes and bites when it gets trapped against skin. If you live in the central or southern U.S. and you’re finding small, nondescript brown spiders in closets, storage rooms, or basements, a professional identification and treatment is worth doing before you find out the hard way which species you’re dealing with.