As winter approaches, the world outside changes, trees lose all their leaves, families prepare for the holidays and spiders find residence in your basement.  Yes, spiders, mostly the brown recluse and the notorious black widow.

When the weather gets cold and rainy these spiders will often move inside to avoid the conditions outside.

Here is some information about each of these types of spiders:

Brown Recluse

Lives in the southeastern United States

The bite contains a hemotoxin, a poison that makes the skin around the bite corrode away.

The Brown Recluse usually only bites when pressed up against the skin, so many people don’t get bitten even though they live in houses containing them.

They live in damp and dark undisturbed areas, such as basements or closets.

 Black Widow

Named this because female has been known to kill the male after mating.

Easily identified because of its black tint with a red hourglass shape on its abdomen.

The black widow creates a messy, unorganized web, usually found in the same conditions as the brown recluse.

The bite can cause death, but only if it’s not treated within a few hours using an anti-venom.