Many moons ago I, like Tom Delay, owned my own exterminating business and am conservative (Is he a Preacher)?.

You must realize that spiders are regional and Yankee Spiders rarely inhabit the way South down here, so my comment will be generic.

Spiders don’t react to insecticides sprayed upon a surface as do insects — because as you said, they are not insects — they have different breathing mechanisms. You must wet them with an oil based spray.

I doubt the “mounds” you described are termites.. especially if they are suspended in a web. If the mounds look like dry mud and are encrusted against and attached to a wall near the floor they could be termite tunnels.

My recollection of Black Widow Spiders is that their nests are puffy and look like a small cotton ball. Naver ran into many of those.

Suggestion.. Next time, they show up, before you sweep them out, wet them with an aerosol spray of some commercial insecticide (Black Flag, Raid, etc). Some sprays are are less odoriferous than others. Wetting them will kill them. You might also wet the residue you swept outdoors — so they won’t hatch and visit again.

Drop an email if you have further questions..

ExP (Jack)

But indoors is MY turf, and they are not welcome.

Some years ago I developed a guilty conscience about wantonly killing them, though, and I started catching them alive and taking them outside. Peanut butter or mayonnaise jars work well, with a piece of cardboard to slide over the top of the jar after they are trapped against a wall or ceiling. I have a jar and piece of cardboard in every room of my house.

Centipedes are another matter entirely. I keep flyswatters on hand for them.

We (my parents and I), unfortunatly, had quite a few of these buggers when we first moved into our subdivision (1989). In our house we killed as many as 40 one year including the little “cotton balls” of thier nests. I can not count how many I killed during those few years - many met thier end with a firecracker as I found them as they built houses up the road.

Never knew why, but eventaully we quit having the issue. I assume that since we were one of the first houses here we just were unlucky. As more houses moved in they got killed off (and maybe my firecrackers helped ). I don’t know for sure though - just that after a few years we never saw them again.