So the guy I live with wants to bomb the house. I'm trying to convince him that it's a bad idea but I rarely have any luck winning when he had his mind set. Obviously my tarantula and its food will have to be relocated when this happens. Any idea as to how long I should wait before bringing my t back home?

It depends on the "bomb". A week should be plenty of time to air out the place, but never feed anything found on the carpets to tarantulas.

Let us know what the chemicals are and we might be able to advise you better.


Good luck.

So, what do you think would be the worst-case scenario in terms of how long one would have to wait? 'Cause my folks are about to bomb our house as well and there's not alot of options for where I can relocate my Rosea. Like, 2 weeks, maybe?

If it gives a minimum entrance time for humans or pets, just double or triple it. A week should be enough. It's really a guess as we don't know what they're spraying, nor if the windows are open or closed, air conditioning, so on.

Good luck.

Thanks for that, now I just have to find someone I can trust to babysit her. :V

I found a place for my t to stay for a while. I've decided to wait a week and then bring some crickets in for a couple days and see how they fare before putting my little guy in harms way.

I'm generally against filling my home with poison, but I was forced to bomb my house last summer due to a flea infestation. I removed my tarantulas (and crickets) and bombed the house. The instructions said to let the house air out for an hour before letting humans or animals back in. I aired for about 6 hours, and had no problems with the spiders at all.

Ooops, forgot to mention: make sure you remove EVERYTHING you use in your tarantula enclosures. Tongs, spare substrate, water dishes (I have spares and swap them out when they are icky or filled with 'strate), anything else the T's might come in contact with.

Excellent point Dave!!

I know those that are asking dont have a choice. but I wont spray my house with neurotoxins. I have had a reaction to one or two, and a friend was nearly killed by a "professional" who read the instructions wrong, used too much, and gave him improper info as to when he could return.

I had a problem with fleas and someone gave me a "flea trap" (I think by Raid) that plugged in, had some kind of attractant on it(activated by light and heat?) - and sticky paper-it worked great.

There are many different kinds of insect traps you can get now that do not pollute your whole living environment-and they work. There is even one for brown recluses.

Please check into this. These chemicals are not any safer for people than for bugs, IMHO.

Grrr! I wish I had read your post an hour ago. I didn't know there was such a thing as a non-chemical flea solution. I just sprayed Sentry's Natural Defense all over my house to kill the fleas I found yesterday. (My "good" bugs are at my sister's for the week, so they're out of harm's way.) I'll have to look into that flea trap if this d-Limonene stuff doesn't work.

On the bright side, I had a small victory on the PR front--my sister, who told me she'd never visit me again when I got my T, not only offered to house him for a week, but actually handled him twice today, and went so far as to say she loves him enough not to want him to die.

I'm not meaning to step on Celeste's toes, but fleas are a real bear to get rid of. Of course "rid of", might mean down to an acceptable level as well with any insect.

d-Limonene is an organic solvent which melts wax among other things. It's mode of action with pest insects, I am unsure of. After a quick trip around the googly world, it would appear that it interrupts the life cycle.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/q720851m27815q71/

It might be a while before you see a reduction in the numbers in this way...

Good luck.

And again, grrr. I checked out the link and realized I may have just stunk up my house for nothing (not to mention the money spent on 2 cans of the stuff).

Celeste, thank you for mentioning the flea trap--I just ordered 2 of them.

Christian, thank you also--you may have just saved me some major frustration.

It can be an effective degreaser, and is volatile/aromatic. I'm sure it would do a job on flea eggs, but might also, if breathed in, do some internal damage to the fleas. It probably kills/repels in multiple ways.

The good thing about it is that it dissipates without leaving a toxic residue.

Ironically enough, my parents are bombing the house because we have a spider infestation. Orb weavers and wolf spiders galore up in this hizzeh, but at least we don't have a butt-ton of moths/flies. :V

Once you get rid of the predators, you might find a surge in moths and flies.

My brother-in-law did a study on the black vine weevil (an agricultural pest) some years back - comparing infestation rates in greenhouses under different conditions. At one end of the spectrum were clean, organized greenhouses that sprayed regularly for pests. At the other end was a greenhouse that was unkempt (weeds growing under the benches, etc.) and did not spray at all. The highest infestation rates of the weevil were in the clean sprayed greenhouses. The unkempt natural one had a very low rate of infestation. (The magnitude of the difference is noteworthy - about 500 X difference.) The speculation was that the natural greenhouse had a solid population of predators that kept pests down to a safe level.

In my house we have lots of spiders of a number of different species. And we're comfortable with them.