Hobo Spider
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Written by Jim on June 16th, 2006 with
130 comments.
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#97 Mike – that is a Hobo Spider. Ive seen more of those than I care to. I woke this morning with a bite on my wrist. We just had them out to spray a few days ago, so this seems odd that I would wake with a bite. Im not sure what bit me. Right now its just red with a small bump like a mosquito bite, and about the size of a dime. Is this how all spider bite start out? Should I be worried its a Hobo bite? I am in Utah, and its been reported that Hobos are unusually high this year, our house having always had a problem with them ever since they have been reported in this state.
I am NEVER EVER taking a shower again.
Am seriously wondering if they come up through the pipes. If they are not that great at climbing walls, to which we have read, how the heck would it fall into a tub or sink, right? Riiiiiight.
We DO have chestnuts in the corners of the bedroom and so far so good. We put them there a couple months ago. Havent seen one spider. Now watch… go to bed tonight and have a snuggie buddy in bed hahahaha! Besides the traps and chestnuts, is there anything else anyone has tried that is effective? Also, would like to get an answer to the whole “where do they come from… pipes vs. walls”
Have a great night
Lisa and Mike
Can you ID this spider for me, please?
I’ll repeat: bentonite clay paste on the bite will heal it. the sooner the better. People keep coming on here and asking what to do, and that’s what. My family has had to do this several times because we have thousands of hobo spiders around. It has always worked–no doctors necessary.
I’m on approx. day 10 after being bit by what I think is either a brown recluse or a hobo spider. I’ve had the same symptoms that others have described : the blister (which I thought at the time was an infected hair or a boil), then it had popped but it was more painful then a boil ( that was on day 3 approx.), finally I grabbed a small looking mirror and discovered it to be extremely swollen around the ulcered area and there was a red ring that reached approx. 8 inches long by 3 or 4 inches wide.
I’ve been treating it with triple antibiotic ointment and bandaging it. It seems to be getting smaller…… well at least the white interior area is and the inflammation around it is not as bad. But on day 7 I finally decided to seek medical care which I was basically told that I have MRSA. And am on bacterium. Now I’m frantically searching for information on what I need to expect during the healing process. Plus I’ve noticed that my blood pressure is higher then normal…… this is very concerning to me! The area I was bitten in was on what I tend to call my tummy flab. The bite is on the underside of what medically would be considered to be the stomach flap.
Yeah sure I wouldn’t mind having a sleeping partner in my bed …. but not one that bites! So, I would seriously like to know if I need to get more medical attention and how I should go about treating it. THANK YOU
I originally thought I had a bite from a Brown Recluse – think again – It was a “HOBO SPIDER”
How do I know? I was bitten and it did all the symptoms of a Hobo but I had never heard of a Hobo Spider! It wasn’t until I was clipping my toenails and had a pillow hanging over a small little stool I was sitting on to reach my toes. For some reason I just happened to get up to see a spider right where I was sitting. I believe this spider was attacking me! I killed it as gentle as I could to save it’s identity. It was a “HOBO SPIDER”! This spider had an egg sack under the night stand next to my bed and had already bitten me once a truly believe and was coming back to bite me again. When I got bit my upper thigh, buttocks area swelled up red and in a day or so the top skin just started to dissolve. It left a very damaged area. Here’s the main reason why I think this bite is so dangerous in this area, it is a perfect target for STAPH OR MRSA. I ended up getting perscribes “BITRAM” a very strong anitbiotic and given MRSA CREAM.
The tissue was damaged so bad that I had to make my own patches to cover it up. I reached the turning point on healing my putting on the MRSA CREAM and then covering it with a thin sheet of plastic to keep the cream in place and prevent the gauze from sticking to the wound. I then put a bigger patch over the plastic seal and completely sealed out all the air that could get to it because I had to continue working I could not afford to miss the income from my job. Very painful experience. I lived in Hawaii for 20 some odd years and I have had a lot of experience with staph infections. The Hobo spider is a perfect specimen to leave you wide open for a staph infection. Make sure you keep it clean and see the doctor right away. Any delay can only mean a longer time to heal as the damage is extensive.
John Lemus
Mike #97 — That spider is in fact a Hobo. You can tell from the front appendages that look like little boxing gloves. Also the legs have no rings.
UPDATE:
Been done with antibiotics now 2 days ….. and I noticed that I think the venom has migrated downward like others on here have mentioned it did on them. I also have found yet another HOBO inside my house and am seriously contemplating on getting some hedge apples to see if that will work to keep them at bay because I noticed that outside i have a ton of webs all over the place. I will update again after I bought some and give them a couple of weeks to work. Maybe this will help out someone else too. Also I am posting an updated pic of my bite area.
UPDATE:
DAY 3 off of antibiotics so far so good ….. ” knock on wood!!” Since posting my first post I have found yet another Hobo, am now keeping a tight sealed container with them in it upon catching/killing them. I am also contemplating on buying some of those “spider fruits” a.k.a. hedge apples to place around my house to help deter spiders from entering it. I’ve also taken notice that there’s a ton of webs outside that have been built. I will update again regularly on my progress. Also, I am sending a new photo and as of yet have not found the venom sack area…. so this is now making me think that the bite I got was a dry one.
Me and my friend saw a spider yesterday right outside our doors and it kinda looked like the hobo spider. It was fury and brown some orange and reddish body what kind of spider is that. Her daugther about 1 month ago was hospitized for something on her leg that the doctor called mrsa and she is only 2 years old. It almost the same size as her inner thigh, my friend said when they opened it up the pus went everywhere she is wondering if this could have been a spider bite. her 2 year old was so tired and it is still healing could that have been a hobo spider bite. please e-mail me so i can tell her.
Thank you,
Billie Jo
Nanticoke, pa
My daughter about five months ago, had two spots on her leg that I thought was dirt from creek we had went swimming at that day and it would not come off so i just let go and about three days later it started to look like a scab i wash it off in the tub and it came off then two days later it started to get red and form a blister on the spots and kept cleaning the ares and putting medince on it and bandaids and it started to form blisters all around it and it got bigger and harder they told me that it was a staph infection on her leg i never believed that because it was two spots and it was away from each other, i was wondering if that could have been any kind of water spider bite please tell she has huge scars on her leg now.
thank you
Billie Jo Nanticoke, pa
i got bit by a spider but i did not know what kind! it was really bad and i had to go to the hospital. i was in Mexico and when we got back i noticed i got bit by something.puss and blood squirted allover my leg on the 4th day. i didn’t go to school at all for the past couple weeks. it was like a misquote bite at first but then it got as big as four misquote bites combined!! later it turned purple so my dad took to the doctors office to check it out. i didn’t want to go but i had to. after that he took care of me and sucked the puss out with a needle. i don’t know if this is enough information but please try to help me figure kind of spider i got bit by!
My one year old son got bit by a hobo spider on the small of his back and he developed a red spot about the size of a quarter and a white spot in the middle about the size of a dime. We have these pills called Microhydrin, what it is is a hydrogen molecule with an extra electron. All poisons and venom are missing an electron, that’s what makes them a poison. So when you put the microhydrin paste on the site, it gives off its extra electron and neutralizes the poison. We applied one application of it and overnight, it reduced to a red spot the size of a dime and no white spot. To make the paste, you take about a half a capsule of powder and a few drops of PURIFIED water and mix it right into the site.
It will work, it worked on a ladies dog who was bitten repeatedly by a rattle snake, in the face. The only way you can buy the pills is through the company. The easiest way for you to find and not have to search through their website for it, is to google microhydrin and then pick the result that shows rbclife, and then it will all be right there on the page. It is VERY expensive but it WILL NOT disappoint, it has never failed me or my family in spiderbites, staff infections, food poisoning, snake bites or anything that includes poison or venom.
If you have any questions about this stuff, you can e-mail me at anna.veselka [at] gmail.com. No, I will not make any money if you buy this stuff, I just hate to see people suffer and get sick when their is an easy answer, I am so lucky I knew about microhydrin or else my son would have been really bad off.
I was bitten by what i think is a hobo spider by the wound and the symptoms i have read here. Ive had nasty bites before but nothing even close to as painful as this one! It almost feels like a nail has been drivin into my wrist. The pain is constant and i sure don’t feel so great! Nasty little buggers they are!
Well, looking at these pics I am pretty sure I was bitten by a Hobo spider. It was on the heel of my foot, started out looking like a mosquito bite, then blistered over night. I know your not supposed to pop blisters, but I did, and about ten minutes later I had a bad panic attack which had never happened before. What I am wondering is if the bite could cause chest pains, tightness, panic? This was nearly 2 months ago, but I have had panic attacks, chest pains and tightness nearly everyday since. Could this be a reaction to the bite? The docs say it has been long enough, if it were from a bite it would have worn off.
i live in Texas and my husband has already killed 2 hobo spiders, we live on a ground level house, beside sealing off the vents and doors, what else can i do to keep these things out of my house. i am worried because i have young kids in the house. i am not sure what to do nor does my husband other than buying spider sprays and spray it around the house. so far no one has gotten bitten, but i am afraid that is yet to come considering that winter is coming around. more of these things just might find theirs ways in the house so they can stay warm or something. but please send me ideas to keep them out of my house. thank you very much and have a bless day.
I live in Portland, OR and found a huge hobo spider in my basement 2 years ago. I had never seen a spider that big, that was not in a cage. I quickly found that we had a hobo spider issue. I have done detailed research and know that they are hobo spiders. Until recently, I have been very afraid of spiders, so finding out we had a venomous spider issue was very upsetting. Confronting our hobo spider situation around our house has given me a new found appreciation of “good spiders,” which I consider to be any spider that is not venomous.
This is how I have gotten rid of the hobo spiders-
Only kill hobo spiders, do not kill the competing good spiders, they often eat baby hobos and they compete with the hobo for their food source (bugs). I got chickens. Four of them. They are a great, chemical free way to rid your yard of bugs and spiders. Although, the chicken coop and set-up does cost a bit. Make sure your basement windows and walls are sealed well. And if your dryer has a vent that goes to the outside, put some kind of screen on that too. Lastly, I have been aware when working in the yard.
I know exactly where they like to live and what they look like. I love gardening and so, I ran into one every few days during the summer months. They love to live under rocks, bricks, flower pots, wood piles etc. I have killed approximately 30 big ones, with the end of a shovel, throughout the spring/summer. I have not encountered any hobos in the basement anymore and I have not found anymore around the house. Good luck and use cation, but don’t let fear of the hobo spider keep you up at night.
I bought an old mountain cabin that came fully loaded with hobo spiders.
With a magnifying glass, you’ll see two small holes, one larger than the other and no matter how small….they are very painful. Sometimes the fang is left inside with the poison sac still attached.
They DO attack…I’ve watched them cross a room to where I was sitting and they do climb up to my loft and weave funnels in the ceiling. I was sick all the time but couldn’t afford to move and my doctor kept telling me they must be ticks cause spiders don’t bite people like that. Ha. Since I could not sell the house…I got a bug net over the bed….has saved my life.
yes I’ve had this exact same spider bite ive been through about…3 or 4 of them my girlfriend with threw…i can’t even count how many she had but she had them all over her legs but instead of squeezing them all the time, use allover gel that contains no alcohol works really great it takes it out by itself and less pain full but then your going to have to squeeze it then use aleovera again and put a band aid over it I’m not too sure want kind of spider bite is it might be this hobo spider but I’m not sure.
i don’t know i was bitten but about 3-5 minutes after i was bitten i felt like i couldn’t stop inching then a few more minutes my head started hurting and now my butt is numb right next to the bite and i’m getting terrible headaches.
We recently moved into a home in a wooded area near the Puget Sound here in WA, and remodel had been done. The home had been abandoned for some time, and the downstairs level is basement level due to being built into the side of a hill. Prime habitat for hobos.
Suffering from severe, lifelong arachnophobia, I instinctively check the entire home daily for spiders or anything that could attract spiders. Found nothing.
While moving, a small hole was made in our dining room wall, adjacent to our kitchen. I planned to patch it up later.
A few days after the hole in the wall, I started painting the kitchen, and unscrewed the outlet/light switch covers. I started screaming when I saw the corpses of 3 hobos and a live hobo in one of the electrical outlets. My husband was gone so it was up to me to get the courage to kill it. I sprayed the outlet with so much bleach that it starting crackling, and the hobo came running out and I squished it. Shaking, I checked the rest of the outlets in the kitchen to be sure no more spiders. Too scared to check the rest, I put the child safety plastic outlet covers on each and every outlet in the house.
A few nights later, I came down with severe body aches like the flu, so bad I had to lay down on the floor, couldnt make it to my bed. I took tyelonol and about an hour later checked my temp and it was 99.8 which is high for being on Tylenol as it is a fever reducer. All of my joints ached and my head hurt. Noticed a medium sized “mosquito bite” on my shoulder. Showed it to my husband who declared it was acne. I have never had body acne in my life and rarely get acne on my face, I knew it was not acne. It was red, the center had a tiny teeny black dot, so small my husband said he couldn’t see it, but in the right lighting I could definitely make it out.
2 nights later I saw two very tiny black spiders on our stairs. Where the heck were they coming from?
Felt better the next day, no aches or fever. It has been 6 days since the bite and my head has ached every day. The bite hurts so bad, way worse than a pimple, I mean it feels horribly bruised. last night I tried to squeeze the bite and water came out first, followed by a tiny hard yellow plug, and then I started to think, oh maybe it was acne. But no, I squeezed again and blood came out of 2 dots next to each other, the fang impressions. Then, a bit of dry skin peeled off. I have no ulcer, but the skin is lighter in the middle, it hurts very badly to the touch, and is bright red the size of a nickel. I squeezed and more water came out. I have been spraying it with Bactine and applying Aquafor to it.
I realized that spiders live in walls, and they had come in thru the hole made in our dining room. I immediately spackled the wall up and spackled any holes I found in walls, I even saw a spider retreat into a hole in my 1-year old daughter’s ceiling above her crib! I patched that up too. I also have used duct tape to tape off our garage door as it is lacking a tight weather strip seal. I also have sprayed lemon pledge on every surface in our home, even outside. I heard spiders hate the taste of lemon pledge. I have not seen a spider since I have done all of these precautions.
I am convinced a hobo came into my home thru the hole in the dining room wall, and got into my robe which i hang up. It also might have been in my bed, but I check my bed at night, so I am convinced it was from putting my robe on.
I hope my bite heals, it is not as bad as the bite pictures on here, I think the spider only partially invenomated me, but the pain is bad and my headache will not go away. i will see a dr next week if it does not heal up.
Update: It has been approximately a week since the initial bite. Dermatologist confirmed that my bite is NOT acne and is a spider bite.
My headache is gone, lasted 5 days, the pain of the bite is now gone as well.
Lesion ulcerated 3 days ago, and I have a hard scab surrounded by red, peeling skin. I have submitted a fuzzy picture, but you can get the idea of what an un-infected spider bites looks like.
An exterminator is coming to spray our home for spiders next week. I can’t wait.
I wanted to correct a post made on here regarding spiders “drinking from our noses at night when we are asleep” and the human transmitting staph from their nose to the spider’s fangs. This is false information. Staph infections in a bite, which seems to be the case with most of these pictures on here, comes from scratching the bite or touching it with staph on the finger, or having pre-existing staph on the skin surface which is pushed deep into the dermis during the bite. It is important to seek medical attention immediately if you suspect the wound is infected or has pus. According to several reputable medical sources, all instances of surgery required for these bites is due to the victim refusing to seek medical treatment until the bite became so infected they required help. Getting help at the first sign of infection is critical.
I got bit by something also, thinking it was a spider and I didn’t know what to do about it. So I sprayed it with a silver spray that I had purchased when my hubby had MRSA. Whatever bit me, that spray took care of it, all the swelling is gone, all I have now are the 4 red spots, no tenderness at all. Except for the spots, I wouldn’t even know that I had been bitten.
To anyone who has not discovered it yet; hydrogen peroxide does a great job of killing the bacteria in a dry hobo spider bite, however, it does not increase the healing time, nor does it completely stop the venom, but it does help by preventing the wound from getting any deeper. i have found this out by my own experience.
I’ve been killing these for years (why yes, in Oregon) and thought it was some kind of house spider until now. This is probably the most eerie feeling I’ve ever gotten from reading a web page.
I woke up in the other day with big red welt and a sharp pain in my neck. The red mark escalated of the next few days and grew larger. There were no define “bite”,marks but tiny scratch like marks instead. Wondering if they ever cause pain in body away from the actual bite?
i thought the all spiders in Singapore (from southeast Asia). i ain’t see spiders before.
i have a pimple-looking bite on my upper hip. it has been getting slightly bigger each day. it has a yellow head surrounded by red skin. it is sore to the touch as a bruise. i didn’t know i was bitten until pressure was applied to the area. recently i noticed a thin red line leading from the bite. i have experienced minor headaches as well.
thank you,
Melonie.
i have a pimple-looking bite on my upper hip. it has been getting slightly bigger each day. it has a yellow head surrounded by red skin. it is sore to the touch as a bruise. i didn’t know i was bitten until pressure was applied to the area. recently i noticed a thin red line leading from the bite. i have experienced minor headaches as well.
I was bit on June 30, 2010. Had no idea until a couple hours after it happened. I automatically felt nauseous and dizzy. The first 3 days I thought it was just a mosquito bite until it turned bright red, extremely hot, and hard as a rock. On July 4th, I went to the ER and the doc said I was bit by one of 2 spiders, a black widow or a hobo. I have a phobia of spiders, so it freaked me out. They gave me antibiotics and pain meds. 2 days later, I was back in the ER because of blisters and a constant out pour of puss and blood. The ER doc numbed the wound and then took a scalpel to it. He drained if of the puss and poison from the spider. When he was done, he said he had about a 1/2cup of puss blood and poison. He then stuffed the hole with gauze to keep it open so that he can check it again tomorrow. If there is no more puss and infection, he will stitch me up and keep me on antibiotics for another week. I’m praying all goes well.