Creepy Crawly

Creepy Gonzales!! Check out the Brown Widow Spider I discovered in our fireplace.

I was just sitting on the couch, studying my lesson, when I just looked up and looked right into the fireplace we NEVER use. I saw what I thought was a spider and investigated with a flashlight. I thought it looked like a black widow at first...but pregnant...so I googled it and discovered that it was most likely a Brown Widow. Highly more toxic than a Black Widow but more timid. It has an orange/pink colored hourglass rather than red and it's obviously brown (sometimes even so brown that they look black). They are native to Florida but have been popping up in SoCal due to transport reasons. They like to make their erratic (not symmetrical) webs in secluded places (like unused fireplaces, children's outdoor toys, and closet corners).

Josh and I double teamed him. We sprayed him 3 different times. Each time he would scurry away but then return to the exact same place after about 30 seconds (defending his web). Ewww. Finally, he crawled out and around the front of the wire screen then crawled down (hopefully to die). We shut the doors and taped all the cracks and holes with duct tape . Now it looks like this.