Sweet Dreams?

[Timothy2700]

Back in my teenage years a friend and I were hunting at a friend of my Dad's farm. Nature called us both at the same time. The farmer had a "two holer" out house. I prefer to do things such as this alone, but unfortunately there was no way either of us could wait. While taking care of business my friend jumped up screaming. As he went out the out house door I could see a black widow spider digging into his butt. He didn't die but did get very ill. He was scared of spiders for the rest of his life and while he was with the Marines in Viet Nam he was more scared of spiders than the Viet Cong or NVA. That was a little over 60 years ago and I'll make like a bear instead of using an out house even though I haven't seen one in a long time.

I remember reading once how black widow bites have been on the decline for a long period of time. And someone else was able to correlate the decline in bites to the increase in modern indoor toilets, aka decline in the number of outhouses.

Aside from one- or two- or three- holers (I saw my only 3-holer at Bodie CA historical park - behind the saloon) Ive only seen black widows when I looked for them…after dusk around the house with a hooded flashlight or in the obvious places like leaf litter or firewood stacks. If you surprise them they fear you more than you'd think.
U can sleep well tonight ….given indoor plumbing.