OBT Escape Saga continued...

Sheri

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Well, as some of you know, I had an OBT escape from the communal enclosure, tag me and then hide behind a bookshelf which with my lightning fast thinking, taped up to prevent escape until I could retrieve him when the kids weren't home...

David Burns is over right now, helped me to remove the bookself so that one could catch the spider and the other could move the shelf.

Well.

My smart thinking was outwitted. The OBT is nowhere to be found. This is not the best case scenario with 2 kids in the house. And plenty of food, no doubt, with escaped crickets.

Now...bear with me...

Obviously, stock up on sticky rodent traps and place everywhere. Got it.
If I was an OBT, where would I be?
Would you think high or low?
I know, either freaking or.

If I choose to fumigate the place, how long do you think I should have the rest of my animals away from the house for?

And does that pretty much guarantee that the spider is dead?

Do you think I should just do it right away to be safe?

Arg. Not a story I am going to tell the ex. It reads fuel for custody battle ALL over it!

I have decided that this certifiably sucks hardcore.
 

Kid Dragon

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I would fumigate the house and sell the remaining Ts I had, rather than risk losing your kids to your ex-husband. JMO.

I think its bad for the entire hobby when people have their exotics escape on them. Its never happened to me, and I'm curious how often this happens to people in this hobby.
 

Sheri

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Kid Dragon said:
I would fumigate the house and sell the remaining Ts I had, rather than risk losing your kids to your ex-husband. JMO.

I think its bad for the entire hobby when people have their exotics escape on them. Its never happened to me, and I'm curious how often this happens to people in this hobby.
Sell the remaining ones? Why on earth would I do that? I'd love to hear the logic in that one.

As for losing the kids to my ex-husband, that was some black humour in an otherwise not so funny situation. I'll be sure to add a disclaimer to it next time.

Bad for the entire hobby? Really? You think so? Maybe if these were Bushmasters... but they are non-deadly spiders. I mean... is an escaped cat bad for the entire feline hobby? If I called the newspapers and announced that there was a highly dangerous tarantula loose in my house, then fine, thepress would suck, no doubt. But this is a post aimed at other hobbyists - so unless you're going to call The Winnipeg Sun then I think the hobby is safe from my little incident.

C'mon. We keep bugs. Some of us keep many of them. This was from a communal enclosure.

If you think you are not at risk to ever have one escape you are kidding yourself - just as you are potentially at risk for a bite simply because you have them.

Now, the plan of action I have decided on is to tear the house apart tonight, especially the kids room and the toys and then tomorrow as soon as the stores open I will buy a bunch of sticky rodent traps as well as double sided tape.
We will be skaking out shoes, and jackets before putting them on.
I will look into the effectiveness of fumigating in the coming week, and make a decision then.

Thanks for your insight and advice. :rolleyes:
 

Puppet Master

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I am sorry to hear about that. I remember when my T escaped for the secound time I coverd all the windows (keep light down) and turned up the heat. after a few hours I found my T walking on my wall. I figured the heat made it more active and keeping the light down made it more willing to come out and walking around.

Good luck, I hope you find you T.
 

xBurntBytheSunx

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i remember old hag had her obt get loose with kids in the house and she hadn't seen it since......i can't say its nothing to worry about but, at the same time its not like its out to eat your children.

on one hand it may not be that dangerous, but on the other hand it could be alive for years in your house (from the way i've heard them be able to survive in very arid conditions)...

don't really know what to tell you, sticky traps seem like a good idea though
 

Sean

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Sheri said:
Well, as some of you know, I had an OBT escape from the communal enclosure, tag me and then hide behind a bookshelf which with my lightning fast thinking, taped up to prevent escape until I could retrieve him when the kids weren't home...

David Burns is over right now, helped me to remove the bookself so that one could catch the spider and the other could move the shelf.

Well.

My smart thinking was outwitted. The OBT is nowhere to be found. This is not the best case scenario with 2 kids in the house. And plenty of food, no doubt, with escaped crickets.

Now...bear with me...

Obviously, stock up on sticky rodent traps and place everywhere. Got it.
If I was an OBT, where would I be?
Would you think high or low?
I know, either freaking or.

If I choose to fumigate the place, how long do you think I should have the rest of my animals away from the house for?

And does that pretty much guarantee that the spider is dead?

Do you think I should just do it right away to be safe?

Arg. Not a story I am going to tell the ex. It reads fuel for custody battle ALL over it!

I have decided that this certifiably sucks hardcore.

Yes my mom bombed our entire house, it killed my intire collection like 2 years ago...It also kills hampsters and birds. I think they take like 8 hours or so...But I would go maybe a full 12-24 hours before you should put them back in the house to be safe.

I had a maculata get loose, it was gone for a couple days. I found it behind a poster. An OBT is probably the hardest T to figure out where it could be. They can live high/low...They can live in very harsh conditions...Beats me. Good luck to you though.
 

fantasticp

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Do you have a cat? Get one! My cat has found almost all escapees for me. (crickets mostly) I had to beat Francie to a monitor once though....would have been the most expensive and last meal that cat ever ate. Bad Cat!
 

Sean

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fantasticp said:
Do you have a cat? Get one! My cat has found almost all escapees for me. (crickets mostly) I had to beat Francie to a monitor once though....would have been the most expensive and last meal that cat ever ate. Bad Cat!
What spieces was it? A V.salvator would of tore that cat up!
 

Sheri

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Ok... have checked the upstairs pretty well... no spider.

Honestly, I don't even expect to find it by looking, but obviously need to try relentlessly for a while.

And dogdammit, the kids have way too many toy spiders. And at least 2 orange ones. On the positive side, the escapee was the largest from the communal project, so I am hoping it's a male that is going to mature and die very quickly. ;)

Now I will empty out all the kitchen cupboards, just in case.
I much prefer looking for them in the rainforest, I have decided with absolute certainty.
 

CedrikG

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Kid Dragon said:
I would fumigate the house and sell the remaining Ts I had, rather than risk losing your kids to your ex-husband. JMO.

I think its bad for the entire hobby when people have their exotics escape on them. Its never happened to me, and I'm curious how often this happens to people in this hobby.
huhhhhhhh ? at the begining I tought you were kidding, can this really be serious, cmon ... It never happened to you , but if you own a P murinus you are suposed to know that theres always some risk with this species, inpredictable and quick ... if you dont own any then you dont have a word to say as you dont know how this species can react sometimes, especially in a communal project . Sell the remaining T ... ok, why ? cuz the escaped murinus can eat them all ? loosing your Kid ? omg ...

I agree a cat woould probably quickly find an escaped T hehe but ... I doubt she wont get bite
 
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Vys

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Feel a little like keeping it safe untill fall, then releasing it into the absolute pleasantness that is Canadian fall when you find it, eh? :)

And in a house, with kids, I understand the complications just went out to the nearest field and quadrupled :/

Perhaps you could keep the children in one room until you find it? :D A more serious suggestion could perhaps be to tell them try to be careful, then tie a number of crickets/grasshopers with pieces of string to certain areas in the proximity of places you suspect might be potential places of hiding.
 

Sheri

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Tack Vys...

I thought of the cricket idea... but not sure that would work very well.
But today I will lay down double sided tape around all the baseboards, and other prime OBT locations, as well as some sticky rodent traps too...
But it could have gone into the ventilation system, or a boc of cereal. There are simply so many places to look, and even if you KNOW where a spider is, it can still be hard to spot.

I think though that it will probably settle high, and out of the reach of the kids, so I am not totally freaked about them getting bit.

I will keep you posted!
 

rosehaired1979

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I would look in low small dark places. Course you could wake up one morning fix coffee and in the coffee pot there it be lol (I know someone who had this happen)
 
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Deschain

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That's not a fun thing to have happen. You probably should've caught it when you knew where it was, but I guess you already know that... ;)

I would close doors, and tape some cardboard to the bottoms to prevent movement from room to room, and then do a room by room search with a hair dryer during the day. The hot air should get it moving where you can see it. And some midnight searches as well. Make sure you shake and check clothes before anyone puts them on...just in case.

Curatins, plants, windows and baseboards. <-check me!

And as for selling your collection...you already rolled your eyes, so now I don't have to. That's just silly. I hope you find it soon!
 

Sheri

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Thanks Des...
The reason why I didn't get it right away was because I had to leave to pick up the kids from daycare... and needed someone to pull the shelf out so that I could be there to catch it. Between a rock and a hard place, you know?

Shaking out clothes, beds, and shoes until we find it. That'll be fun. ;)
 

becca81

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My husband and I have discussed what we would do if one escaped (especially one of the P. murinus) and it pretty much was to get all the other spiders out and set off a bomb. If you decide to do so, you'll probably need to keep all the spiders out for about 3 days. I've done it in the past with other animals in the house and after about 3 days I had no problems re-introducing the animals.

Since P. murinus are prolific webbers, hopefully you should be able to find some webbing somewhere. I've also read somewhere that they *may* be attracted to the sound of chirping crickets (or maybe just the vibrations produced from..) - it may not hurt to put some in a KK on the the floor with sticky traps around it and see if it works.

I believe that OldHag posted awhile back and said that she found the missing OBT on top of the refrigerator, dead.

It's also hard to say whether to look high or low since they seem to adapt so well to whatever environment they are in. Good luck with the hunt.
 

Sheri

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Yeah, I used to think I'd fumigate immediately, but really... people live in areas with widows and worse and manage to survive. If I had any evidence that a bite would do anything more medically significant than cause pain then perhaps... I will try a few more days with the sticky trap thing and the re-evaluate. Of course, there is no guarantee that even a bug bomb would kill it either - and I have a lot of spiders to move out. It would be a very big job, but an option for sure.
 

becca81

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Even thought your house is probably a normal temperature, what about putting a heater in the middle of the room and seeing if it'll go to it. When I added a heater to the side of my A. avicularia tank, the P. murinus beside it began constantly pressing itself up against the wall nearest the heater.
 

Deschain

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Sheri said:
Thanks Des...
The reason why I didn't get it right away was because I had to leave to pick up the kids from daycare... and needed someone to pull the shelf out so that I could be there to catch it. Between a rock and a hard place, you know?

Shaking out clothes, beds, and shoes until we find it. That'll be fun. ;)
Oh...I thought it was at night. :wall:

It's a pain in the ass, but better safe than sorry. I found mine in my jacket...after moving it once. :eek:

Give the hair dryer a go, that's how they "wrangle" them for movies. It can't hurt!
 

Immortal_sin

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Good luck to you. I don't think there is any need for panic. As we all know, it's not like it's going to be stalking you or the kids ;)
Just be careful with clothing and bedding. And drawers.
I never found a young 4" or so female P regalis that got loose over 3 years ago.
And my bedroom is done in black and white :)
 
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