She Had To Die.

I mostly have no beef with spiders.

Mostly.

I see a lot of them in my house here in California. Mostly daddy long legs. But there are some little black ones - which are also harmless - that run real fast.  They freaked me out at first, but I've learned to ignore them. Or rather... They've learned to stay the hell out of my way.

There was, however, a spider I encountered that was not staying out of my way... And I could not ignore.  A black widow.

I noticed her about a week and a half ago. She'd built a lovely little web around the handle on the side of my garbage bin outside. And she even had a lovely little egg sac with her in the web.

I'd attempted to hose her away with my water hose last week. She nor the web budged.

The next day - garbage day - I figured she'd fall off when the garbage truck came to lift and empty the bin.  I was wrong.

So this weekend, I attempted to "sage" her away... Knowing pests and insects dislike smoking sage near them.  But she still didn't budge.

So Sunday morning I woke up and knew I had to take action. I had to go to Home Depot and get something to spray her down with chemicals.

I was gonna have to kill her.

I took aim...

And I sprayed the shit out of the web... Which you can see is pretty intricate.  She was hiding under the bar, so I wasn't sure if I got her properly.

But she eventually came out....

I felt so bad. She was clearly struggling. It was definitely a traumatic death. So I blasted her again, hoping it would move faster.

Eventually she stopped moving, and fell to the ground...

The egg sac remains, but it has been sprayed. I will be taking a hose to it later tonight. 

Part of living in California.