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All Spider Venom is Toxic to Humans
While all but two known species of spider are venomous, relatively few of the spiders that humans come into contact with have venom that can affect adults, children or pets. Spiders use their venom to catch and ingest their prey, which is often smaller insects. Humans and house pets are too large for spiders to eat and so it is rare for them to be bitten. While bites do sometimes occur, this does not happen as often as thought and most of the "unidentified bites" reported by victims are not spider bites. Bites that do occur have relatively minor effects such as itching or redness.
Daddy Long Leg Venom is Highly Toxic
This is a widely spread urban myth espoused through word-of-mouth and even some television shows. Traditional daddy long leg spiders have no venom. Without venom glands or means to subdue their prey these spiders most often act as scavengers and are unable to harm humans. Another common type of daddy long leg spider known as the Pholcid house spider has no record of biting humans or causing any poisonous or venomous reaction in any mamma. This includes verified reported incidents and laboratory experiments. This makes the venomous daddy long leg superstition just that, a superstition.
Venomous Bites Can Lead to Amputation
Each year there are a few stories of individuals diagnosed with a spider bite who then suffer complications resulting in the loss of a limb, according to Robert Crawford at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. These are often cases of misdiagnosis, as occurred in Washington State in the 1980s, Crawford said. A man initially diagnosed with a spider bite suffered an infection of gangrene and lost his arm. It was later revealed the spider venom was not to blame for the reaction. There is simply not enough venom in a spider bite to cause such a massive reaction.
Spider Bites Can Cause Bacterial Infections
To go along with amputation superstitions is one that claims spiders carry harmful bacteria on their fangs. While some specimens of the Brazilian recluse spider have been found to carry a type of clostridium perfringens bacteria, there is no example of these or any spiders transmitting the bacteria to humans. Yet often when physicians treat people for spider bites they prescribe bacteria-killing antibiotics. While this has no effect on the potential venom in the bite, it does greatly reduce or eliminate any potential bacterial infection.
Spider Infestations Should Be Treated with Pesticides
Spiders do not rely on heavy colony-like populations in the way bees, wasps and termites do. Rather, spiders are predators and so often move to where the prey is. Spiders do not infest homes as ants or roaches would. Rather, when a homeowners sees more spiders it is often simply an increase in spider activity due to warm weather or larger amounts of prey insects. Because spiders are arachnids and not insects, their populations are relatively unaffected by pesticides and their eggs can survive pesticide spray. To keep spider populations down, the best steps are to seal cracks and openings where spiders can get in and keep the amount of prey insects in the house low.