I need a little help here. My little empire is in my garage, in a corner. A couple of weeks ago I went out to run some trains after not touching the layout for over a week and the first thing I see is a massive spider web running from my new IM hoppers to the tops of the pine grove. I looked closer and found the creator, a big half inch diameter spider hiding in the pine grove. The shop vac made fast work of him and the web but ever since I keep finding little wisps of web running from one point to another in different spots of the layout. I am a bit tired of watching my Tunnel motors go into the tunnel only to exit with a bit of web on the nose. I clean, vac and wipe but I need a better long term solution. My question, is there any harm the chemicals in one of those caned bug bombs do to the layout? I wouldn't set it off on the layout but in the center of the garage. A 1,200 sqft area, 30x40. I would park the cars outside but should I cover the layout? Anyone ever do this before? I figure that would keep the spiders away for at least a couple of months. Thanks for input. [ April 28, 2005, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: sitchad ]
I would not think there should be any problem. I would maybe take all the locomotives off the track and take them in the house during the opperation and then clean the track real well after. Or you can just train the spiders to string silk between the telegraph poles only.
I would spray a spider killer like "home defense" around the outside of garage and home along the foundation or bottom of walls. Inside the garage, around bottom of the walls and around where the ceiling and wall meets. Just an idea, I'm no expert. Loco1999
ditto to what loco1999 said.. I do that every year, and it keeps my home free from ants and spiders and i guess whatever other yucky bug would want to be in my house. I just spray it heavily around the foundation, and its good to go. Smells pretty vile for a bit, but it sure does keep me from squirming. (I REALLY hate bugs)
I don't know about any long term effects on spiders, but you sure could film a 1950's horror movie about giant spiders wrecking trains, if you wish.
From experience, I'd advise against a bomb, if you have long tunnels. You may kill the spiders, but others will migrate back as soon as the spray has mitigated. I do bomb my layout room once a year, but I don't have tunnels. The pests hide in the places a bomb won't reach.
Chad: I would spray the perimeter of the garage and all interior walls that meet the floor. When you do the spraying, I would wear a mask and latex gloves. Stay cool and run steam.....
Quite a few of those bombs used to be very damaging to plastic. Read the instructions very carefully before buying or using any of them!!
I recently read an article on how those bombs are not really that effective anyway. It was part of a news story where someone actually blew up their house because they used several of these bombs at the same time (thought more was better). A pilot light ingited the dense fumes and the house went KABOOM. About a year ago, one of my Geeps exited my tunnel and started sputtering. I had to pull it apart to clean out the remains of a spider caught up in the front axle. Yuck. I just dust the layout (and tunnels) of spiders every so often. It seems to keep it under control.
They like to congregate behind the backdrop (there's a staging track behind that) and up in the basement well windows. I vacuum a couple of times a year, or more. I had thought about training them to wire the electrical poles on the layout...
Nice, you can tell everyone he's part of your railroad police. "I told you, no trespassing on the tracks!"
I'm in the garage also. My water heater is in there, with a pilot light, so filling the air with flammable gas isn't a good idea for me! Like someone said, i've got my camera ready for when the big bugs come...
I just don't like spraying around "fun" chemicals in or around an enclosed space like a basement. I know it''ll be me kicking the bucket before the spiders after all my lifetime exposure to stuff like that (poison, not basements). I'd go for the vacuum route. And don't you just hate it when you're running trains and you keep hearing that little voice: "help me . . . help me . . ."
Go organic. I let the mud dauber wasps patrol my NTRAK modules hanging on the ceiling of my garage. They collect all kinds of spiders, stun them into a state of suspended animation and pack them into their mud tubes with their eggs to provide food for their larva. Geckos and lizards are good at keeping other bugs in line.
I'm not sure how well those bombs will do against spiders. I had a recent conversation with our local bug killer that comes out and sprays the exterior of our house due to carpenter ants. The guy had said that alot of the stuff used to kill ants and such is ineffective against spiders because they basically don't aborb alot of the chemicals the same way the ants do. He went on to say that one of the byproducts of killing off the ants and other bugs was that the spiders eventually decrease and go away from the immediate area due to a lack of a food supply and more often they starve versus getting poisoned. He said this was especially true with newly hatched spiders in which there is no food supply around for them. I'm not an expert this is just what I was told. I hope this helps.
Ditto Superghost's remarks. I treat spiders as my friends, as they get rid of pests like aphids. I've never had a problem with trains snagging webs, although I'll bet it looks much like Alaskan mooses running along with chidren's swingsets entangled in their racks. Mooses, to quote the author Peter Jennings ("Looking for Alaska," not the TV anchor) seem to have a bitter emnity toward swingsets. If you have a big problem with spiders, you probably have a bigger problem with other pests. Eliminate them and the spider problem will diminish, over time.
