I went to get the mail today, and for the second time this year, a surprise awaited me inside the box. A spider web that I readily recognized by its random stringiness.  A black widow.  I dispatched her before she could lay eggs.  Hopefully. The second one I've killed inside my mailbox in a year.

Scary.  Stick your hand in to get your mail and end up dead.

After the first one, I've been careful to check.  But you never know.  I've found them when I worked in the flower beds.  They like to hide between rocks, or bricks, or stacked wood.  In a dry place with access to damp areas.

They don't spin pretty webs.  Their webs have no shape at all.  Just strings of webbing randomly stretching in no particular direction.  At least a rattle snake gives you a warning.

Not so the Black Widow.  Unless you know what you are looking for, you would just think you were looking at a spider's web that has been torn apart by the wind.  It certainly doesn't look organized.

I've always been interested in creepy crawlers.  I took a course in entomology from a guy who was the lead entomologist for the Viet Nam war.  He went in ahead of the troops to inspect what types of insects, snakes, spiders, etc. that they would encounter. Things that would kill you besides getting shot.

I learned one thing that was interesting.  If you ever have roaches, spread dry borax along the base-boards and in the cabinets.  The bugs walk on it and then lick their "feet," go back where they live and they die.  The borax is a cleaning agent so you can just sweep it up or mop the floor.  Better than spray.  We moved into a rent house that had bugs once. It worked.  All gone in 24 hours.