Kansas family shared home with 2,055 brown recluse spiders, and no one was bitten

One Kansas family has shared its story, which, for many, represents a total nightmare.

The family, which included an 8-year-old and a 13-year-old, was living in a home that contained thousands of venomous brown recluse spiders. 

While the family shared the home with these intimidating arachnids for five years, luckily, no one was bitten.

Now, in a study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Entomology, researchers examined the infestation. 

As IFLScience reported, the family moved into the home after the previous resident left in 1996, and regularly saw the spiders moving throughout the house. But it was not until 2001 that they identified the spiders as venomous brown recluse spiders.

Then a research team got involved in helping to remove the infestation.

During nightly collection efforts from mid-June to mid-September 2001, two people removed spiders by hand and with sticky traps. The researchers wrote, "2,055 brown recluse spiders… were collected in a 19th-century-built, currently occupied home in Lenexa, KS… 842 from sticky traps and 1,213 from manual sampling."

About a quarter of the spiders, 488 of them, were thought to be large enough to inject venom. Even so, as the study noted, "despite a conservative estimate of 400 envenomation-capable brown recluses in the Kansas home, no envenomations of the occupants occurred."

The Illinois Department of Public Health explained that these spiders "are hunting spiders that wander at night in search of prey," while females stay hidden in silk retreats in places such as "a wall void or behind a picture frame."

This means that human homes can unintentionally provide ideal habitats. Older houses, cluttered storage areas, openings in walls, and undisturbed furniture can all create secluded places for spiders to hide.

The Illinois Department of Public Health added that "When they do occur, bites are rarely as serious as they have been portrayed."

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