Worst experience cleaning out the creepy stuff inside the new project?

I am fearless when it comes to cleaning out my cars. I know one day its going to bite me in the ass though. We don't have much of a rat or mice issue where I live. Just lots of daddy long legs and black widows. I have been lucky to have no spiders or bugs inside my car. There just all around where I need to work on the outside. I constantly hit spider web and yank my hand back and cringe. I hate spiders. And the out side of my car is filled with daddy long legs. There not the bad part. Its the big thick web of a black widow that scares the hell out of me. And that's all over some parts of my car.

 

Carried one of my 37 ford's rear fenders back inside the shop, the usual way with one hand holding the fender lip, when I put it down I noticed my hand was smack in the middle of a Black widow nest, how I didnt get bit i'll never know. Put me in the spider haters club.

 

When I get one of my precious finds up on the trailer and heading for home the first place I will go is the car wash..that cars been rained on a thousand times one more isn't going to hurt..one time raising a trunk lid I had a Mama Rat go for my throat as she was protecting her babies..used to be in the abandoned car business, one of the first phone calls we had to make was to the cops, more than once they told me to sit tight while they came out and sniffed the trunk keyhole and determined that there was probably a body in the trunk as the plate was connected to a missing person..Oh, and spider webbing that is loose and looks like cotton candy is black widow..can't help ya on brown recluse...

 

When I brought home my shoebox, I borrowed one of those ionizer air purifiers from a friend. I cranked it up to full power and set it in that car for a week to kill the rat crap/piss smell. Then I carefully swept it out while wearing a mask and gloves. Fortunately the headliner was gone so no suprizes from above. I don't like spiders, but I HATE wasps/hornets/bees!!! I must have sprayed 100 nests in, on and around that car.! And I found more when I got to working underneath the car. I stopped at the car wash on the way home with it and got rid of some of the nests. Since I started hauling scrap, I ALWAYS keep a can of carb cleaner in the truck. Works almost instantly on flying bugs.

 

Those brown recluse spiders are no fun. I got bit on the leg at work once, couldn't walk within 5 minutes. Drove across the street (barely) to the quick-E-doc and he drained about a cup of pus from it. Still have a black hole there, but not as bad. This was 20 years ago. Probably the most intense pain I've ever felt!

 

word of advice on black widows.. They are hard SOBs to kill. We had a lot of them in the shop where I used to work. It was just me and my friend and his dad who worked there, so there were corners that were left untouched for weeks. There were nests under cars and mostly in corners. Barryman's spray wouldn't kill some of them!! We finally got some Ortho (I think) spray that you were supposed to dilute.. we used it straight and it seemed to annoy them enough that they moved out. Still didn't find very many dead ones.

Another trick is black widow web is very strong. the strands usually run up and down and in no particular order. When you break the web you can actually hear it tear.

 

I drug home a '57 big window truck and immediately went to blowing it apart. I crawled underneath the truck to loosen something while my brother was in the cab backing the bolt.

I looked up throught the tranny tunnel and saw a monster rat about to pounce on his head. My borther saw the startled look on my face and asked WTF?

Didn't say a word, he already thought he had the best end of the bargain working in the cab while I was in the dirt. Luck bastard, the rat never did get him.

Last, I feel for you guys with the brown recluse bites. Got one on the thigh years back. It sucks royally.

 

I've been told that a black widow bite is one of the most painful bites there is, while many people bitten by a brown recluse never felt the actual bite.

Any truth to that?

My shop last year was full of black widows, now they seem to have been replaced by brown recluses, for some reason since Katrina flooded the shop they have a major problem. I don't stick my hand in or under anything without turning it over first.

 

Spider bites are no fun. I got bit a couple weeks ago by a hobo spider (a agressive relative of the brown recluse that is native to the northwest) It was mild in comaprison to what could have happened, I guess it depends on the age of the spider and if it's male or female on how bad the bite gets. Either way, I had to go to the hospital, get antibiotics and have my arm bandaged up for over a week. it's still healing up with a rashy patch on the back of my arm about 3" x7"

 

We don't have black widows, wolf, brown recluse or daddy longlegs around here any more. The Hobos moved in and killed them all.

The 60 ranchero in my front yard is full of hornets. I leave them there. Keeps the neighborhood hoodlems honest. Haven't had anything stolen since they moved in. Got me a free crescent wrench, socket set and multi type screwdriver one morning when I found the truck door open. Just have to remember not to bump that truck.

 

Go To Home Depot & Hire Some Day Labor !!!!

 

Damn...this post is making my skin crawl.

Last summer one of my buddies brought a '59 El Camino to our shop. He'd scored a great deal on it and was planning on cleaning up the body and dropping a new engine in it with plans to sell afterward.

Every night after work I'd go to the shop to work and flip on the lights only to see a new web stretching between the Elco and the floor...always with a fat, shiny black widow sitting there with it's sharp legs protruding toward me. A good shot of brake cleaner would get 'em to drop to where I could smash 'em...I swear I could fell myself rise up like I'd stepped on a walnut or something whenever I did this.

Within a month, the whole shop was infested...my buddy was bitten by one when he reached under his Model A truck. Bear in mind that he'd built it from the ground up, so these spiders were on the move. He didn't have health insurance, so he just sat a home sweating and puking for a few days.

Talk about motivation to get my car out of that shop! And even though a '59 El Camino is on my list of cars to own someday, I passed on a heck of a deal 'cause I could never get under that one.

Bryan

 

It wasn`t my worst but, I kinda felt sorry for the Madera ca. highway patrol inspection officer that decided that the id number was only on the bell housing of a 46 tudor ford.The floorboard was completely covered with dead stuff including a wolf`s skull! Good thing he had overalls on,cause he was covered with shit from head to toe! I got the car from kentucky bones and all.He didnt really act like it was a big problem, and was pretty good about it.I didnt have the heart to show him the numbers on the front drivers frame rail

 

Yer right, I never felt the actual bite. I don't know if black widow bites hurt at first.

 

I've found copper heads, hornets, ratz etc over the years.

But I guess the most memorable was my '53 F 100. Choprods was the last one I knew to have it. I was cutting the floor out to channel it. it must have belonged to a farmer at one point, I ran the torch across a handfull of 22 shells between the floor and the back of the cab. Bow, bow bow. Scared the crap outa me. I vacumm everything now, its just quicker than changeing my drawers.

 

I don't have anything as good as what's posted - just lots of rodent droppings, rodent nests, and had an old ford F150 that I used to tow with on the weekends and it somehow attracted wasps like crazy - if it sat for more than a week there was another nest built - usually ont the radiator - can't remember how many times I sprayed that thing down with wasp and hornet killer.... It actually got bad enough that the things clogged up the airflow through the radiator - and I kept wondering why it was running warmer and warmer each week....

FWIW - From what the exterminator told me - the spiders can't be killed by conventional methods - you've got to get rid of their food and then they'll move out and/or die off.... So get out and spray for other insects and in time the spiders will get hungry and move on to greener pastures...

 

Well, I'm even more creeped out now. Sounds to me like the spiders are the main problem, and I HATE THEM TOO! Not sure what we have here in Maryland, but I can tell you if it flies, it's in my shop somewhere. I had the doors open last night to air out the bug bomb from the '50. I had to leave....couldn't take it anymore. I bought the '50 (Buick parts car) 'cause I want the frame and 320 Str8. Now all I want to do is call the bone yard and tell them to get it the hell out. Well, there's other stuff I want....just hate to get near all the funky old smelly pissed on wool seats and headliner. Ah well.....after dragging that thing around for 500 miles, I'll just have to grin and bear it. By the way, anybody need anything from a 50 Roadmaster?

Well, I plugged in a high frequency get rid of the rodents thing. Wonder if those work. Bug Bombed two cars in the same space. So, I guess all I need to do now is dress like I'm cleaning out asbestos and carry a can of Brake Clean just in case. Brake clean seems to kill all the creepers...so far at least!

Gary

 

I took a truck over to a buddies shop to have some brake work & new wireing done on his lift... that night all the new baby black widows (so cute!) were born. He used a plumbing torch to clean the entire bottom of the truck.

Another time I was driving my 63 Valiant with the "crotch coolers" open and blowing. 2 good handfills of dead bugs, twigs and leaves blew out of the vent and up the leg of my Dickies shorts. At 80 MPH, all I could do is laugh about it.

Rats & mice are the worst. I can't stand the smell..

 

BAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!

 

cleaning out a rat nest of wiring from various guages and components and bullshit, (some speaker wire running the add-on turn signals...ha) exiting the firewall and routed by wrapping around the steering column when the bundle of wire started to slither. was a good sized snake tucked up in there, and scared the Shiz out of me. got a stick and prodded him out, he took off in the engine bay and i never saw him again. i'm considering he dropped into the intake, as the truck never ran again, and only puffs back thru the carby. hopefully that slithery bastard is lubing the valves...haha

 

Down here in the southeast I have always been on the look out for rats, spiders and snakes, but I found something I would have never thought to look out for.

I was looking for dash knobs for a 67 El Camino. Looking in a junk yard I walked up to the back of a 66 Chevell. Opened the door, sat on the seat, and starting removing knobs. I finally looked up to see a patch of scalp stuck in the busted windsheild. There was quite a dried up sun bleached mess on top of the dash.

I have been careful in a different way ever since.

 

Not so much cleaning but we loaded an old dunebuggy once and one on the trailer and hooked down we were checking to make sure things were hooked right and a big ass Blacksnake ( 5 -6 foot ) dropped out onto the trailer deck,,,I ran and the others laughed,,it slithered of and into the grass,,needless to say I stll look under things for a comfortable distance

 

This guy fell on me while removing an exhaust manifold. Being in the middle of indiana, the last thing you expect to see laying on your chest is a shellfish that looks like a huge bug with claws. Mummified or not, pretty god damn startling

 

Many years ago there was a old wrecking yard that we used to frequent. The cars were scattered out in the woods behind the guys house. Well, there was an old ford school bus out at the back of the place, probably a 51 model. Anyways as we all know its hot and humid down here in the south and the bugs will carry you off in the summer, it took major balls to get out by the ole bus at that time of the year. Apparently school bus roofs are red wasps favorite nesting ground!! Im not talking about those little turd nests you find that have two or three of the little bastards hanging on it, Im talking nests twice the size of a birthday cake packed full of those damn red devils!!! There was 15-20 of these damn things hanging from the inside of that bus. You could hear the wasps inside it 20 ft away from it. Ive got some old polaroid pictures of it somewhere that was taken in the winter when it was empty but it would make me sick looking in it. I hate wasps!!!

 

I hope you ate it.

 

yea thats good eatin' there, that one doesnt look too fresh though

 

GaryN.....I was debating posting this since you were still on the fence about it but, here it goes. Yes there are brown recluse and black widows in good Ol' Md. Was bit by a black widow 22 years ago and the problem I had was I apparently am allergic to the venom. Complete skeletal lock and alot of throwing up. 1 week in the hospital and booster shots every two weeks for 6 months cured me. Fast forward 15 years. Brown Recluse in garage under my work bench. Went to grab the air hose and 5 minutes later hand was on fire.
Fitysix
BTW The Black widow bite hurt more than the Brown Recluse at the actual bite site.

 

Exactly...

While driving my old 55 Chevy wagon home (actually my buddy was) I was behind him and saw a small "dog Like" animal fall out underneath it while passing through an intersection. It was a rat I believe.

Got into the car and found several other mice, and droppings galore. You would thought it was a "Mouse/Rat Club" hang-out joint.

I dry heaved a few times trying clean it out.

I hate rat turds.

 

I didn't have a spyder problem.I bought my hudson off of a guy up in Houghton,Mi. It had about 6" of dirt and leaves in it. About two days after I got it home my neighbor and some freinds were over and one of them say's to me "is that snake fake?". I looked over and about a foot over from my face was a snake. I'm deathly afraid of snakes. I ran like a little girl! A little while later I went back to kill it before it got loose in my garage. If it got loose I probably still wouldn't go in there! Well, doesn't the little bastard sneak out a rust hole in the back of the car. It took me 15 min. to chase it down and beat it to death with a pry bar. Man I "HATE" snakes

 

That would be good for a whack on the back of the head... when you jump backwards out of the friggin' car. Yoiks.

Apparently there are scorpions in Atlanta now, just something to add to the creep-out factor.