The War of the Spiders

I've noticed over the last few weeks that there has been a lot of cobweb growth on the christmas lights strung on my stair rail. When I pass them, walking up and down the stairs, little shapes go skittering under the lights. Since I have no real way to clean this mess, I decided today to get an adapter for my sink faucet and attach a hose to it.

This I did and after putting it on my faucet, I was ready. I walked the hose through my apartment, out the door, and turned it on. A wonderfully powerful stream of water came flooding out of the hose, and thus the War began. I sprayed the stairs, I sprayed the railing, I sprayed all the nooks and crannies of the stairs, AND I sprayed the tree. I had noticed earlier that there were some fairly large spiders making webs from the top of the tree, over the stairs to the eaves of my house. So I sprayed them too. My spray not being the absolute torrent I had wanted, I was unable to rocket the spiders out over the tree and into the street, smashing their small, pathetic bodies, but I did manage to chase them back into the tree and destroy their webs.

With the long distance artillery expended, I moved to the heat-seaking missles and grenade launchers. I had also purchased a very large can of insecticide that claims to kill ants, roaches and spiders. I started spraying the stairs, the railing, the nooks and crannies, and once again, the tree. Well. Much to my horror, the sneaking little guerrilas had apparently been living en-mass in the tree, waiting to attack. My mass killing techniques forced them out of hiding. There were at least dozens of them. Little tiny buggers, medium sized ones, and those at least as big as a penny. They came dropping out of the leaves, desperately scrambling to get clear of the toxic spray.

I have mixed reactions about this. While I am happy that my spray seemed to be doing a good job of instilling mass chaos within the enemy, I am also horrified that there are so many of the little bastards living in the tree, and that I've been passing them daily, many of them within inches of my cringing skin. Now I'm terrified of walking down my stairs. I mean, who knows what doth lurk in the shadows? After expending my can of poison, I beat a hasty retreat back into my house, with a small feeling of satisfaction at having cleaned up my stairs, but also with apprehension. At some point, I'm going to have to leave, either to go to work, get food, or whittle down the massive pile of laundry I've accumulated. I'm hoping that the spray lingers on the leaves of the tree and on the railing, so as to discourage the enemy from encroaching on my borders...but one never knows...Especially if I've been living along side them at unknown distances for so long without knowing they were there....*shudder*

One last horrifing thought crosses my mind. If that is state of the outside of my house....what is the inside like? How many spies have infiltrated these hallowed grounds?