Windows and Widows

Andy and I decided to replace some of our windows from the old aluminum ones to nice vinyl ones. The windows that came with the house were single pane with storm windows attached to the outside. They were no longer sealed and so bugs, spiders, and who knows what else could climb between the window panes making it "unsafe" for us to open the windows to let air flow through the house. As you can see from the pictures the upstairs windows were filled with cobwebs, spiders, and dead bugs. This is a picture of Christiana's which was pretty typical for the upstairs windows. The worst "filled" windows are in the basement this picture would be a "clean" corner of the downstairs windows. We are LOVING our new windows. They are so clean and nice to look at and through. (notice the cloudy look in the before picture)

As I said the worst collections are in the basement windows. At night we would open one of the windows to help air flow and I tried not to think to hard about it. Then one day Christiana asked how to tell if a spider was poisonous. As you can imagine, this went over well with me. As I went running over to where she was she said she saw 4 spiders. I looked in the window (thankfully not the one we had been opening) and there was a large brown spider. Being from Idaho, I immediately think it looks like a Hobo. I'm trying to get a closer look at it (remember it is between the panes of glass) when it dawns on me she said 4 spiders. So then I start looking for the other spiders when I discovered.......the BLACK WIDOW!!!! This really creeped me out. So when Andy got home we showed him the spiders. We decided with the black widow in there it was time to do something, but how. About a week later Christiana informs us there is an egg sack in the window. Well THAT lit a fire under our butts. So we purchased some raid that kills on contact. We opened the window enough to spray the raid on the widow. Thankfully her web was on the side that doesn't move so she didn't come running into the house. However when we opened the window that did cause her web to move and she came a running. She was much bigger than I first thought she was. Did I get a picture?? Of Course not!!!! Pictures were the LAST thing on my mind. After killing the widow we took the window panes out, carefully got the egg sack and BURNED it, then stomped on it and burned it again for good measure. After making sure we weren't going to have more baby widows we cleaned the windows then put them back in. Sometimes you just don't realize HOW dirty the windows are!! I think it would be safe to say the sellers didn't clean the windows before they put the house on the market.To keep this from happening again we CAULKED the window. I know it's hard to see as the caulk dried clear but there are pictures. We can open the window to let air flow through, but the extra window panes are sealed over to the other side and can't move. NOTHING is getting in, and if for some reason something does get in.....it ain't getting back out!!