Family Driven from Their Mo. Home by Spiders “Bleeding Out of Walls”

11 Oct, 2014 by Sierra Marlee

Print this article Font size -16+

This is the stuff of nightmares, and one family actually had to experience it. They were forced out of their home when thousands of poisonous spiders descended from the ceiling and oozed from the walls.

Brian and Susan Trost bought the $450,000 home overlooking two golf holes at Whitmoor Country Club in Weldon Spring in October 2007 and soon afterward started seeing brown recluse spiders everywhere, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Once when showering, Susan Trost dodged a spider as it fell from the ceiling and washed down the drain.

She told St. Louis television station KMOV-TV in 2012 the spiders “started bleeding out of the walls,” and at least two pest control companies were unable to eradicate the infestation.

The couple filed a claim in 2008 with their insurance company, State Farm, and a lawsuit against the home’s previous owners for not disclosing the brown recluse problem.

At a civil trial in St. Charles County in October 2011, University of Kansas biology professor Jamel Sandidge — considered one of the nation’s leading brown recluse researchers — estimated there were between 4,500 and 6,000 spiders in the home. Making matters worse, he said, those calculations were made in the winter when the spiders are least active.

I think I have a healthy fear of spiders, but I usually only have to do battle with one, maybe two at a time. This family should move to a less arachnid-friendly environment. I hear Sibera is nice this time of year.