Unlike pillbugs, sowbugs have two distinctive tail-like appendages and they cannot roll up into a ball. Activity may occur year-round in artificially heated buildings, such as greenhouses, but sowbugs are typically dormant in the winter months. They are widely distributed throughout the country, yet it is not known where the house spider originates. They enter homes through exterior cracks and holes and can live inside wall voids. This pest selects web sites at random and when a web does not produce prey, it is abandoned.
House spiders are susceptible to moisture, which ultimately leads to a high mortality.
Their body is approximately three-eighths of an inch in length and is brown in color. Maybe the most infamous of all spiders, this creature earned its name from the popular belief that a female eats the male after mating, an act that rarely occurs. Males are half the size of females. The female's abdomen is black on the under side with a red hourglass shaped marking. Males do not have such markings.