“hairspray kills spiders”.
Well yes - NOW I know it after reading this article a year or so ago!:
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman laid waste to her family home by setting fire to it as she tried to kill spiders in a garage with a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter.
Police in the western town of Zuelpich said that when the aerosol failed to finish them off, the 34-year-old woman tried to burn them with the lighter. However, this set the area she had just sprayed on fire and the blaze spread to a hedge.
“It was a series of unfortunate events which led to the damage,” a police spokesman said on Thursday.
“She tried to put the fire out with a garden hose, but couldn’t. Instead her semi-detached house next to the hedge caught fire. It’s now uninhabitable.”
Fire-fighters managed to extinguish the blaze and save the neighbouring house, which sustained broken windows and some charring. The spokesman estimated the total cost of the damage at well over 100,000 euros (68,000 pounds). No one was hurt.
“The family have had to look for somewhere else to stay,” he said. “The spiders are gone though — that problem was solved.”
It's a wonder we kids didn't burn down several houses. Our favorite method of obtaining fish bait was to tie newspapers to a pole, set the paper alight, and poke the flame up under wasp nests built under the eaves. The flames killed (or singed the wings of) the adult wasps -- then we could knock the nest down safely and use the larvae inside it for bait.
My mother taught me that trick. I taught my son a safer way: a bread bag filled water with a capful of Mr. Clean in it makes a deadly "water balloon bomb" for wasps. It destroys the waxy coating on their bodies and (via their spiracles) literally drowns them -- almost instantly.
But, I must admit that water bombs aren't as dramatic as incendiaries... '-)