WINDHAM (AP) – A woman who found a black widow spider in a bunch of supermarket-bought grapes would like Hannaford Bros. Co. to pay for the fumigation of her house.
Brenna Reali of Windham bought the red grapes last week, and while rinsing them on Saturday she found the venomous spider.
“Another two seconds and it probably would have been on my hand,” she said.
Reali managed to get the spider into a glass jar. The following day she called the Hannaford store in Falmouth where she’d purchased the grapes. Reali brought the spider to the store, along with a bunch of grapes that appeared to be carrying a spider’s web.
Black widow spiders show up on grapes about three or four times a year, said Karen Epstein, a Hannaford spokeswoman. The grapes are typically shipped from California in the summer and Chile during the winter, she said.
“They typically treat grapes before they’re shipped, which theoretically is supposed to kill all the spiders,” she said.
The black widow’s venom is poisonous to people, but it’s rarely deadly.
Reali is concerned about possible offspring being in her home.
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