I don't panic at the sight of a spider or anything, but one of our sprinkler valve boxes has a black widow living in it, complete with some egg sacks. Normally it wouldn't bother me but it's built its web right between the valves I need to get at.
So debugging the sprinkler system currently is on hold...
Any good ideas on how to take care of it without burning down the house?
Added complication is that we have some indoor/outdoor cats so I have to be on the careful side with the chemical warfare.
My go to is always this
I know you said you don't want to burn down the house, but you wont. I mean, you can kill a spider, wipe out its web and egg sacs on a sheet of A4 paper before the sheet will turn brown let alone burn.
I wave a torch over my garage workbench every time I go in there. Spider legs bend backwards and foam at the joints the instant the blue flame hits them. Kinda gross actually, but really effective.
They make some pet friendly pesticides, just check your local Lowes or home depots bug spray isle. Don't work as well ime but you may have better results
Get a can of brake cleaner from the garage.
Works great on almost all little armoured, hairy beasties.
I usually apply direct pressure. Aka the squish method. Sometimes I will use a stick.
"Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
FSP_ZX2 wrote:
"Nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
I agree
Failing that, a blowtorch.
About any insecticide from wally world will take care of that. Or the nuke thing.
Actually, black widows aren't very poisonous and aren't aggressive at all (unless you're a male black widow attempting the nasty). They just get great PR that mostly derives from their name. If you must deprive her and her babies af their lives, use Keith's method of locally applied pressure - no need for anything more drastic.
I don't really care if most spiders live around my house, but black widows and brown recluses automatically get dispatched with whatever is closest and most effective. That and wasps or hornets.
How do you train the wasps to fight the spiders? This sounds entertaining.
With little tiny whips and chairs. 
Mud daubers don't need training, though. That's really creepy when you think about it; supposedly Dan O'Bannon got the idea for ALIEN from mud daubers etc.
This family of chemicals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethroid works great, pretty benign unless you're a fish. Sticks around too.
This would probably work well for you. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ortho-Home-Defense-MAX-Perimeter-and-Indoor-Insect-Killer-with-Wand-0196910/203052911#specifications
Pretty much any insecticide will do the job. And pretty much all now are synthetic pyrethroids.
