She had been hanging upside down from the middle of a web stretched right across the top of a cardboard box that I was about to reach into. Here she has retreated to a corner of the box, but you can still see that lovely red hourglass on her abdomen.

I had lived in Southern California for 13 years and never saw a black widow. I was in my final week there, in the process of moving out, when I encountered this one. I had left this cardboard box, containing cleaning supplies (for a final cleaning once the house was empty) outside on the back porch.