Possible brown recluse?

First of all, I was running late for work today when I saw the spider in question. I did not have time to obtain a picture though I can try to find the little guy in the trash when I get home from work.

I have read a lot about brown recluse spiders since I came into work today. I am in central Virginia which is apparently well outside the normal range of these spiders and I am sure the people posting that information know much more about these spiders than I do. I am not trying to say I know for sure what type of spider I saw however through all of my reading I have not been able to either find a picture or a description of a spider (that is not a brown recluse) that is at all close to what I saw.

I have referenced this article in trying to identify my spider: http://firstaid.about.com/od/Spider-Bites/ss/How-To-Tell-Its-Not-a-Brown-Recluse.htm

As I stated before, I am well outside the reported range of these guys. However, the spider I saw had a leg structure that was either loxosceles or close to it. In case I am using loxosceles incorrectly, the spider I saw had legs that curved inwards (as opposed to other spiders I've seen that have legs that stick straight out from its body). There did not appear to be any hairs or spots on the legs and there were definitely no spots on the body. The body and the legs all seemed to be about the same height (as opposed to an orb spider where the abdomen is much higher than the legs) giving the spider a fairly flat looking appearance when viewed from above. I did not see an obvious fiddle pattern on the body either. Some recluse pictures I've seen are obvious, others are much more subtle when it comes to the fiddles.

Unfortunately I had never heard about looking at the spider's eyes when determining whether or not it's a recluse. As such, I have no idea how many eyes it had.

The body (including legs as it was walking) appeared to be about or ever so slightly smaller than a US quarter.

The spider, body and legs, all appeared to be the same color. The color was somewhere between very light brown, almost turning to green. I saw it out in the open during the daytime which I recognize is pretty uncommon behavior for a recluse but it appeared to be stumbling (if a spider can stumble...it moved a couple steps at a time and looked to be having trouble maintaining a straight line as it walked) and I have just had both bed bug and roach chemicals laid down in my apartment. I don't know if that could have altered its normal behavior.

Again I am not running around screaming that I definitely have recluses in my apartment but I would sure feel a lot better if I could find any information on spiders that look similar to what I just described that are not actually brown recluses. The only other spider I have found that might have been what I saw was the southern house spider though from what I've read they are bigger than the spider I saw and I may be too far north for them. I apologize for the long winded post and would appreciate any input or help you can provide!

Possibly a crab spider - see if the general shape and leg posture of this specimen (http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/image/140638881) appears anything like what you saw. In any case, yours does not sound like anything at all dangerous...

I don't think that was it. The leg structure was similar but the body/legs were hairless and without spots. Can crab spiders also be solid in color and hairless? The more I think about it, the more I think I ran across a male southern house spider. Do you have any photos of those? I can definitely say if it was a southern house spider it was not a female. I remembered since posting this topic dusting away some cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling of my apartment. They looked somewhat similar to photos of southern house spider webs I've found. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Crab spiders can come in a wide variety of color patterns and degrees of hairiness/hairlessness; the image I linked to was intended only as an example of their usual shape (somewhat flattened) and leg posture, not as a potential match for your specimen. The following link is for a male southern house spider - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tehsma/3629973195/