Attack of the killer spiders! Well.... one, anyway

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Every summer here in Hampshire… (crashing chords of spooky music)…

We get these incredibly massive spiders invading our homes. Sauntering around, demanding coffee in the mornings, complaining if the spare bedroom’s not made up.

OK, I’m exaggerating a bit, but no joke, these are HUGE spiders, and I’m totally terrified of them, even if (as hubby keeps pointing out) there are no poisonous spiders in the UK. So what? Big friggin’ deal. I’m not afraid that I’m going to die from a spidey-bite, I’m afraid that I’ll look down one day, find myself covered in GINORMOUS SPIDERS and promptly scream myself to death.

So. With the recent coming of warm weather, I’ve been wondering when one of these beasties would make its first appearance, and tonight while doing dishes, I found out.

Try this on for the scream-factor – I glanced down and, true to my worst nightmare, there was a massive spider SITTING ON MY SHOULDER.

Did a war dance around the kitchen, screeching and swatting at myself. Eventually said spider fell off (and these spiders are big enough that they make a plopping sound when they hit the ground) and sort of limped away. I felt bad then; obviously I had hurt him. Put a glass over him, scooped it up with an envelope and deposited him out on the woodpile. Needless to say, my husband wasn’t home to deal with this. Or to give me hugs and kisses afterwards. (Plaintive sniffle.)

Jiminy, what a scare. How he got there in the first place, I don’t even want to speculate on. Crawling slowly up me…

::shudder::

Stompy

2

AFTER I got done shuddering, I thought maybe I should offer you a tiny consolation: Maybe the spider fell from the ceiling onto you, rather than crawling … oh yuk. Anyhow, at least you were clothed; I found a spider on my arm IN THE SHOWER. I have a cat that likes to sit in the bathroom and watch me shower, and he looked at me like I had taken leave of all my senses when I started threshing around trying to get the spider OFF ME. Yuk. Gotta go shudder some more.

3

Just a quick note, ALL spiders are poisonous! Some more so than others. some do nothing but cause a small mosquito-type bite, but they’re still poisonous…

Hope that makes you feel better… :wink:

4

So here’s what you do –

Buy a large can of industrial strength Raid, or whatever the UK equivalent virulent insecticide is. Fill the bathtub with soapy water. Pour in the insecticide. A lot of it. More. Nope, still more. Okay.

Test its killing power by trying it out on any insects or other vermin you can locate. Beetles, earthworms, honeybees, etc. Hamsters will do if you can’t find anything else. Make sure they die on contact. If not, pour in more insecticide.

Once the mixture is the proper strength, take the following simple steps.

  1. Bathe in it.
  2. Repeat as necessary.

There you have it! No more spiders on your shoulder!!

I sympathize. I’m not particularly frightened of bugs but I have to admit I don’t like them crawling on me.

Worst experience: Sleeping in a strange house in New Zealand. This place hasn’t been well cared for – there is vegetation all around the house, never mowed, never weeded. It’s summertime. Like I said, I’m asleep, but suddenly I’m half-wakened by a loud plopping noise. Curious, I sit up and turn on the light. It was a spider. Big enough to make a noise loud enough to wake me when he fell (dove?) from the ceiling and hit my pillow. I’m wide awake now!

I’m proud to say I did not panic. I just moved very rapidly out of the room into the relative safety of the hall. If I’d had more time I would have opened the door first.

This was 25 years ago and I still shudder.

5

Pierre!

You’ve found Pierre!

He lives!

6

Daown Heah in da SOUTH we have mega bugs. We also have major spiderage. From the teeny tiny ones which keep sentry duty in the dark corners of the ceiling, harmless and content with mosquitoes to the saucer sized ones which stomp around ripping up palmettos in search of palmetto bugs (roaches).

My brother is a weight lifter and a mechanic. He’s a big burly guy, expert camper, diver, boater and so on. He once put a transmission in a truck of mine by getting under it when it stuck, heaving it up and slamming it back and forth until it slid onto the spline (my truck was never quite the same afterwards).

Place him in the same room with a small spider and if he could get away with it, he’d shoot it from a safe distance. Let him spot a spider and it’s rampage time with a newspaper club until the poor thing is beaten into a pulp. Make the spider one of our local large variety, and he’d abandon his truck if it’s in there, while on the road, while driving, without stopping. Sometimes his wife has had to go swat the doomed beast and not with the 2x4 he offers but a rolled up magazine.

Some people just don’t like spiders.

I had a friend who didn’t seem to mind them, or was too lazy to do anything about it. He lived in a ‘house’ that if he paid $45 a month in rent for it, he paid too much. (Under the linoleum floor in the bathroom was the dirt in the foundation. The crapper sat right on the sewer pipe and wobbled.) He had spiders in this rat-trap that had bodies about the size of my fist! They ‘plopped’ when they hit the floor and made noise when they scurried over the couch he slept on. I saw one and decided that a 2x4 would not be big enough to swat it with and figured a shotgun might do the job.

He slept in there alone, in the dark, in the clutter, the dirt, the sink full of festering dishes, the roaches … and those huge spiders. He slept on the couch. The spiders liked the couch. I loaned him an electric heater when winter hit, but I suspect that he kept it on when it got cold just to keep the spiders warm.

They probably made him.

7

“Ginormous”?

You brits and your wierd measures… “stone”, “tuppance”, “fortnight”, “Guinea”, “Weetabix”, etc.

Anyway, you think YOU got creepy spiders!? Last year I had to stare down a spider that could take on all your anemic Hampshire spiders with one arm, two legs, four eyes and a spinnerette tied behind it’s back! And even though it was only one spider, I bet it rivaled all of yours in sheer biomass alone!

I get this hysterical call from the lady in the apartment below mine asking me to wrangle a spider out of her bathtub. This is a pretty common occurance, and I’m thinking it’s another hapless daddy longlegs stuck in the bottom of the tub, right? Wrong! I pull back the shower curtain and I see this HORRIBLE glossy black and orange and yellow monstrosity glaring at me with all eight eyes! The venom dripping from it’s giant mandibles was eating through the enamel of the tub! It’s torso was this pathetic little twisted twig attatched to a plump lower body the size of a walnut. The span of it’s outstretched legs rivaled the width of my hand. Ugh!

So, after a change of pants I regrouped, and through the aid of gloves, a pair of salad tongs and a can of compressed air I managed to subdue the thing into a peanut butter jar. It was later released in a local park where I suspect it survives by draining the juices out of the homeless.

8

I too, hate spiders. Does anyone remember when I ranted about a snake that jumped up and scared the shit out me last summer? (it was on the SDMB). People actually SCOLDED me for being mean to it and wishing terrible things upon it.

Now, for spiders:
For the middle size variety (which thankfully is all I think we have in NY. I would promptly shit twice then die if a spider ever “plopped” down next to me. Myocardial Infarction city).
For the middle sizers, a bottle of straight clorox in a streamed spray bottle is the best. You can get it at a distance (like the tub) and with some persistance, they normally scream loudly, curl up and die. It’s a beautiful, wonderful thing.

For the big uns, I suspect I would unleash my Rottie on him. He is the slayer of evil yard snakes, and I have no doubt he would love to munch on a big, nasty looking spider. He lives for killing things that scare me :slight_smile:

Zette

9

Put another tally mark in the “big guy who won’t get within 5 feet of a spider” column. Ugh, hate 'em. They’re the most fascinating creatures in nature, but that don’t mean I want to be in the same room with 'em.

I can think of lots of spider-related stories; once, I went over to a friend’s house for a poker game, and there was a spider building a web right next to her front door. It was interesting, I guess, to see it glide down almost to the ground on a web strand, then climb back up and reel in the silk for some profane arachnid purpose. Still, it took around 15 minutes before I worked up the nerve to dash past it to the door.

Lately there have been lots of tiny black spiders around my house, along with a few larger specimens, one of which decided to dash up my leg last Thursday as I sat here on the couch. The next day, I set off 4, count ‘em, 4 fumigators in my apartment. That kinda crap don’t fly in my house. No spider sightings since. Arrogant bastards, thinkin’ they own the place…

One last note: while all spiders are indeed poisonous to some degree, the overwhelming majority can’t harm a human due to either the relative weakness of their venom or the fact that their itty-bitty fangs can’t penetrate thick human skin. Others, you don’t wanna mess with (and here I’m thinking of the Sydney funnel web).

10

StompyGodzilla, I’m now twitching and twirling in my chair because I’m sure there’s a spider creeping up my back.

Forget this common sense and rationality idiocy; spiders are nightmares oozing along on 8 legs.

Remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy comes out of the cave, his back covered in spiders? I was shuddering in real revulsion when my then-husband, his arm across my shoulders, flexed and “skittered” his fingers on my arm. Of course I handled it with poise: shrieked and threw a tub of popcorn–buttered, of course–into the air, all over 2 rows of people.

No wonder I divorced the creep.

Please feel free to adopt my tactics toward spiders that invade the house: grab a long-handled broom and whale away on it with cartoon violence until it is most sincerely dead. Sweep out the carcass.

Still shuddering,
Veb

11

Yup me too. I keep checking under my desk to make sure my (bare) feet are still all alone down there.

I’m a long-time arachnophobe. As such, may I please present my method for killing the bastards of God’s Green Earth:

Buy large can of hairspray and dependable lighter, keep with you at all times.

When you see the bugger, hold the lighter in front of the spray nozzle of the hairspray can, point toward the monster, and press nozzle and light lighter simultaneously, causing a nice lethal flaming death to fly towards your mortal enemy.

As with Zette’s solution, the best part is hearing them scream. Plus you don’t have to get too close!!

I’ve seen spiders that will take a 30-second dose of Raid and keep on barreling towards me. Makes my stomach turn just to think of it …

12

Minnesota, to the best of my knowledge, has no poisonous spiders (I’ve never heard of anyone getting bit by one, anyhow). Except for a few rattlesnakes that wander into the southwestern corner, no poisonous snakes, either. And while I know roaches inhabit the Cities, I was raised on a farm out in the sticks and cockroaches were (are) non-existent. The only bugs that bugged me til the summer of 1989 were mosquitoes.

Then I join the Navy. Talk about culture shock.

Snakes in the Everglades (I was stationed in Homestead) can KILL you!!! Roaches in Dade County are THREE INCHES LONG and FLY!!! If you stretch them out, grasshoppes in said county are 6 INCHES LONG AND WILL BITE IF YOU PICK THEM UP!!!

Transferred to Hawaii a few years later. Acquired a kitten. One dark and stormy night (no, really, it was) I was reading a horror novel (damn the luck) when I noticed the little kitten jumping up the wall at something. I assumed it was a gecko and ignored it. I looked up a few minutes later and saw this HUGE spider. It looked like a cross between a daddy long legs and a tarantula - little tiny body with thick hairy legs that were probably 4 inches from toe to toe.

Omigod, I think - it’s going to kill the kitty!!! I race for the utility room and pick up a spray bottle of what I thought was the most poisonous item in there - a bottle of ant killer. Return to living room and spray half the bottle at the spider. The spider falls and I continue spraying behind the speaker. I assume the spider is going through death throes and return to the couch to resume reading.

A few minutes later I see a movement on the carpet. I glance up from the book and see…

…the spider crawling TOWARDS ME!!! QUICKLY!!!

I picked up the dictionary laying nearby and not only DROPPED the book on the spider but stomped on it and twisted it around.

Turns out the stupid thing was a cane spider, which is about as dangerous as the barn spiders I was used to, but jesushfuckingchrist was I petrified for a while.

A few weeks later I encountered my first Hawaiian centipede, but that’s another story.

13

I was shuddering the whole time I read this thread.YUCK EWWW BLECH. Am I the only one who is just as afraid of dead spiders as live ones? I won’t kill them with a book or a shoe or any thing I might want to keep. There would be spider guts on it then, and those are as creepy as live spiders. Thank god I have a son to kill and dispose of the creepy crawlers. He started killing them for me at about 8 years of age. I’m such a bad mother I have woken him up to kill the things if the hubby isn’t home (I have to hide when they go in for the kill in case they decide to run my way)

Once when we lived in my old house, I went to check on my then two year old son. I glanced at his ceiling and there must have been hundreds of tiny white spiderers all over his ceiling…I almost had a heart attack right then. Needless to say the husband was at work.With a little quick thinking and a really, really long vacuum hose I was able to erradicate the room of any thing that moved.Of course I left the vaccum running for a half hour just so they couldn’t crawl back out, After unplugging it I threw it on the patio and had my hubby change the bag in the morning…and clean and disinfect it. We moved shortly after.

Did I mention I hate spiders?

14

Clumsy spiders on my ceiling…?

::whimper::

Thanks, I know you meant well, but all I could think was, what if it had fallen in my HAIR? Now I have to add the ceiling to all the places I routinely do spidey-checks. I’ll have a crick in my neck all summer. :slight_smile:

But anyway, thanks for the moral support, gang. It took me hours to get to sleep last night – every time I almost dropped off, I’d start twitching and have to turn the light on.

And to those of you with your ‘my spider’s bigger than your spider’ stories, :wink: lemme point out that I’m a transplanted American and from the Souf myself. I know all about the US varieties. Yes, the Hampshire ones are still MASSIVE in comparison. The leg span of the really big ones is easily larger than your palm; the body is about the width of, say, two little fingers held together, though not quite so long. It’s early in the season, so the one who cuddled up for a visit last night was probably ‘only’ about two inches long altogether – but that’s two inches longer than any spider I want near me.

Actually, I don’t mind small spiders, though I still don’t like them crawling on me. Small spider = spider that won’t make plopping noise if it hits the ground. I don’t like killing any spider. (And snakes are OK in my book; snakes are cool.)

The argument I was about to put forward for not killing them is “they eat other insects,” though when I think about it, we don’t actually have any other insects. Just the spiders. These spiders don’t even bother making webs; they’re so big and butch that they just go out, kill something, and then curl up to sleep somewhere. So I was thinking about it last night – given that we have no other (visible) insects, what do the spiders eat? Answer, I bet – each other. Which would explain why, by the end of the summer, they’re so incredibly huge; they’re the last survivors.

So perhaps I can cross my fingers and toes and hope that although survival of the fittest is going on full-blast in the house through, say, June and July … by August perhaps I’ll be down to just one or two huge spiders, and if I keep real quiet and respectful around them, maybe they won’t kill me.

Must venture downstairs now and see if my spider from last night managed to work the locks on the door and get back in.

Stompy

15

In the movie Arachnophobia they wanted to use the creepiest spiders they could find to represent those nasty genetic mutations.

They travelled to New Zealand to get them - there they are known as Avondale Spiders.

But in fact they are really called Huntsman spiders - and they are Australian natives…

Needless to say… it’s one of the worst things about living in Aussie.

16

Guano, having spent part of last autumn (your spring) in Queensland I have to say Australia holds both the “Most Creepy Creatures” and “Most Plentiful Creepy Creatues” awards in my book…

Toads…

My God! The Toads!!!

Aaaargh!

17

ChiefScott, I just don’t know what to say. Your remembrance of Pierre will not be forgotten.

And, Veb,

How could you!!! :wink: