I think I may have a spider invasion at my house. I’ve been noticing spider everywhere and I mean everywhere. They’re in the backyard, frontyard, garage. They are humongously large too…about the size of my fist. I came home today and saw a web in the front yard with 20! random flies and bugs, and then in the backyard I saw the same thing. I think these spiders are potentially fatal which gives me an irrational fear to walk into the house. I think one might jump on me before I can get in my door. I live with my parents too who I know will do absolutely nothing until I get bit and die. I told them we need a spider exterminator because I’ve been finding these things in the house too, but only its a brownish spider with white ring-like stripes on it’s legs. The ones outside are giant black ball body with the usual 8 legs that look sharp and ppointy. I’ve been so scared that I can’t sleep at night. I have a fear they will come through my window and bite me and I’ll die. I have an air conditioner in one window and there are little crevices it can crawl through. I’m thinking of spider proofing my room and spraying the outside windows so they cant get in and putting a spider trap? on the floor. Four years ago I once found a spider so big that I almost had a heart attack. It was the size of 2 hands spread out and it was hanging from my garage making a giant web. I only had ant sparay so I used the whole can on that sucker and then got a big shoe and just knocked it out, but it ran somewhere. Tell me your spider stories and what to do about my problem. Is there a spider spray?
The spiders maintaining web-duty in your yard are harmless. They are likely members of the orb-weaver family. Not fun to walk into, but harmless. I keep a broom with me, so that when they are extra web frenzied, I can sweep them out of my way.
The only spiders that are “fist” or “hand”-sized are members of the tarantula family, and then there are the largest members, the bird-eating spider, but these live only in the rain forest. Tarantulas are maybe hand-sized, but tend to the ground, as opposed to being web-based.
The toxic spiders, barring allergies: Black Widows, Funnel-web Spiders, Brown Recluse and the like. For sheer variety of hostile arachnids and arthropods, see Australia.
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One strange thing i noticed…
spiders seem to be able to “sense” (spidey-sense, perhaps 
) people who like them and tend to gravitate to them
i had a pet Chilean Rosehair tarantula for a while (Elvira) and while i had her, i noticed a lot of spiders around my apartment (no. it wasn’t dirty, it was just spider-freindly), i’ve been able to capture some of the smaller spiders by hand and let them go outside, jumping spiders don’t flee from me, somehow they can sense that i like them
i mean, i’ve been known to feed the common garden spiders in our backyard, whenever a family member encounters a spider when i’m around, i’m invariably the one they have capture it and release it outside
in my 35 years on this planet, i’ve only been bitten by one spider (i was around 12 years old), sadly i have yet to develop spidey-sense, organic webshooters, or the ability to climb walls, and the reason i got bitten was my fault, i was walking thru the feild and walked thru a female garden spider’s web, she thought i was a predator and bit me in self defense, i didn’t squash her, just shook her off my arm, and walked back to the house, keeping an eye out for hidden garden spider webs
the experience of garden spider envenomation was rather interesting, i wouldn’t do it again, but it gave me a healthy respect for spiders
after the initial bite (one bite, but a long one, about 2-3 seconds), there was an intense burning pain in my arm, that lasted for about 30 seconds and faded, after the initial bite, there was no pain, but my entire arm felt like it was “vibrating”, i could raise my arm and see my hand shudder, it stayed like that for at least a half hour to 45 minutes then the effects faded, a rather unique experience, but one i was not likely to repeat
the next day, i went out to the same area i was bitten, found what i thought was the same spider, then tossed a couple grasshoppers into her new web as a peace offering, she munched on them happily, and ever since then, spiders have seemed, if not glad to be around me, at least not afraid of me, heck, i was watching a jumping spider toddle around on my computer keyboard here at work yesterday, i just wish i had a bug to feed it, as i really like jumpers, one of the few spiders with good vision and more intelligence than the average spider
for those of you that kill spiders without a thought, put yourself in their mindset for a minute, you have a soft body, and only a set of fangs and venom to protect yourself from predators, that venom is also how you eat, turning bugs into “bug juice”, you’re essentially blind (orbweavers and other web-bound spiders) and can only “see” light and dark (the shadow of a predator coming to eat your soft, delicious body), and you sense the world around you thru hairs on your body and the threads of your web, sure puts you at a disadvantage, doesn’t it?..
okay, enough rambling for now, off to watch 8-Legged Freaks and root for the spiders
The local newspapers insist on reminding me that September is hobo spider mating season. Thanks, you bastards.
My spider story? Ever heard of a huntsman spider? In Central Florida, we used to call them housekeeping spiders, for some reason. They can be as big as a man’s hand, and they aren’t a member of the tarantula family. You can hear the damned things run on the walls, I shit you not.
When I was a teenage girl, I got up one morning at the butt-crack of dawn to shower for school. My eyes being almost glued shut with sleep, I really just made my way to the shower by memory, turning on the light, taking off my clothes, turning on the water, and standing under the spray while it hit my face for a moment to help me open my eyes. Ready now for the soap, I turned to my left to take it from the recessed soap dish in the tiled shower wall, and found my hand heading straight for…
(wait for it)
…a ginormous huntsman/housekeeping spider.
My bedroom was, oh, about 15 feet from the hall bathroom. I swear to Og that my feet hit the floor exactly twice before I was back in my bed and under the covers, naked & wet, shaking & whimpering. My parents thought I’d encountered bloody Norman Bates in there.
I have a theory… spiders who have tired of their little spidery lives will decide to commit suicide using me and my shower as the weapon. In Casa DeVena, spiders may happily live behind doors and bookcases and some far, hard-to-reach upper corners and they will never be bothered. Even the cats leave them alone. But woe to the spider found in the shower. Yet every few months, I’ll find one lurking around the shampoo and will have DeHusband help it shuffle off this mortal coil. I really wish they’d stay away.
It IS hobo spider mating season! What a joy. Those bastards are everywhere where I live. Luckily the females do not move around too much so you can kill the hell out of them…you did know spiders are filled with hell, right?
Filled with it? Why, they’re from there. That’s why I insist on sending their asses straight back, if they come in my house.
It has to be a radioactive spider, you dope!
Spiders are both biomechanically and ecologically fascinating and are great natural pest reducers. It’s too bad many of you are so creeped out by arachnids, they’re really quite interesting.
Stranger
Me name Elvira, me am MacTech’s Tarantula, why you not like me?, what me ever do to you? you all mean, me go pout now…
me told this was web, me not see bugs, where are bugs in web, me hungry…
oh great, now Elvira’s loose on the keyboard again, i keep telling her it’s not that kind of “web” but she never listens…
oh stop sobbing, 'Vira, they didn’t mean to be mean to you, they just never met you and they tend to be afraid of our eight-legged freinds, maybe if you tell them yourself that you wouldn’t hurt them…
okay, this am Elvira, me not mean, me not bite you unless you am hurting me, then me have no choice, if you feed me cricket, me be freinds with you, MacTech told me people geneally good, please make him right, me just want to eat nasty bugs you not like anyway, me harmless…
Yes, they’re very useful and keep pests away, but I just wish they’d do it over THERE.
Honestly, I’m terrified of the little beasties, but I don’t go out of my way to kill them, they can live their useful little lives happily.
OUTSIDE.
(And if inside, I’ll make sure they can get their little hats and coats before they leave. But they are going OUTSIDE.)
Lately I’ve noticed a lot of large spiders building webs in the yard, yesterday as I went out the back door my head snagged the edge of a web with a nickel sized spider in the center of it. It’s still there but now I remember to duck going out the back door. After doing some research it turns out she’s a Cross Orbweaver. Pretty cool.
I took a picture of a black spider by a tree and a brown spider that was out of focus.
Here’s the piccs and hopefully someone can identify them and tell me if they are potentially fatal if they bite me.
Brown spider with black rings on it’s legs
The black spider was very high up by the tree so I couldn’t get a close shot even with the zoom and the brown spider kept moving in a circle making a web so every shot of it was blurry. These are the best shots I could find. Sorry!
These appear to be intercourse orb weavers (a.k.a: Common Fuckin’ Spiders).
Nasssssty orb weavers will sit in the middle of their webs and shake, giving them the appearance of a blurry spider two or three times their size. Supposed to fool predators or simply freak them out. This is actually a form of behavioral mimicry based on a different sort of spider entirely: the phase spider. The phase spider manipulates ambient light in such a way as to make itself appear up to three body widths in any direction from its actual location. It does this so rapidly that it’s difficult to tell exactly where it is, and it’s thus difficult to eat/escape from.