Arachnophobia

My mum uses indorex for fleas & it definitely works for spiders too. She does all crevices, corners & edges of rooms, door & window frames - then she goes out for the day to let the air clear (it stinks & isn't great for you) I wish I could do it too but I'm only marginally less terrified of dead spiders than I am of live ones.

Thanks for replying! Ardap, I’ve never heard of it but just googled it and looks like it’s for fleas. Thanks so much, I’ll give it a go. I dread to think how much I’ve spent in spray 😬 x

Indorex is good but I highly recommend Ardap. We had an absolute nightmare in our old flat, huge ones ran across me sat on the sofa, one ran up my neck and I freaked out so bad I ripped my necklace in half trying to get it off (a sentimental present from DH 😔).

My aunt told me about Ardap, I sprayed every window, skirting boards and outside door with it. Didn't see another spider. Until we moved out and must have been at least 6, huge, dead ones under furniture.

I spray every 10 weeks in our new place.

Thanks again - isn’t it funny about new builds, I was pinning my hopes on one for my next move thinking it would be spider free! X

I couldn’t tell you exactly how long it lasts, but apart from tiny ones in the corners of ceilings (where I don’t spray) we generally only see half a dozen or so a year. I spray annually as soon as the weather warms up to avoid flea hatching issues, and our old Victorian house has substantially less than the new build we lived in previously that didn’t have a flea problem. We had big spiders weekly there, which was not nice for DP.

The brick shed is a different matter. It’s spider heaven out there 😂 and I often have to sweep cobwebs away to get in. I have to go in there to get anything out as DP can’t, but it’s a compromise for the spiders.

Thank you! So do they come back after a few weeks or is it generally substantially less? Thanks so much - really helpful x

Hi! I spray round all the skirting boards, and across all the carpets and floorboards. I think if you sprayed round the doorframes and window frames you’d probably stop them coming in too, but we don’t see spiders for several weeks after our annual indorex treatment.

Hi. I know this is an old thread and don’t ask me how I got here 🤦🏼‍♀️ but I sound similar to your husband and have ordered Indorex. Can I ask where you sprayed it please to get such good results? Thanks

@notafraidofthebigbadwolf you are very welcome, I’m personally happy to live and let live with them (and relocate them to our brick shed) but my partner is so phobic indorex makes a huge difference to his quality of life.

@Idrankyourbananamilk I've come back to this old thread to say THANK YOU for telling us about Indorex.
I guess we're well and truly at the end of spider season now, and I wanted to let you know that I have had one wolf spider (only) and 3 or 4 spindly spiders all season. I did my normal spider killer spray from a 5 litre bottle all round the outside of the house and around the doors etc back in late Aug, but I'm not sure that that made the difference as I didn't go back round every time it rained. And I know that when I've sprayed it internally I've soon had fresh spindly spiders walking over the area that was sprayed. But after reading your advice, I googled Indorex, which is a flea spray. I ordered 4 cans so the postman must think we've got a real problem with fleas. 😂I sprayed it all around the rooms, one at a time, over the course of a couple of days. I didn't know if it would work without actual fleas in the house (maybe spiders eat infected fleas, I was thinking?) but no, I saw one wolf spider that same week, then no further ones at all, neither dead nor alive. It has been an incredibly different autumn in this house and I am truly, truly grateful. The Indorex instructions say that a spray around should protect from fleas for a full year, so I think have enough flea spray to perhaps keep us spider-free for a decade now!!
I love Mumsnet.

I've just put the bin out ready for the bin men and when I was heading back to my back door, there was a bloody massive one on the wall besides it.
Then the hairy bastard walked over my thankfully closed door like it owned it!
I've just thrown clothes pegs at it to get it to move so I could open the door to get back in.
One of them was a direct hit which made the fucker dance away.
Gives pegging a whole new meaning.

Yes I have, as someone who couldn’t be in a room with a tiny spider high up on the ceiling for 40 years I can now actually get close enough to a huntsman (big fuckers) to put something over it and get it out of my house. Do I like them, no, but when we moved to Australia I did diy aversion therapy as otherwise life would be pretty miserable (and even though huntsmen look like cartoon spiders they are harmless and kill the baddies). I still get my house sprayed annually so never get anything indoors but I would kill anything I can’t positively identify as we live in funnelweb territory and I don’t want to get close enough to make sure it’s not just a black house spider. I didn’t have the luxury of gradual exposure, sometimes I was just faced with them, but if you can bear it I would give it a go.

Can't RTFT for fear of thinking about spiders when I'm already having insomnia. But best thing ever is a spider catcher. I still won't use one if I can avoid it but other family members who also don't like spiders can. Its basically a long stick with fibre optic strands that open and close so you scoop the spider up from a distance then open a door and release. Despite my dislike I also hate killing them.

I know you you all mean well (well some of you), but the phobia is irrational therefore rational advice is just stupid and very often repeated over and over - like placing a glass - why would you do that for something you know isn't going to hurt you? If you had no crippling fear , then you would just ignore it - correct? So the advice is from people who might not be too keen on them but don't have a phobia because that couldn't possibly be me - because I have fallen apart at the mere sight of it 😳.

Wish I could suggest something for you, OP. My fear of spiders (I live in Australia) diminished on its own in the last decade or so, which won't be any comfort, I realise, not least since I'm 60, and it was fear, not a legit phobia such as you described. Good luck, I hope you find some help.

Agree with it NOT working. As well as the spider infestetation my newly purchased house had conkers everywhere. Under the beds, behind the radiators, in every drawer, in wardrobes... But the 200 or more spider colony webbing the place up happily!

I'm in an older house next to fields and have only seen 1 big one in years, and never had one on my bed! I wonder what determines the population

Untrue. Bought my house with a massive infestation of both - it was absolutely awful to deal with.
And just watched this evening a massive house spider saunter right past between two of the spindly ones.
Indorex type spray comes out for the big feckers.

op i'm absolutely petrified of spiders too. they reduce me to a wreck.
I live in a new estate and in the last 2 weeks have had loads inside, really big ones too. In the last week alone i've had 2 huge fuckers run across my bed, while I was in it! I honestly can't cope this time of year, Ive bought Spidex and sprayed my whole room and kept the door closed for half a day. it stinks though

House spiders are ALL called Simon, according to the experts at London zoo 😄

I love spiders so never kill them. But yes to having a house full of spindly cellar spiders, I very rarely get house spiders. They somehow keep them in check even though the cellars only hang out in corners.

How on earth is suggesting treatments trolling, or a lack of empathy? Logic suggests all of us suggesting that have been through it and therefore empathise entirely 🙄

Another phobic checking in. Right now, funnily enough, sitting on my sofa with a herniated disc KNOWING I will hurt myself jumping if the monster I saw on the curtains two nights ago reappears. I hate it, it legit makes me angry how scared I am. Alive ones, dead ones, shed skins, photos - anything. It is ridiculous.

Possibly the worse thing about it is having 'spider sense', you know full well there is a spider on show in a room without even directly seeing it. I can spot small ones dangling from the ceiling. It's like part of your brain is constantly alert for the fuckers.

If it makes you feel any better - I once had to ring my brother-in-law to rescue me from a spider I had 'hidden' from by crouching ON the kitchen table. But that meant I couldn't let BIL in. He had to climb through the living room window. He's 6ft 3.

Or the time DH came home to find me crouching on the worktop like a middle-aged pixie throwing cold chips towards a spider on the skirting board in another room to encourage my dogs to get it. Didn't work. Arsehole took a photo of me before dealing with the spider 😭.

OR ringing my mum, heavily pregnant, absolutely hysterical leading her to thinking something dire had happened...dad drove across town to rescue me from that one

Well, this thread has taught me something new, that the spindly spiders in the corners eat the enormous ones. That’s something to tell my 2 very arachnophobic DDs (14 and 11)!

I’m not at all arachnophobic myself, but I have a different phobia myself; I’m terrified of wasps and have made an idiot of myself in the past when we’ve had a couple make an appearance during a family picnic. (I’m much better at hiding my phobia now!) So I don’t mock arachnophobes.

Can confirm that sausage dogs also oblige with regards to spider eating.

However, they are far less agile than cats and also lazy bastards, so are therefore only good for eating spiders that drop into their open (snoring) mouths, and require no effort on their part.