To burn my house down TRiGGER WARNING spiders

@WiddlinDiddlin They are long legged with a one section round body and slow. They seem to be hanging onto the apple clusters and in yhe leaves at the base of the tall anemones - where there is lots of leaf and dead cane protection. I left the leaves on the ground with some structure so they could stay there. I left quite a lot of the apples too. The blackbirds and seagulls love them. DH runs a couple of apples over in the morning and the blackies then eat them. The seagulls steal whole ones 😁

Some of our spiders can go a couple of years or so.

We had a False Widow (Steatoda Nobilis) here who lived in the fanlight glass above the door to our loo, so sitting on the loo you could see her web and what she was up to..

We watched her for just over two and a half years, from juvenile, through several moultings (imagine trying to take off a set of super tight leggings, doing the 'standing on the trousers' dance... but with 8 legs and no hands!)... through major hunting missions (all the way to the light fitting to catch a wasp, drag it through the holes in the lampshade and winch it to her web).

We saw her flirting with boys and co-habiting whilst they freeloaded (male Steatoda are proper cock-lodgers if they can get away with it) off her, eating the prey her web caught. Til she got fed up and ate them...

Sadly she never laid an egg sac and eventually died of old age. Her name was Borisette and I genuinely was sad, we'd got to watch most of her life. We gave her water when one summer was too hot (bits of bog roll soaked in water and plopped on the window frame), I chased a few dastardly Pholcus away, brought her fruit flies when she was elderly. Genuinely miss that spider, we haven't had another set up home there since and whilst others have come and gone around the house, have not had one stick around THAT long!

@LuluBlakey1 - Pholcus are typically indoor jobs, but you may be seeing a Tetragnatha sp. - long thin body, long thin spindley legs. They often sit with four legs pushed out front and four pushed straight backwards along the abdomen and some are a lovely shade of green with a sort of carpety pattern. They like trees and washing lines and wooden fence tops.

That said, pholcus are hard as nails and an outdoor colony in a sheltered spot is not impossible!

I've made up my own with peppermint oil, washing up liquid and water. You do need to be careful as it is poisonous to cats - not sure about a ready bought spray

It's a horrible phobia to have though, as I say to people; I'm not scared of mice or rats, or snakes. But there isn't a "mice" season, and you don't have to worry every autumn you're going to come home and find a ruddy great snake in the bath! No, just us arachnophobes!

No one condescendingly tells them "oh, it's only a snake", or rolls their eyes and says "that rat is more scared of you, just get it on a bit of card" 😤

I took the apples off our small tree yesterday afternoon and found loads of what looked like cellar spiders in it. Then I cleared a large patch of Japanese anemones and found lots in there too at the bases where I was cutting back.

We have lots of beautiful garden spiders- they knit beautiful webs - fascinating to watch them.

My favourite was a mouse spider that lived in an airbrick and ran out grabbing other spiders and dragging them back to eat. One was a spider twice its size.

We have a spider in the kitchen that lives on a window lock and has laid eggs for two years in a corner if the ceiling, guards them carefully and they never come to anything- I leave them all winter to see. She has disappeared now so I am thinking she may have died. How long can spiders live?

They are fascinating.

We're in October, I thought spider season was over 😫 (and here I was congratulating myself on only finding one in the bath this year). I shall have to get the peppermint spray out.

Nothing beats (and I hope it never does!) a couple of years ago, when what can only be described as Aragog, fell off the bathroom shelf and into the bath just as I was about to step in to take a shower. DH even baulked at that one.

We do let the cellar spiders stay though, they all have the same name (Steve). Steve gets the big ones, and generally keeps to the ceiling, so we like Steve.

@toomuchcardboard Pholcus phalangiodes commonly called the cellar spider though they've never been particularly fussed about where they live as long as its sheltered. They will eat even the big hairy giant house spiders. They are voracious and ambitious.

Ooh also, to avoid seeing spiders of the travelling sex starved nature - dangle a towel or bit of loo roll over bath sides. They slide in sometimes looking for Mrs Oh Go On Then If You must or sometimes distracted by the scent of water.. then can't get out (super shiny surfaces can sometimes thwart them).. Providing a wee ladder to escape means you're much less likely to be confronted by one when you hop in for a shower, and means the spider is much less likely to be confronted by a screamy naked human which I am sure they appreciate.

Spiders you're most likely to see in your house in the UK...

Pholcus phalangiodes - spindley creepy sods.

House spiders (Eratigena sp. there are several and tbh without a microscope and looking at their rude bits you can't tell and it doesn't matter as they all act the same anyway).

Amaurobius sp. Several of these two, small, stocky, dark. Harmless.

Steatoda sp. 'False Widows' - just an orb weaver, they've got a bad rap but its all rubbish. Very adept at catching wasps, they know how to avoid the sting, wait the wasp out whilst it knackers itself, they understand that both the bum and the front are dangerous ( a wasp could bite any of our native spiders in half in one bite!).

Zygiella x-notata, the missing sector orb weaver, so called as it misses a section out of its web for some unknown reason. However most will prefer the edges of windows if, like me, you are slovenly and don't wipe up webs. They are GREAT at catching annoying houseflies and craneflies that dink against windows. They make little sleeping bags against the window seal, laying out trip-wires, and then dash out when their Ring Doorbell system goes off, to see whats been delivered!

Drassodes sp. 'Stone spiders' (dunno why) small, mid brownish, have a rather frilly bum, large spinnerets for a small spider. Harmless as a fruit fly, unless you're a fruit fly.

If you're very lucky (or if phobic, unlucky) you may see a Mouse Spider, Scotophaeus blackwalli - not huge but pretty chonky and dark with a very furry satiny grey 'mouse' coloured bum. They do make me jump as they trigger the 'omg a tarantula' bit of the human brain before the 'don't be stupid its not even 50p sized' bit can kick in.

And in some places outside, as well as the very common Garden Spider (you know her, bum that would put J-Lo to shame, shades of dark brown to pale cream, lurking at face height in a huge web in your porch, setting off your Ring Doorbell) - you may have the Tube Web Spider, Segestria sp.

She's big, she's black, she's every halloween horror story spider... and she just wants to stay in her hideyhole and eat snacks that come trundling by. She's got metallic green chelicerae (the muscles you can see that drive her fangs, that you can't see) and out of her hidey hole she may panic and she looks a bit weird and 'THAT CAN'T BE NATIVE' ish... Don't poke her with a finger, she probably will bite you, but she'd really rather save that for dinner rather than defence.

We have a LOT of other spiders in the UK, many bigger or weirder looking, more colourful or possessing bigger fangs than this lot. Some are incredibly clever, with not just great eye sight and the ability to recognise faces (jumping spiders), but the ability to plan complicated routes (a cognitive ability that many dogs, horses, er, and even humans, struggle with!)...

None of them are medically significant - the risks with spider bites (which are very rare and cannot be identified as such unless you see the spider do it!) are actually infection from tiny puncture wounds that people don't notice much, or don't take seriously, and so don;t keep clean. Or very rare allergic reactions. You're at more risk from a mosquito or a wasp.

I find them endlessly fascinating but I can confess, if one is unexpectedly on me or runs up my duvet, it still makes me jump and I still have to work pretty hard at staying calm and removing them sensibly!

This post is sad. Hoover them, squash them, indorex them😭 they’re just trying to live their lives & don’t deserve to just be killed. Have a heart & put a glass over them, put paper under & put them outside. They’re petrified of us.

People treat spiders horribly. If you can't tolerate them, put a glass over them, slide a card underneath the glass and re-home them outside or in a garage or shed. They are good creatures just living their little lives.

That is really interesting @WiddlinDiddlin I used to be phobic but am much better now.

I still hate the “sprint and stop” - it always looks so fierce - but it’s helpful to know they’re just stopping for a rest rather than sizing up how much of you they can eat!

I absolutely loved reading this! Fascinating!!

I'm right there with you surrounded by forest. The amount of spiders in my property daily was similar to you. What finally drove me to seek preventative measures was seeing two huge seemingly indestructible spiders (apologies as don't know the species), one in the kitchen sink and the other in a pile of ironing in the space of two days. Indorex, another spider spray, plug in repellent and peppermint spray have been deployed all over.

Wow, I am seriously arachnophobic and I really enjoyed This @WiddlinDiddlin

What an insightful and beautifully written piece...!

@WiddlinDiddlin oooh you've just satisfied my curiosity- I'm not a spider fan, but I'm OK at taking them out provided they're not too big to fit in a glass 😂

I had a huge one the other day, scuttled over to the hearth and I was chatting to it- like 'you stay over there buddy and we can keep being friends' sort of thing, so I got up to have a look and it RAN AT ME! But I can 100% see how it would have been running for the shadows! (Not even necessarily mine, but the coffee table/chairs etc).

Just to make you feel better, my house is riddled with them. I had a cellar spider creep out from under the toilet seat the other night, a false widow dangle down in front of my face whilst reading in bed and a huge brown hairy one dash across the lounge floor earlier. I see at least 4 per day. I try to remove their webs with a feather duster. It's because I live in the countryside and have some windows cracked open. I also get plagued with crane flies during September. Gross.

Here it is

Had this lovely one in the bathroom this morning if anyone can identify? Love them because they keep pests down (Wouldn't be so laissez-faire if I lived in Australia or similar 😯) Dammit, wrong key...

Sorry peeps, spiders couldn't give a shit about conkers.

Most critters don't like things like lavender, peppermint oil, neem, tea tree etc - they're toxic to arthropods (actually they're toxic to most beings in sufficient quantity or inappropriate application), however mating season tends to over ride any of the deterrents.

You're seeing more spiders because its autumn and many spiders are now breeding, males out looking for love, running themselves into the ground to find Mrs Right Now I (Probably) Won't Eat You (literally they won't eat or drink in many cases and will cark it of exhaustion before they find their one true love).

I think your spider is Amaurobius ferox, male. Not a baby certainly, he has adult pedipalps (the boxing glove like jobbies in front of his face) but the photo isn't really good enough to tell more than 'its an adult male spider'.)

Spiderlings of most species, at the dispersal stage are absolutely tiny, head of a pin job, you'll barely notice them.

Hoover often. Don't have piles of stuff that the females of many species like to hide under, then you won't attract males (well, you wll unless you regularly lift the floorboards and skirting boards and hoover under those, a step most folk think is too far)...

Pesticides will kill them of course, leaving your home a veritable playground for all sorts of species that will trash your stuff and bite you when it wears off... but if you're scared of spiders that probably over-rides that issue.

If you can stand to, and have them, leave 'cellar spiders' (Pholcus phalangiodes if you want to google it to be sure, often called daddy long legs though this is just an example of how common names lead to misunderstandings as that name is used for opilones and a fly species too) alone - they will eat anything that wanders their way, including spiders vastly bigger than them (they really really like eating other spiders. And if their own numbers get too big they will snack on each other too).

My 'interesting' spider collection here has risen enormously since I started evicting the cellar spiders.

For those really terrified of spiders - move around and stomp.

A lot of our spiders (really, all of them barring the jumping spiders which you've probably never even noticed as ours are small and fairly dull) have really shitty eyesight, seeing just light/dark and movement.

They may appear to run AT you because you represent a big fixed object, your shadow offers what they believe is safety, so they run towards you to hide, not realising you actually represent danger.

Our big house spiders do the 'sprint and stop' thing because they have little stamina and are basically knackered and need to recharge, they're not plotting their next move as such or sizing you up as a potential victim. In a few weeks you may see more of this behaviour as they get dehydrated and fatigued in their almost always fatal hunt for a lady.

It is very very difficult for a spider to bite you - not because their fangs can't penetrate skin, most of the big ones can.

Its because their fangs lie flat against their underside, to use them they need to get above a small target, lift and then stab. Doing so to a large target like a human is like you trying to bite a chunk out of a double decker bus... extremely difficult, the angles are all wrong.

Humans therefore are typically only bitten when the spider is squashed against a person - so shake out duvets and clothing and shoes, and wear gloves if you're going rummaging in leaf litter.

Here endeth the spider lesson. Hang tight as they will all mostly bugger off over the next four weeks and most of the ones you see are destined to die of starvation, and those who survive and get to meet a lady... are getting all the joy of being an Amazon delivery bloke as spider 'sex' is really just them handing over a package of goo. Zero fun, and then death. Be smug you are not a spider?

Indorex. Don't bother with the old wives tales. Go straight for the big guns.

Aww baby GHS! Not my favourite spider but, the best thing to get rid of spiders are cellar spiders. The big, spindly long legged ones. Keep those if you ever see them because they eat all others. Including the Giant House Spiders. Great if you have the eyesight if a mole, like me, I never see them unless I'm dusting the corners etc and they never bother me. For now, glass and cardboard and put them somewhere sheltered outside.

Amazon spider spray around the doors and suck them up with the vacuum on sight! It’s the weather driving them in! We’ve seen more this last week which is annoying as I always thought September was the worst time! X

Get one of those stick vacuum cleaner things, suck them up and empty the vacuum at the bottom of the garden...

Which one did you buy please???

I sympathise.
I used Indorex (flea spray) around the house following another thread on here for spider repellant and it's significantly reduced the amount of spiders and webs around the house, garden office and car.