pholcidae/cellar spiders - care advice (picture warning)

[MadameButterface]

this sounds nuts, but if you are not a fan of the big hairy twats currently running around like maniacs giving everyone heart failure then I STRONGLY advise you to make friends with these babes, the spindly leggy bois who just hang around upside down in corners minding their own business. you may not think they look up to the job, but they eat the fat hairy fuckers. since I learned this, I have stopped escorting them off the premises and can report a downturn in heart stopping OH FUCKING JESUS FUCK style encounters.

anyway. so in the course of making friends with my enemy's enemy, I have found that the gentle, nice pholcidae spider is an attentive mother, staying with her babies until they have their first moult. I have one on my attic stairs who has 12 hatchlings with her. last time this happened (front room, bookcase) the mother was stuck there over a week with her babies and I started to get worried about her eating and drinking and so on. so, does anyone have any advice on how I can support her post partum (or whatever you call it for spiders). or should I just leave them all be? I want to encourage them, they're my house spider death squad. TIA

This is a heartwarming thread

I must say, I did wonder what on earth they ate, because we have never really seen any evidence of them eating or hunting. So now I know and it's definitely good news.

@Ormally

This is the best thing I have ever read. Don’t kill any, but if you see any dead flies near Christmas it might be better to put them in the stocking than the bin?

They are so tiny and they don't do much in the way of burning energy so maybe they can live on a hairy boi for months? Like a snake does

UPDATE

as i know yr all agog

She is still in situ, hasn’t moved, nor have the baby babes. Wibu to put a banana on the stairs and hope it attracts some fruit flies to sustain her?

So much crane fly haterz :( they are bippety boppety muppets i love them :(

Sometimes I think I'm the only person on Mumsnet that isn't afraid of spiders! 😂

Yes to the leggy babes! I’ve got a few hanging out at mine at the minute - the baby shouts at them and laughs when they wave their legs.

I’ve also got a plague of the big fuckers - may need to orchestrate a meeting of arachnid minds....

We have the long leggedy spiders dotted around the house, along with various offspring. I don't mind at all. They sit there minding their own business, not like the big ones that like to jump out and scare you. Or just appear suddenly above your head when you wake up. I have seen them eat them though, I usually get one of my kids to do the cup and card and out the door trick (though I will do it myself if I really have to)

I also have a few false widows on the kitchen windowsill. They are fine too, sit there all day, catch flies, which is good, and keep themselves to themselves. One of them is quite huge, I think they've eaten all the flies. Who ate all the flies, who ate all the flies?

Two things - one, my cat eats spidery Bois and two - is that username a RPDR reference?

If you have a syringe, put a little tiny drop of gin on her web.

She’ll appreciate it more than a fruit fly if she’s got that many kids!

I found two hairy legs in the sink yesterday. Just legs. I appreciate my cat's table manners

Leggy gals in love

yas queen @sneakyGremlins it is indeed

@BifsWif some pomegranate and rose gin liqueur accidentally fell into my basket at lidl today so maybe it’s leggy babe’s lucky night

I DID NOT KNOW THIS. How did i not know this?!! I can stop looking for a boyfriend now. Thank you 💜

Now, see, I really do not like the leggy bois, coming over here from the continent and eating all our native spiders, hanging out all louche and gangly in the corners with their French accents, smoking Gauloises (they do, I tell you. I've wiped up the ash.) If I see them they get hoovered or they get pointed out to the Jack Russell.

I much prefer the hairy Cockney bois clumping across the floor in their Doc Martens giving me attitude. Reliable, they are. You can set your watch by them.

fucknuckle

Ahh, we need some of those leggy gals here, woke up on Thursday morning, went into the bathroom and one of the big brown dusty/hairy looking bastards was perched on the scales. Bet it weighed about 7 stone.

Can I borrow your spider or adopt a spider long ?

There is a big hairy fucker in the bath along with my leg shavings . I sent DS in for the. Wash basket and shut the door

I love cellar spiders. (I thought they were called harvest spiders though...).

All spiders are not equal. The only spiders I don't like are the 70mph large black ones which you see in sheds etc. I don't tend to get them in my house. I always wondered whether it was because I gave slugs. (I know, slugs are vile, but far preferable to large 70mph spiders imo.)

Can it really be true that the lack of large black variety is down to the wispy hanging upside down kind??

I had a mother 'wispy hanging upside down' spider recently hatch about 50 baby spiders, so should be well protected!

*have slugs

anythingbutmagnolia I don’t wish to tempt fate, but I haven’t had a single hairy fucker this year and only remember two last year. This coincides with several leggy babes moving in and taking up residence in every corner of every room in my house.

Coincidence? I think not.

SOME PIG

We had a scrap in the living room between a mr skinny legs and a big black hairy one. It was quite terrifying. Eventually Big boy retreated to the skirting board and skinny legs went back behind the sofa.

Who’d like to post some spare bois to me? Daughter came charging down the stairs like a woman possessed, screeching something about a huge spider. I dispatched the husband thinking she was over reacting. I was wrong, it was a huge mother fucker, HUGE. She’s apparently been hoovering up the leggy lovelies so we need some new blood here 😱
She’s on the top floor by the way in the attic room and still the big boy bastards decided it was worth the climb!