Is anyone awake? Just seen a HUGE spider. Help!!!!!!

[mupup]

I am terribly arachnophobic.

A fucking gigantic spider has just ran across my room. I tried to get it but it ran under the sofa I have in my room. The sofa is about an inch off the ground.

What do I do??!?!!!! Is there some kind of spider repellent I can put around my bed?

I feel sick and dizzy. There is no way I will sleep one wink knowing it's there.

Ugh, I could cry!

This phobia has gotten worse and worse, it's so irrational but I can't move past it.

The whole "it's more scared of you thing" doesn't work with phobias. I know because I'm scared of flying and if I hear one more fucking time that it's the safest way to travel I might scream! sorry that's no help OP

Fucking hell - posting that on a thread full of people with arachnophobia wasn't nice.

@jaundicedoutlook 🫣 that is horrific. Is that a Huntsman? I'd have burned the place down 😂

Do not kill the poor thing, ffs! no wonder the planet is in the state it is in.
Catch it if you must and release it somewhere where there is shelter, under a shed or in a garage.

I get upset about the spider threads on here, you all just encourage each other and it’s brutal! If I was afraid of cats you wouldn’t all be piling on to encourage me to “squish” kittens!

OP did you survive the night?!

I didn’t get the chance for a full examination, but I think it was a joro spider. Whilst I’m not that keen, I’ve been more bothered by gejigeji this week, which I won’t post a picture of as some people seem to find even the pictures distressing…!

All the spider hate. 😭
Poor creature is just trying to live it's life and doesn't deserve to be squished or gassed because you are afraid.

Oh i really feel for you. I am 100% the same, totally freeze/panic and just have to make sure its gone gone. I cant go near them though. I had one move into my bathroom the other night. Couldnt shower for 2 days as it vanished but it had to still be in there because i had shut the door. Luckily it made another appearnce the night my neighbour was over. I live alone with DS(13) he managed to scoop it up and take it out. I think i need some kind of therapy as well. As i feel totally pathetic the way i am around them. Its been like this since i was a kid though. Can you get a friend to come or relative to help search for it and get it out? I dont know if spider catchers are any good... or a vacuum because i would then panic when i had to use the vacuum again 😂Really really really hope you are alright!

Did you survive the night? I fully get where you're coming from.

I'm not particularly arachnophobic but I AM petrified of moths and go into an absolute blind panic when I see one. All the "he's more scared of you than you are of him!" is absolutely stupid and unhelpful because I KNOW that, but my monkey brain is screaming "ENORMOUS THING THAT WILL KILL AND EAT YOU, FLEE, FLEE!"

No amount of telling me he won't hurt me will stop the panic reaction in the moment. My husband thinks it's hilarious because my default response is to launch at the moth whatever I happen to be holding at the time like an Olympic shot putter.

Hope you got some sleep in the end!

A true house spider won't survive outside. I only learnt that a short while ago.
My efforts of teaching myself to catch it under glass, slide the paper underneath, upend and throw outside has been to no avail.

I find it helpful to have actual kit in a specific place. So I have a couple of glasses of different diameters and an assortment of pieces of card of different thickness. So I k is exactly where to go when I spot a spider.
If it has made me particularly anxious then I see the extraction as a game of two halves - 1) contain the bastard under glass (retire to another room, have a small whisky and a large vape) then 2) card underneath and get it outside (have a small brandy and a large vape).
Yelling a few obscenities at it up the garden path usually helps too.
No amount of paying out lots of money to have a tarantula sit on my hand has ever cured me but I accept that squashing isn't right.

Indorex is your friend. I was told about it on here last year and haven’t seen a spider in my house since I started using it. I sprayed it around all doors, skirtings, windows, in cupboards etc. The drawback is you find a good few dead ones in the days after using it. It lasts 6 months apparently but I spray every 4 just to be sure, even last autumn I didn’t see any when we used to get huge ones.

Why did I feel the need to goggle that 😂

I am arachnophobic - those giant house spiders terrify me, but since moving to a different house a few years ago I don't think i have seen a single one - but I am playing host to several cellar spiders which strangely don't really bother me because they tend to hang quietly in the corner and mind their own business. They are, however, voracious hunters of other insects including house spiders! Not much help to the OP I know, but if you are terrified of big spiders but have a couple of cellar spiders in your house - leave the cellar spiders alone to do their thing!

Not if you open the door and chuck it out, the kind thing to do is rehouse them… or ignore them, they are harmless!

@SizzlingSamosa

Indeed... Have to fight back. They don't leave us alone. Was your bite ok? I know a few people ending up with massive swelling or on drips.

@jaundicedoutlook here are you please. Assume oz and that's a Huntsman?

I don't have anywhere to rehouse a spider (no shed or garage). Oh I do have one of those large plastic garden storage things.
I know they are harmless, I am still very scared of them and my response is very real and physical if I see one. I had to teach myself to catch them when I was a teenager because my Dad refused to. It took a long time, though it did become easier when I had my kids as I didn't want to pass the fear onto them.

I don't kill them because I think all its mates will come and mourn but until recently I have chucked them outside not realising they would die.

was it a venomous one? If so I agree with the bug spray approach, flush it out and then shoe it (I have a specific spider killing thing for this purpose). If not venomous, just leave it be and if you come across it, catch it and put it out.

@RoyalImpatience - in Japan currently. Spiders slightly less terrifying than in Oz, but still plenty of unpleasant critters about. Don’t think the one this morning was a huntsman, though they do hang out here.

Just about to go to bed, and it’s started pouring with rain, which usually doesn’t bode well for the bug quotient next morning…

Oh wow, jaundice apart tell spiders is it fun.

BTW was that spider in am normalise hotel film 😱

What happened OP? I hope you checked your shoes. A few years ago there was one in our bedroom and I was in the first weeks of pregnancy so anxiety was horrendous. One ran under chest of drawers and I went to sleep in DH's arms terrified. Anyway next day I put my Toms on (no socks) and felt a crunching. It was in my shoe 😬. It ran out and I hit it with the vaccum cleaner. I made myself hold a tarantula a couple years later and can now get them with a spider catcher

They probably are scared of us but they will charge at you in fight or flight