WWYD: Giant armoured mum spider (assumed) with eggs has taken over my egg chair

[Flupitude]

For various reasons I didn't get a chance to use my super duper expensive double egg chair last year. On Saturday DH hosed it down and pulled it out into the middle of the garden, jet washed the cushion, left it out to dry.

DS had a quick lie in it just now and came in casually mentioning that DH had missed a spider. A shiny spider.

I've gone out to check and the spider looks like something out of Aliens. It's huge. It does indeed have a super shiny exterior, the longest legs, it has spun a protective layer over itself and it has positioned itself over a giant sphere, which I can only assume to be its eggs.

DH wants to jet wash it off and while I agree on some level, on another level it just feels quite wrong. It's mumming.

But I've waited two years to sit on my egg chair. I've rustled up my book and everything. What do I do?

What would you do?

I'm currently sitting in a camping chair next to my egg chair. DH and DS laughing at me. How long until the eggs hatch? Shall I just wait for them to hatch? We can jet wash them then no?

The spider will learn to write and make the pig famous!

To talk to the spider.
Charlottes Web.

Just leave her to it. The babies don't hang around for long, they get blown away in the wind. Max 2-3 days for them all to leave after hatching. You'll have your chair back soon enough. Do put the chair back where is was before to keep it at optimum egg hatching temperature (as opposed to egg frying).

False windows aren't actually that likely to bite, and females are less likely to bite than males. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-dangerous-are-false-widow-spiders.html

Of course. Thank you. Have never read it. Robustly warned off it as a child for being too traumatic. The warning has stayed with me through adulthood.

You should read it! There is a sad part but it's nothing traumatic and it's a lovely read that only takes a couple of hours.

I read it in the car and sobbed so hard, my mum found me a clean pair of socks to scrub my face with 🥲

You have two choices OP:

1. Nuke it from orbit
2. Move house.

If you want something to eat the spider, then you need.. another spider, one of those smallish spindly ones no one minds. They will eat other spiders much bigger than them.

Just come across this…critterkill.co.uk/product/critterkill-spider-freeze-instant-kill-spray.html#packsize=152

Cellar spiders?
I LOVE those! We had one living in our shower room for yonks. They were so curious and friendly. Everyone said i was nuts but that spider came closer to me when I talked to her!

My main takeaway on this thread is to reconsider the planned purchase of an egg chair. Do they act as spider magnets? I feel its too high a risk.

Hello False widows need to be destroyed, my uncle had a terrible bite from one - they found about 30 in their house. Got bitten on his face, his cheek, massive issues - scarring. You don’t want them in your house. They had to check their bed every night and a couple of weeks later found another one.

please get rid.

Commenting because I need to see this story through! Please post picture of babies once hatched! And proud mum of course!

Live and let live ..fairly sure mosquitos bites would be much worse we need our spiders

They're really not

Yes,but you really wouldn't want a false widow spider having free rein in your house. I know a couple of people who've been bitten by them. One of them ended up going to A and E because it became infected.

You wouldn't believe it that I was just starting to read this post (it's still really warm and I can't sleep, plus mozzies keep trying to get.me!) and a sodding small spider right at this very moment decided to descend from my bedroom ceiling and dangle itself right infront of my face and my phone screen 😭. Cue much franting bedding-shaking and arm flapping to make sure I've gotten it off my bed! 😫

I know false widows aren't really very dangerous and most of the scare stories are due to infected bites ... but I'm not sure the UK will thank you for unleashing hundreds more, which will be hundreds of thousands more by the time they've hatched their first broods.

Get a cruel person to kill it, pretend you don't know where she went.

That’s disgusting and scary. I had no idea there were so many people bitten by spiders, I’ve always thought the large ones were a bit scary but never realised they actually posed a health/bite risk. I would get rid of them asap.

I am going to start hoovering my house every day and doing the corners of ceiling etc more regularly!

Absolutely bonkers that she is still “not sure” what to do after confirming it’s a false widow. And unless you are in a detached house, others need to live next door to people like this 🙄

Good morning everyone, updating this thread to let you know that last night the whole family pulled together to evict the spider. We dropped mum and eggs (intact) into the huge logpile that we have at the bottom of the garden (yes to PP we are in a detached house with a big garden and no other houses or gardens in the vicinity). The webbing that she had put around herself and the eggs was incredibly strong. My only consolation is that when she first built this installation it was obviously very dark (the cover was on) so I can only hope that part of her has welcomed the move back into a dark area, away from the sun...

Of course it is a risk that some will attempt the long journey up to the house but my hope is that at least some of them will provide a food source for the hedgehogs, toads, squirrels and birds that we have living in the logpile and the tree that sits next to it.

As for the egg chair, I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I trust it anymore... Which is a shame because I've waited so long to use it... DH has offered to break out the pressure washer for the hinges, which are also harbouring suspicious webbing placements. I'm not looking any more closely at those!

So how did you evict her?

I would find some way of transporting mother and eggs elsewhere - or get someone else to do it. I would not want to kill the little family.

No pictures please. Thank you.

DH and DS unhooked the chair and rolled it over the logpile while everyone else stood back and directed!!! Then with a combination of two thin sticks I loosened the webbing until mum dropped into the logs, then dislodged the eggs and they rolled into the space after her. We were all ready to drop everything and run if faced with an unscheduled hatching event but it was uneventful.

To be fair, I'm only calm and rational about this because it's outside the house. If it were inside this would be an entirely different type of thread... (much shorter).