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?

You were very brave OP, much braver than I would have been, and I'm glad you got your egg chair back.

I'm amazed that so many people would just give up their chair to an invasive spider. I'm a vegetarian and I love encouraging wildlife to the garden. I would have sprayed it though. I don't feel bad about killing spiders inside the house, I prefer asking DP to move them but if he's not here and I'm not too terrified to approach them I have no qualms about hoovering them up or washing them down a plug hole.

It's confusing to me that most people are fine with eating meat, don't mind their outdoor cats killing rodents and birds, but somehow judge anyone killing spiders as evil. Do people also get this upset about killing wasps and ants?

you were contemplating jet washing the spiderlings when they have hatched - do you imagine they would survive that?

Just leave it a week or two and they will all have moved on. If you’re squeamish don’t look at the cluster once hatched.

We need spiders so please don’t wash them away 😢

Sorry OP, just re read and noted that you're still nervous about your egg chair. I would be too. Can't you replace the cushions and if it's still looking unoccupied in a couple of months then assume it's safe? I would definitely jet wash if you've got one.

We don't need false widows, they are an invasive species and outcompete our native fauna.

Op has said the spider is massive and false widows aren't massive, are they? Not the ones I've seen.

I both hate killing anything and am absolutely terrified of spiders. I would leave it a few weeks until they spiders have moved on, then jet wash, then probably still never been able to sit in it again.

I always re-locate spiders, and we find a lot of false widows in our house! I’m worried now after all the reports on this thread of being bitten. None of us have been bitten so far

Glad mummy spider and babies are safe in the wood pile...I now know the answer to i saw something in the wood shed. Gcse English literature from memory.... Keep us updated on the baby spider situation

Phone the police. That's a standard MN answer.

Perhaps, but hey can spell.

How long until the eggs hatch?

I think you’ll find this covered in chapter 10 of Charlotte’s Web. Eggs hatch on the closing day of the summer fête

What????

Pretty disgusted by people saying ‘kill them’. What’s wrong with you?
kill something because you don’t like them?
what if I said I don’t like bees/butterflies/ants/cats so I kill them?
Have a word with yourselves.

You’ve been very very brave and kind. And entertaining. Enjoy your chair!

It's karma that when commenting on someone's spelling, that people often make their own mistakes.

I had a giant cardinal spider when I was in the garden at the weekend. Pretty markings. We agreed she should run off into a dark corner away from where I was repotting plants.

I would kill ants if they were in my house. Would you just let them nest in your kitchen? I don't kill ants, spiders, butterflies etc if they're outside, but I would if it was an invasive species on my garden furniture. Invasive species are bad for our native wildlife. It's like saying let the Japanese knotweed grow because all plants are good.

You're right! In my defence, it's only a missing letter, due to my failing ipad, rather than spelling incorrectly.

This

I’d have set fire to it by now.

Yeah I agree with this. I’m not vegan or veggie so use other animals for food/clothing etc. I’d have got my husband or son to have killed that bloody bastard in a nanosecond

Kill it. We are inundated with false windows here to the point we can’t open the bedroom windows without mesh across them. The garage they just live everywhere. No storing yoir helmet or babies pram there or anything you want to use. We fog bomb the garage and can’t do anything about the hose Eve ones for risking poisoning the kids….
kill it dead

Or “report it”

I was bitten 3 years go in bed and ended up in hospital. Within a couple of hours of being bitten my hand and arm had swollen up, I attended A&E and was given antibiotics, within 2 days a large blackish blister appeared where the bite was and a thick red line started tracking up my arm so back to A&E it was. To cut a long story short I was admitted, put on IV antibiotics and got progressively worse. On day 5 I was taken to theatre to remove the area of black skin where the bite had been, I’ve still got the blooming scar. Needless to say no spider is allowed to live in or near our house now, I’m not going through that again, it took weeks for me to recover. We’d noticed a couple near the bedroom window a few weeks before I got bitten and decided to leave them alone.

Quite touched by your post. (You seem very kind) . FWIW I’d probably be similarly defensive of the mum spider and the hatching of her alien babies too.
That said, in that film, we’d be the ones that get webbed up and eaten first.

It's confusing to me that most people are fine with eating meat, don't mind their outdoor cats killing rodents and birds, but somehow judge anyone killing spiders as evil. Do people also get this upset about killing wasps and ants?

Absolutely this @SquirrelMadness . There was something off about some of the replies I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
My ex is vegan and not sure how he’d have reacted but I’d have understood if he had his reservations doing it himself, but even then he wouldn’t have called me evil for spraying it down. No more evil for chopping on meat anyway lol