Help - can a spider get out of a high-sided bath?

[DeeTreeDear]

Last night, I got up to use the loo and saw an ENORMOUS spider in the bath. The type that have a huge body and thick legs that wave at you.

I’m not a fan but thought I’d deal with the horror in the morning and went back to bed.

This morning, it’s not there! I thought it would reappear in the day but it’s now the evening and it has not reappeared. Can spiders escape a high-sided bath?? There’s no plug chain to climb up. Can they go back down the plug hole? I’ve never known that.

Where can it be???

I doubt it came up the plughole and it wouldn't go down there. It would have to hold its breath. Sometimes they can spin a sort of rope ladder and climb up it. Or jump 😉I usually make them a toilet paper track draped over the side to help.

They don't come up the plug hole in the first place so I doubt he went down it. He must have got out somehow or else there is something else in your house big enough to eat it!

Sorry OP, he’s scuttled off to do badness. He won’t have gone down the plughole. He’s probably making babies under your bed.

Why would it not be able to get out of the bath It would just climb out it doesn't make sense

Yes sorry

😆😆

They can climb walls, a high sided bath is no problem.

Of course they can, they climb walls!

Why would you tell her it’s out FGS. No OP it can’t get out …. The sides would have been too slippy. In all likelihood it’s gone back down the plug hole and moved next door.

The one you saw was the scout. When the rest arrived they formed a ladder up the side of the bath & all moved in.

I know they climb walls, but walls have a grippy texture - when you watch a spider in the bath, it slips and slides back into the bath. Doesn’t it??

I’m not a youth. I thought I understood spider ways. The idea they can escape baths is horrifying.

If they don’t come up the plug hole, why are they always in the bath???

This is like when Daleks turned out to be able to go upstairs. I feel for you, OP.

Poor thing. I always put some loo paper from the top of the bath into the bottom so it has a surface it can grip to to climb out. I don’t understand the hatred for them.

I bet it took all his strength

Long shot, but do you have a cat that might have eaten it?

They come into bathrooms because they are looking for water and can sense or smell it in the bathroom. Then they fall into the bath and struggle to get out. That is why we might see them in the bath quite often.

They can struggle to get out but as you have discovered they can get out.

I have one of these gizmos that is like a plastic pyramid on the end of a stick with a sliding door at the base and use this to capture and release. It has got me out of quite few difficult situations I can tell you.

Anyone else imagining a Rocky style montage of the spider escaping up the bath walls in the dead of night?

Op, I think they end up in the bath after falling from the ceiling. I’ve had some spiders trapped til I remove them and others that mysteriously disappear.

It is probably hiding in the plug hole above the water line. If you tip a little bit of water down it will come out.
Get a glass and a piece of card or hang some toilet paper or a bit of string over the edge and leave it to escape.

Please don’t drown it or kill it!

The Cotton Eyed Joe Spider: where did you come from, where did you go.

You are very kind to spiders. I vacuum them. Is that monstrous? It’s the only way I can get near them. The pyramid thingys require closer proximity to the spider than I can manage.

I drape the bath mat over the side of the bath so they can climb out, then leave the room. It nearly always works.

I have a very high sided old-fashioned bath and I frequently get really enormous spiders stuck in it.

I drape a towel over the side of the bath and go away for a few hours. When I come back the spider has either used the towel to climb out, or (more usually) it is sitting in the folds of the towel. I have mastered the art of the extremely fast towel flick, where I snatch up the towel and fling it out of the back door (fortunately I have a downstairs bathroom but it also works with windows), and by the time I have got enough courage to pick the towel up and give it a good shake, the spider has made its way elsewhere.

While I don't like spiders, I don't wish them any harm.

Yes, that is monstrous.

Realistically, what exactly is a UK house spider going to do to you, other than run away? Just leave them be!

They don’t run away though - they run over me at night or on the sofa in the evening if not dispatched promptly.

Do you have a cat? If so they have probably eaten it.

It has either escaped or is just inside plug hole. Have you run water?