Ohfuckohfuckohfuuuuuuck

[SmileEachDay]

One of those massive, massive bastarding black house spiders has moved in to the top corner of my living room.

What the fuck do I do? I can't hoover it because it might...I can't even say it....but fall...you know? I can't just leave it because it gives me THE HORRORS.

😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩

Agree to get a cat but a proper cat not just a fluffy excuse for a cat who will gingerly bat the spider then watch as it runs under the sofa

My cat hasn't graduated to spiders yet. Mind shes still a baby. I spend hours amused watching her try to catch flies though. I doubt it would be as funny if it was a spider tbh...

Last spider that came anywhere near her she jumped in the air and did one of those air-twisty things that only cats do. It was as if she has seen a fucking cucumber...

I can't get worked up about spiders. I live in a rural location. Spiders are part of the family.

Even if you live in a city home you will rarely be more than 6 foot from a large spider at any given moment.
Spring is baby season for spiders.
If you look upturn your sofa there will be several.

I once lived in a 3rd floor flat in a converted house, the lower two flats were occupied by one family. The waste pipe in my bathroom had been moved but the old one not blocked up, so I used to get the these great big bastards from the dawn of time (or ninja mutants from the sewers) attacking me when I was in the bath.

One time this happened, I leapt out of the bath and gibbered for a bit. Useless cat was thrown at the spider just in case he wanted to earn his keep for once. No such luck. So then I went downstairs (having put clothes on, you'll be glad to know) to get the dad from downstairs. 'Ho ho, little lady, of course I'll sort out your spider problem' he says, mentally patting me on the head.

Then he gets into the bathroom. I shut the door behind him. He spots the spider and lets out what would, in someone less manly, be called a little scream. 'JESUS CHRIST THAT'S A BIG FUCKER!'. It took him 10 minutes to sort it out. He was a bit white, sweaty and shaky when he finally emerged victorious. I patted his arm a bit. And then blocked up the pipe with newspaper, which sorted out the bathtime invasions.

Now DH has instituted a zero tolerance policy, which seems to be working!

Thanks west that helped no end !

Caz I'm afraid David passed away this afternoon :(. I was going to put a fly in his web for the little chap too

Sorry flapjack, but such a first world problem.

I lived in rural SE for a time. The place was jumping with scorpions, spiders that actually can cause concern, cobras, venemous centipedes, and lots of other nasties.
I think at any count I have several lurking spiders in my house.

I find it all a trifle " girlie".

Unless you have a true phobia, then time to grow up, and hope you don't pass on your "eek a mouse" type of underskirt hoisting to your kids.

No cats here but I have terriers.
I get lots of the spindly spiders that seem to settle in the high ceiling corners - I leave those alone (someone once said the big fat horrible ones are less likely to pop up if the spindly ones are there).

If big horrible ones appear on the walls / ceiling, DH chucks the outside (alive) - with the condition that he flings them into next doors garden.
If on the floor, the dogs generally eat them before I even notice that they're there

The fear is awful isn't it? A fiend lives in Australia and sends me pics of them every so often 🙈 They're huge

Unless you have a true phobia, then time to grow up

What makes you think any of the posters here, including the OP, don't have a 'true' phobia?

I'm fine with snakes, worms, rodents, bats, bees etc., even tarantulas if I don't have to touch them. But house spiders - can't cope with them.

I have nc as this will out me as I have told the story 1000 times.

I am Australian. We have quite serious spiders, and I am petrified of them. The first time DH came to Oz to meet my family (we live in the UK and he is British) we stayed with my parents in the country. It poured down with rain one night and wehn we woke up in the morning there was a MASSIVE huntsman on the wall right next to me. I fraked out and raced out of the room screaming.

DH- who had never even seen a Huntsman before got up, picked up the spider in his bare hands and put it outside without harming it.

I just thought; 'Phew! Now I know why Britain had an Empire'.

We live near Southampton by the way- not sure we can get to your house today. ;)

BTW- I'm good with snakes. Not bothered. And fine with the scorpion I found in Ds's cot once.

Spiders.... nup. [shudder].

I've done the London Zoo course too, it was very helpful. I'm now able to catch even the big bastards in my special spider catchy device (the kind with bristles) and even more importantly I don't worry about spiders. Before whenever DH was away I would be constantly on edge looking out for them.

Not sure why some people are so unsympathetic to those with phobias, it's no fun having one.

I am very interested in the London zoo course- thanks to everyone for mentioning it.

Go for it Stairways, you won't regret it. So unhelpful when people post about more dangerous/scary/poisonous creatures/spiders/snakes. How does that help someone with a phobia?! Nothing to do with being 'girly'. It's irrational, that's the whole problem. So saying there are other things out there that could kill you etc means nothing, pointless to post.

How quickly can I do the course? Are there regional versions I wonder?

It's still there.

I wish I could be pep talked out of this...

I can trade snake/rodent/cockroach/worm wrangling skills for anyone who can get this fucker out of my house. Humanely, obvs. But mainly just OUT.

I like mice, rats and used to fish so maggots, flies and worms are no issue. I've even picked up snakes and lizards after checking they aren't poisonous, but put me in the same room as even a money spider that moves and my anxiety goes into overdrive.
I might save up and try that course, as my kids are fine with spiders at the moment and I'd hate to pass the fear onto them.

I am very proud that I have t passed this onto DC.
"Spiders are welcome/the goodies of the garden/amazing" is what DC think.

That's what i think too.

Now will someone GET RID OFIT?

OP, great sympathy for you, and thanks for nothing to all those posters who crowd on here to tell you to grow up. I am phobic too, and it has had a serious impact on my life. There are large tracts of the world I won't travel to (including Australia, where my db lives). I spend every autumn frozen with fear. I have - and this is really not great - stayed in poor relationships so that I could have someone to deal with spiders.

I'm not proud of any of this. I would love to be a better role model for my kids. I would love to be able to live independently. It does NOT help for people to say, "I find it all a bit girlie".

Now, a few years ago I did the Friendly Spider course and I thought it was amazingly good. But I was really unlucky - the highlight of the day is the hypnosis, where you all lie down in a darkened room. Just as the guy had got started, I felt a tickle on my arm - yes, a spider! Only a small one, but still I had to be carted out quickly (can you imagine if I had screamed, "Spider!" in a dark room full of 60 arachnophobes - people would have died in the rush). BUT I did still manage to hold both a tarantula and a house spider at the end of the day (the house spider was much worse - more scuttle).

What I didn't do - and it was my fault - was to follow their instruction to practise removing a few spiders within the month following the course. They don't aim to make you love spiders, just to make you calm enough to be able to remove them. So you have to prove to yourself you can do it by making yourself do it, or you lose the effect. I am better with spiders than I was before the course - less distressed and panicky - but not better enough yet.

However, this thread has made me decide that I truly don't want to live like this anymore, and I've just signed up to redo the Friendly Spider course. This time I'm going to do it in August, just before spider season, so that I can get practice straight after. So huge sympathies for you right now, but thanks because you've spurred me into action

But west i do have a genuine phobia!

Oh, and last time I did the Friendly Spider course, I befriended a woman who I saw weeping with fear outside London Zoo. By the end of the day, she was playing with the spiders, laughing and saying how cute they were! Not everybody had that amazing conversion, but of the 60 of us there, every single one handled a spider before they went home - and there was no compulsion to do so. That is incredible, when you think that they had all paid quite a whack to be there (current cost is £135) so must have been seriously not good with spiders.

Ketzele i might see you there!

It's interesting, isn't it, the complete lack of empathy shown by some to what is a genuine and fairly common phobia.

I'm not at all scared of snakes, but I wouldn't be insulting someone who was phobic. I don't know why that would be at all kind or helpful.

flapjackfairy, we should have a MN caucus!

SmileEachDay - absolutely. I have no problems with snakes, mice, dogs, heights etc - but somehow I find it in me to be compassionate to those who do. Feck, I even had a friend who was phobic about buttons - people laughed at her constantly, which I thought was hideously mean.

Yeah, I'm not worried about snakes either- and again in Oz the snakes tend to inspire some respect.

The first time I saw a slow worm in this country I was not sure if it was a snake or not. I was 38 weeks pregnant and picked it up to bring in to DH to ask him what sort of snake it was.

Or the very common phobia about things with holes in them (I can't recall what it is called). Seems baffling to me- but it's a recognised - and common! - phobia.