Holy Shit! Jumping Spider!

[TaleasoldasTimee]

So I was just about to hop in the shower when I notice a spider on the bathroom floor. As I moved, it fucking jumped! Ok maybe I frightened it. But no, the scary bastard doesn't scurry away but fucking jumps away like it hopping along somewhere! Big fucking jumps to!

I'm petrified! AIBU to just go to work stinking!? What if I'm attacked by the jumping spider?!?

Is it a biggy?

It's not big enough for me to scream and run away but also not small enough for me to brave an attack!

The other week, I walked into the bathroom, turned the light on...and saw... a category B house spider hanging from a thread approximately 6 inches from my face, just floating about in space, gently swinging.
Since then I cannot go anywhere in the house without checking for suspended spiders.
The world is now a more frightening place.
You have my sympathy OP. No one expects a spider to leap. It means definition of a safe from spider zone has to entirely re calculated.

Oh gosh I hate spiders and we get huge ones here, I usually try and squish them with a large book if I can

I feel your pain.
It's the speed factor that freaks me out. We get massive ones here that seem to raise their front legs as a challenge if you go near them. Fighty buggers.

I really don't like this new 'jumping' development of spider evolution...

Can you throw a towel over it and have the quickest cats-lick wash possible then go to work and hope it's gone by the time you get back?
(I'd be rubbish at that, need to know exactly where the scary thing has gone...)

I have to do a sort of shouty self-talk when trying to get them. Gets louder the nearer I get to the fast moving bastards.
You only get one chance when chucking missiles at them - if you miss it's too late...they know that you know that they're there and they leg it...

Ok, I think it’s a particular species - zebra jumping spider. Was going to do a link, but it’s just too spidery.
At least it’s not an evolutionary development in all spiders. (My nightmare is that they start to fly)

Epic fail!!! I tried to hit it with a slipper but lost my bottle half way through. Spider jumped, I screamed, threw the slipper, ran away. Now I don't know where it is!!

I just know he's plotting his revenge somewhere! He's going to hop onto my face tonight, I just know it

Please don’t kill it. I think they’re quite rare. You’re lucky to see it really..........

I much prefer spiders to yucky flies everywhere.
I also think some of you need to get a grip.

They're adorable!

Oh keep your grips to yourself. Some people are scared of spiders. It's not voluntary, it's not put on, it's not for attention, it makes me feel very stupid in front of people and it actively spoils my summers and autumns. I have tried all sorts of stuff to deal with it and I am much better than I was but they still make me sick when I see them on a level that I have no conscious control over. Spider phobic people are not doing it to annoy you.

Get your Vacuum cleaner at the ready OP!!

And no, I don't kill them. I put them in a glass and take them out, and then I can't settle or sleep for the rest of the night. I hope they're grateful.

My DH calls these little sods 'robot spiders'. We get them a lot for some reason and they're a pain to catch because they jerk about all over the place and jump!

They're usually pretty small though so a pint glass over the top and release is the way to go.

Hahaha, we have a lot of those over here. I just catch them and put them in the garden.

Oooh another spider thread (see what I did there?)
Any chance of a photo, OP?

As to the “get a grip” comment. Phobia is, I think, an “irrational fear”, so getting a grip is problematic. Besides, I am, actually, Very Brave. Despite feeling like throwing up at the sight of a large spider (or even the tops of tomatoes), I have never killed one. It once took me the best part of an hour to trap a Category A * specimen using the card and glass combo and then take it downstairs and release in the garden (by the neighbours fence). Because I had to do it one stair at a time, taking deep breaths and fighting the dizziness and vomit.

I've showered! No sign of the beast! Leaving for work in a min! Hope he stays away

Is it small and stripy? If so it's a Zebra Jumping Spider. They're harmless. The jumping is a defence mechanism to confuse predators, not an attack.

Oh god, this heatwave is not helping, is it? The warmer weather encourages the big fuckers to come out, I think. Because where I grew up, in South East Asia, the average size of a house spider is is not much smaller than your palm. I'm dead serious. They are frightening.

One lived in my bedroom for donkeys years. It made appearances now and then and once it was on my mosquito net! Outside, thankfully, but when I woke up, the fucker was outside, looking in. I feel slightly ill thinking about it.

A jumping spider is the reason for my extreme phobia of them. A number of years ago I was sitting in the living room and a biggish spider jumped into the middle of the room from the top of the curtains. I nearly peed my pants with shock. Before that they didn't bother me much.

The OP spider may well be a salticid, probably salticus scenicus.
But we need a picture!

......The lesser known alternative version to the hit song Alberquerque.

What have you been smoking?