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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Spider in the airing cupboard disagreement

107 replies

WTF475878237NC · 30/10/2021 13:24

I am scared of spiders. Both parents are as well as siblings.

Spider in the airing cupboard the other day when I came to get bedding out. Sprayed with well known chemical spray and shut the door. Realise afterwards I should not have done this as the chemicals will be all over our bedding and towels. Decide to re-wash the towels and spare bedding (this is three loads of laundry). I get through one load. Then today my partner is going to make the spare bed up and goes to the airing cupboard and I explain what happened and I haven't finished washing it all. He is angry and swears and exclaims we live in the effing countryside and I need to stop being so ridiculous and how effing annoying this is and I should not have used the spray and should have just ignored the spider.

Another load is in the wash but the atmosphere is horrible now.

YABU get over your spider phobia or don't bother with the bedding

YANBU you can't help the phobia and need to wash the bedding

OP posts:
Tomnooktoldmeto · 30/10/2021 15:31

You poor thing, I have a DS with ASD and anxiety who has arachnophobia and he would have behaved just like you, in the past we’ve found him scanning the walls at night with a torch after encountering a single spider

Last year l bought him a spider vacuum and a can of spider repellent from Amazon and he’s much less anxious, the repellent has lavender in it so perhaps if you put some in your cupboard it might keep the spiders away

Bettybantz · 30/10/2021 15:31

I’d have shut the door and told DH there was a spider in there for him to take outside

SeaHollyDaiz · 30/10/2021 15:39

Poor spider Shock

Mistressofnone · 30/10/2021 15:42

We live in the countryside and had a big spider problem especially from August to October. We bought some plugs that emit a sound that only spiders hear.. tells them to move into the house next door instead.

Really made a difference actually! The only ones that don't budge are the ones that live in each top corner of the shower cubicle. They look like Daddy Long Legs with no wings.

DriftingBlue · 30/10/2021 15:45

You really need to clean the inside of your Airing cupboard

Best approach for the future is shut the door and leave it for DH to remove the spider. He may want to leave it there, but it’s a reasonable compromise to just kick it out of the house.

Don’t know that I could let go of a lifetime of well learned spider fear. The exterminator comes every 3 months to inspect and treat our home exterior for a reason. We make sure we have nothing near the house that would be appealing. It’s just standard protocol. You don’t want to risk losing your life savings to an invasion of spiders whose bites result in necrotizing flesh.

Arbitan · 30/10/2021 15:48

He shouldn’t have shouted at you but to be fair, he’s got a point. I’m not sure what spraying it with chemicals was intended to achieve - just get it under a glass, bit of card or paper over the top and out the back door. Or if you prefer, squash it (which I don’t massively condone). Personally I’d just have left it, not doing any harm.

AlfonsoTheUnrepetant · 30/10/2021 15:50

YABU.

Santastuckincustoms · 30/10/2021 15:55

Should have hoovered it.

HoardingSamphireSaurus · 30/10/2021 15:57

@Santastuckincustoms

Should have hoovered it.
Should have read the whole thread
FangsForTheMemory · 30/10/2021 16:02

Why would you kill anything as harmless and useful as a spider, FFS? And spraying it is unbelievably cruel. I am terrified of spiders but I put a sock over my hand and grab.

Spinderellaella · 30/10/2021 16:05

@WTF475878237NC

We're not actually in the countryside but I get his point; we're not in a high rise London apartment either.

How have people with this fear learnt to overcome it?

Join the "British Spider identification" group on Facebook. They post lots of pics and the more you see the pics and read the comments, the more acclimatised you become when you see a real one. It's worked wonders for me. I have 2 massive gin glasses allocated to catch the spiders that come into my house. They have the huge rims and long stems, so i feel ok catching them in those, and putting them outside. Good luck Smile
JSL52 · 30/10/2021 16:13

I certainly wouldn't have bothered washing all the contents of the airing cupboard

LaetitiaASD · 30/10/2021 16:46

@roseandgeranium said

There are plenty of people on here being pretty nasty to the OP about it. I don’t know what the tone of your reply was like, so perhaps you weren’t one of them. Like you I try to avoid using chemicals in the garden or the house and I buy organic wherever possible. But (as someone’s who is very arachnophobic!) I read a lot of these threads and I see a ton of self righteousness from people who may well have no compunction about killing lots of other things (or indeed buying inorganic or poor welfare food). As for mosquitoes: I have pretty nasty reactions to mosquito bites but I’d still rather get bitten by one than be crawled on by one of those awful house spiders you see around this time of year. So yup, I swat them or hoover them up.

I admit to having little to no empathy for or sympathy towards people who are scared of harmless things. But I know I should have.

But the REALLY REALLY frustrating thing is that it is always about people doing really stupid things (cause three loads of washing in order to kill a harmless creature which is helping keep your house free of much worse things like flies). It's never "help me overcome my irrational fear of harmless things".

RoseAndGeranium · 30/10/2021 16:58

[quote LaetitiaASD]@roseandgeranium said

There are plenty of people on here being pretty nasty to the OP about it. I don’t know what the tone of your reply was like, so perhaps you weren’t one of them. Like you I try to avoid using chemicals in the garden or the house and I buy organic wherever possible. But (as someone’s who is very arachnophobic!) I read a lot of these threads and I see a ton of self righteousness from people who may well have no compunction about killing lots of other things (or indeed buying inorganic or poor welfare food). As for mosquitoes: I have pretty nasty reactions to mosquito bites but I’d still rather get bitten by one than be crawled on by one of those awful house spiders you see around this time of year. So yup, I swat them or hoover them up.

I admit to having little to no empathy for or sympathy towards people who are scared of harmless things. But I know I should have.

But the REALLY REALLY frustrating thing is that it is always about people doing really stupid things (cause three loads of washing in order to kill a harmless creature which is helping keep your house free of much worse things like flies). It's never "help me overcome my irrational fear of harmless things".[/quote]
The flies issue is interesting. Like a lot of the arachnophobes I see posting on MN I have no problem with the cellar spiders (spindly cobweb-spinners that hang about in corners and move slowly). Given how much time I spend vacuuming up the corpses of insects from under their webs I am confident they do a great job of pest control. Same is true of false widows, actually, though there are obvious issues with having those in the house. The big scary house spiders, on the other hand, just caper about like nutcases and don’t appear to make webs at all, so I can’t see how they would catch any flies. I’ve no idea what they eat, and no evidence that they contribute usefully in any way of household ecology.

shinynewapple21 · 30/10/2021 17:05

For me it depends on how large the spider was . But if it was larger than a thumb nail I wouldn't want it crawling in our bedding .

We get a lot of those thin legged wispy spiders in corners and I leave those, as I leave smaller spiders but those large house spiders around the size of your palm either go up the Hoover or I quickly squish them. Sorry but it's my house and I really hate them .

Lampsausage · 30/10/2021 17:08

Please don’t kill spiders. They’re so important. Sad

Hertsgirl10 · 30/10/2021 17:10

YANBU it’s a Phobia, people kill flies and rats ect then cry over spiders.

In fact spray your husband while you’re at it 😂😂

HoppingPavlova · 30/10/2021 17:31

I don't understand why anyone even has those nasty sprays unless they live in Australia and genuinely need to spray outside buildings for redbacks.

I don’t think you have a good sense of spiders in AustraliaHmm. I don’t know anyone who would spray an outside building for redbacksConfused, that’s odd. The real problem is funnel-webs and white-tails in your house. Sprays are a god send as funnel-webs rear up and run at you so the usual method of killing with a thong or other handy shoe (although a thong gives the right amount of flex and whack) is risky. There are a few other species that look like a funnel-web so they go as well. I have no qualms about using the ‘nasty spray’ in these situations. Anything harmless just gets caught and taken out.

OldTinHat · 30/10/2021 17:52

I'm with you OP. I would have done the same. I have an absolute irrational fear of spiders, I even hallucinate them.

antsinyourpanta · 30/10/2021 17:56

I'm very allergic to bees and wasps and yet I can quite confidently and calmly catch them with the glass and card method and put them outside. (I do occassionally squish wasps if they interupt a picnic and there is no suitable way to catch them)

I have a phobia spiders (that I'm well aware is irrational) and can't bear to be in the same room as a big one...but I need to know where it is and ideally that it has been removed. Shutting the door and walking away just defers the problem for next time. If it was as easy as "fgs get a glass/walk away/put it outside" no one would have a phobia!!

speakout · 30/10/2021 17:59

There are spiders all around.
Anyone sitting on a sofa or armchair will probably have one just inches away.
I have had a big one in the corner of my bedroom a - been there for 3 days, and one at the top of the stairs on the ceiling.
It's mating season and the males are on the prowl.
Most homes will contain dozens of spiders.

kowari · 30/10/2021 18:03

@HoppingPavlova

I don't understand why anyone even has those nasty sprays unless they live in Australia and genuinely need to spray outside buildings for redbacks.

I don’t think you have a good sense of spiders in AustraliaHmm. I don’t know anyone who would spray an outside building for redbacksConfused, that’s odd. The real problem is funnel-webs and white-tails in your house. Sprays are a god send as funnel-webs rear up and run at you so the usual method of killing with a thong or other handy shoe (although a thong gives the right amount of flex and whack) is risky. There are a few other species that look like a funnel-web so they go as well. I have no qualms about using the ‘nasty spray’ in these situations. Anything harmless just gets caught and taken out.

My landlord sprayed the garage where my DS often played (they lived on the inside of the garage door, we came in through the side door). Was that a bad idea then?
Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel · 30/10/2021 18:20

YABVVVU. Never kill spiders. Rotten behavior.

Original poster
WTF475878237NC · 30/10/2021 18:27

Thanks again for the tips from those who understand the fear but have managed it better than me! It is of course totally irrational as many people have said.

OP posts:
Snaketime · 30/10/2021 18:50

I used to be terrified of spider, but I watched videos on YouTube of tarantulas that are posted by a guy who keeps them, they are fascinating creatures, now I have no problem with them. I won't pick them up and put them outside because they can bite and I am allergic to insect bites, but can happily catch them and put them out. I actually had one in my bedroom for over a week, which is huge for me as before I would have freaked out and not slept until it had been removed.
I have never killed them though as I believe they have as much right to live as I do and I know how useful they are klong flies etc