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To burn my house down TRiGGER WARNING spiders

83 replies

moleymoley1 · 08/10/2024 18:42

As of last week I’ve been finding little black spiders everywhere in my house mainly by my back door and bathroom. They are tiny like money spiders but I literally have loads. I picked up my kittens bed and there was about 3 under there. I’m now worrying there was a mummy spider somewhere and has hatched eggs into my house 🫣 I’ve attached a picture for context

To burn my house down TRiGGER WARNING spiders
To burn my house down TRiGGER WARNING spiders
OP posts:
StarDolphins · 08/10/2024 21:13

This post is sad. Hoover them, squash them, indorex them😭 they’re just trying to live their lives & don’t deserve to just be killed. Have a heart & put a glass over them, put paper under & put them outside. They’re petrified of us.

WiddlinDiddlin · 08/10/2024 21:29

@toomuchcardboard Pholcus phalangiodes commonly called the cellar spider though they've never been particularly fussed about where they live as long as its sheltered. They will eat even the big hairy giant house spiders. They are voracious and ambitious.

Ooh also, to avoid seeing spiders of the travelling sex starved nature - dangle a towel or bit of loo roll over bath sides. They slide in sometimes looking for Mrs Oh Go On Then If You must or sometimes distracted by the scent of water.. then can't get out (super shiny surfaces can sometimes thwart them).. Providing a wee ladder to escape means you're much less likely to be confronted by one when you hop in for a shower, and means the spider is much less likely to be confronted by a screamy naked human which I am sure they appreciate.

Spiders you're most likely to see in your house in the UK...

Pholcus phalangiodes - spindley creepy sods.

House spiders (Eratigena sp. there are several and tbh without a microscope and looking at their rude bits you can't tell and it doesn't matter as they all act the same anyway).

Amaurobius sp. Several of these two, small, stocky, dark. Harmless.

Steatoda sp. 'False Widows' - just an orb weaver, they've got a bad rap but its all rubbish. Very adept at catching wasps, they know how to avoid the sting, wait the wasp out whilst it knackers itself, they understand that both the bum and the front are dangerous ( a wasp could bite any of our native spiders in half in one bite!).

Zygiella x-notata, the missing sector orb weaver, so called as it misses a section out of its web for some unknown reason. However most will prefer the edges of windows if, like me, you are slovenly and don't wipe up webs. They are GREAT at catching annoying houseflies and craneflies that dink against windows. They make little sleeping bags against the window seal, laying out trip-wires, and then dash out when their Ring Doorbell system goes off, to see whats been delivered!

Drassodes sp. 'Stone spiders' (dunno why) small, mid brownish, have a rather frilly bum, large spinnerets for a small spider. Harmless as a fruit fly, unless you're a fruit fly.

If you're very lucky (or if phobic, unlucky) you may see a Mouse Spider, Scotophaeus blackwalli - not huge but pretty chonky and dark with a very furry satiny grey 'mouse' coloured bum. They do make me jump as they trigger the 'omg a tarantula' bit of the human brain before the 'don't be stupid its not even 50p sized' bit can kick in.

And in some places outside, as well as the very common Garden Spider (you know her, bum that would put J-Lo to shame, shades of dark brown to pale cream, lurking at face height in a huge web in your porch, setting off your Ring Doorbell) - you may have the Tube Web Spider, Segestria sp.

She's big, she's black, she's every halloween horror story spider... and she just wants to stay in her hideyhole and eat snacks that come trundling by. She's got metallic green chelicerae (the muscles you can see that drive her fangs, that you can't see) and out of her hidey hole she may panic and she looks a bit weird and 'THAT CAN'T BE NATIVE' ish... Don't poke her with a finger, she probably will bite you, but she'd really rather save that for dinner rather than defence.

We have a LOT of other spiders in the UK, many bigger or weirder looking, more colourful or possessing bigger fangs than this lot. Some are incredibly clever, with not just great eye sight and the ability to recognise faces (jumping spiders), but the ability to plan complicated routes (a cognitive ability that many dogs, horses, er, and even humans, struggle with!)...

None of them are medically significant - the risks with spider bites (which are very rare and cannot be identified as such unless you see the spider do it!) are actually infection from tiny puncture wounds that people don't notice much, or don't take seriously, and so don;t keep clean. Or very rare allergic reactions. You're at more risk from a mosquito or a wasp.

I find them endlessly fascinating but I can confess, if one is unexpectedly on me or runs up my duvet, it still makes me jump and I still have to work pretty hard at staying calm and removing them sensibly!

MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking · 08/10/2024 21:31

We're in October, I thought spider season was over 😫 (and here I was congratulating myself on only finding one in the bath this year). I shall have to get the peppermint spray out.

Nothing beats (and I hope it never does!) a couple of years ago, when what can only be described as Aragog, fell off the bathroom shelf and into the bath just as I was about to step in to take a shower. DH even baulked at that one.

We do let the cellar spiders stay though, they all have the same name (Steve). Steve gets the big ones, and generally keeps to the ceiling, so we like Steve.

LuluBlakey1 · 08/10/2024 21:39

I took the apples off our small tree yesterday afternoon and found loads of what looked like cellar spiders in it. Then I cleared a large patch of Japanese anemones and found lots in there too at the bases where I was cutting back.

We have lots of beautiful garden spiders- they knit beautiful webs - fascinating to watch them.

My favourite was a mouse spider that lived in an airbrick and ran out grabbing other spiders and dragging them back to eat. One was a spider twice its size.

We have a spider in the kitchen that lives on a window lock and has laid eggs for two years in a corner if the ceiling, guards them carefully and they never come to anything- I leave them all winter to see. She has disappeared now so I am thinking she may have died. How long can spiders live?

They are fascinating.

MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking · 08/10/2024 21:44

It's a horrible phobia to have though, as I say to people; I'm not scared of mice or rats, or snakes. But there isn't a "mice" season, and you don't have to worry every autumn you're going to come home and find a ruddy great snake in the bath! No, just us arachnophobes!

No one condescendingly tells them "oh, it's only a snake", or rolls their eyes and says "that rat is more scared of you, just get it on a bit of card" 😤

Purplebunnie · 08/10/2024 21:48

Pieceofpurplesky · 08/10/2024 20:21

Peppermint spray keeps them away

I've made up my own with peppermint oil, washing up liquid and water. You do need to be careful as it is poisonous to cats - not sure about a ready bought spray

WiddlinDiddlin · 08/10/2024 21:51

Some of our spiders can go a couple of years or so.

We had a False Widow (Steatoda Nobilis) here who lived in the fanlight glass above the door to our loo, so sitting on the loo you could see her web and what she was up to..

We watched her for just over two and a half years, from juvenile, through several moultings (imagine trying to take off a set of super tight leggings, doing the 'standing on the trousers' dance... but with 8 legs and no hands!)... through major hunting missions (all the way to the light fitting to catch a wasp, drag it through the holes in the lampshade and winch it to her web).

We saw her flirting with boys and co-habiting whilst they freeloaded (male Steatoda are proper cock-lodgers if they can get away with it) off her, eating the prey her web caught. Til she got fed up and ate them...

Sadly she never laid an egg sac and eventually died of old age. Her name was Borisette and I genuinely was sad, we'd got to watch most of her life. We gave her water when one summer was too hot (bits of bog roll soaked in water and plopped on the window frame), I chased a few dastardly Pholcus away, brought her fruit flies when she was elderly. Genuinely miss that spider, we haven't had another set up home there since and whilst others have come and gone around the house, have not had one stick around THAT long!

@LuluBlakey1 - Pholcus are typically indoor jobs, but you may be seeing a Tetragnatha sp. - long thin body, long thin spindley legs. They often sit with four legs pushed out front and four pushed straight backwards along the abdomen and some are a lovely shade of green with a sort of carpety pattern. They like trees and washing lines and wooden fence tops.

That said, pholcus are hard as nails and an outdoor colony in a sheltered spot is not impossible!

LuluBlakey1 · 08/10/2024 22:07

@WiddlinDiddlin They are long legged with a one section round body and slow. They seem to be hanging onto the apple clusters and in yhe leaves at the base of the tall anemones - where there is lots of leaf and dead cane protection. I left the leaves on the ground with some structure so they could stay there. I left quite a lot of the apples too. The blackbirds and seagulls love them. DH runs a couple of apples over in the morning and the blackies then eat them. The seagulls steal whole ones 😁

LuluBlakey1 · 08/10/2024 22:13

WiddlinDiddlin · 08/10/2024 21:51

Some of our spiders can go a couple of years or so.

We had a False Widow (Steatoda Nobilis) here who lived in the fanlight glass above the door to our loo, so sitting on the loo you could see her web and what she was up to..

We watched her for just over two and a half years, from juvenile, through several moultings (imagine trying to take off a set of super tight leggings, doing the 'standing on the trousers' dance... but with 8 legs and no hands!)... through major hunting missions (all the way to the light fitting to catch a wasp, drag it through the holes in the lampshade and winch it to her web).

We saw her flirting with boys and co-habiting whilst they freeloaded (male Steatoda are proper cock-lodgers if they can get away with it) off her, eating the prey her web caught. Til she got fed up and ate them...

Sadly she never laid an egg sac and eventually died of old age. Her name was Borisette and I genuinely was sad, we'd got to watch most of her life. We gave her water when one summer was too hot (bits of bog roll soaked in water and plopped on the window frame), I chased a few dastardly Pholcus away, brought her fruit flies when she was elderly. Genuinely miss that spider, we haven't had another set up home there since and whilst others have come and gone around the house, have not had one stick around THAT long!

@LuluBlakey1 - Pholcus are typically indoor jobs, but you may be seeing a Tetragnatha sp. - long thin body, long thin spindley legs. They often sit with four legs pushed out front and four pushed straight backwards along the abdomen and some are a lovely shade of green with a sort of carpety pattern. They like trees and washing lines and wooden fence tops.

That said, pholcus are hard as nails and an outdoor colony in a sheltered spot is not impossible!

I would have called it a Harvestman- is that the same as pholocus?

WiddlinDiddlin · 08/10/2024 22:18

Ohhhhhh... one section round body...

Sorry, avert eyes now for those averse to geeking

Thats an opilione or in your case... lots of opiliones.

An arachnid, but not a spider, their bodies are fused, they have two eyes set on top of the head, often up on a turret sort of formation (very extremely so in some species).

They can ditch a leg in times of crisis (and I mean, who wouldn't wanna be able to do that) which will keep on kicking, and this can confuse a (very stupid) predator into thinking they have a delicious meal, whilst the rest of the opilione has it away on his other tooties, to fight another day.

Not that they really fight, they will hunt (small squishy things like aphids and collembola) but they are mainly detritivores, scoffing all manner of decaying matter of any origin really.

They don't have fangs like spiders, they have teeny weeny itty bitty little lobster claw type things, very good for scavenging (but shit for hunting anything that could fight back).

They are fascinating little buggers, theres a lot of them, mostly following the 'small round body, redonkulous leggage' plan but some have large spikey bodies and shorter rather curly looking legs... and the aforementioned eyes on turrets thing..

They've been around (sit down and hold onto your hat) about 400 MILLION years and we still have extant species that look like fossil remains. They're that good, they're a case of 'it ain't broke, don't fix it'!

So they actually pre-date spiders by quite some way!

They will adore leaf litter, the things that live in leaf litter and the rotting leaf litter itself.

sarahzbaker · 08/10/2024 22:40

Look upon them as house pets I don't particularly love them but they come in to breed in colder weather. They certainly don't want you - yuk
They want lady spiders
They will go out later and kill pests
MMMM

Moonshiners · 08/10/2024 22:41

Jesswebster01 · 08/10/2024 19:45

I bought a spider spray and it worked well. I went round one night sprayed it round all the skirting boards door frames and any gaps that there were the next day there were alot of dead ones. I don't like the thought of killing them but I'm terrified of them. If I ever open a window I make sure to spray round. Just Google spider spray it is in a red can.

Don't kill them 😭

Whateveryouwant1 · 08/10/2024 22:57

WiddlinDiddlin · 08/10/2024 20:42

Sorry peeps, spiders couldn't give a shit about conkers.

Most critters don't like things like lavender, peppermint oil, neem, tea tree etc - they're toxic to arthropods (actually they're toxic to most beings in sufficient quantity or inappropriate application), however mating season tends to over ride any of the deterrents.

You're seeing more spiders because its autumn and many spiders are now breeding, males out looking for love, running themselves into the ground to find Mrs Right Now I (Probably) Won't Eat You (literally they won't eat or drink in many cases and will cark it of exhaustion before they find their one true love).

I think your spider is Amaurobius ferox, male. Not a baby certainly, he has adult pedipalps (the boxing glove like jobbies in front of his face) but the photo isn't really good enough to tell more than 'its an adult male spider'.)

Spiderlings of most species, at the dispersal stage are absolutely tiny, head of a pin job, you'll barely notice them.

Hoover often. Don't have piles of stuff that the females of many species like to hide under, then you won't attract males (well, you wll unless you regularly lift the floorboards and skirting boards and hoover under those, a step most folk think is too far)...

Pesticides will kill them of course, leaving your home a veritable playground for all sorts of species that will trash your stuff and bite you when it wears off... but if you're scared of spiders that probably over-rides that issue.

If you can stand to, and have them, leave 'cellar spiders' (Pholcus phalangiodes if you want to google it to be sure, often called daddy long legs though this is just an example of how common names lead to misunderstandings as that name is used for opilones and a fly species too) alone - they will eat anything that wanders their way, including spiders vastly bigger than them (they really really like eating other spiders. And if their own numbers get too big they will snack on each other too).

My 'interesting' spider collection here has risen enormously since I started evicting the cellar spiders.

For those really terrified of spiders - move around and stomp.

A lot of our spiders (really, all of them barring the jumping spiders which you've probably never even noticed as ours are small and fairly dull) have really shitty eyesight, seeing just light/dark and movement.

They may appear to run AT you because you represent a big fixed object, your shadow offers what they believe is safety, so they run towards you to hide, not realising you actually represent danger.

Our big house spiders do the 'sprint and stop' thing because they have little stamina and are basically knackered and need to recharge, they're not plotting their next move as such or sizing you up as a potential victim. In a few weeks you may see more of this behaviour as they get dehydrated and fatigued in their almost always fatal hunt for a lady.

It is very very difficult for a spider to bite you - not because their fangs can't penetrate skin, most of the big ones can.

Its because their fangs lie flat against their underside, to use them they need to get above a small target, lift and then stab. Doing so to a large target like a human is like you trying to bite a chunk out of a double decker bus... extremely difficult, the angles are all wrong.

Humans therefore are typically only bitten when the spider is squashed against a person - so shake out duvets and clothing and shoes, and wear gloves if you're going rummaging in leaf litter.

Here endeth the spider lesson. Hang tight as they will all mostly bugger off over the next four weeks and most of the ones you see are destined to die of starvation, and those who survive and get to meet a lady... are getting all the joy of being an Amazon delivery bloke as spider 'sex' is really just them handing over a package of goo. Zero fun, and then death. Be smug you are not a spider?

Wow I love this 🩷

DoTheRoary · 08/10/2024 23:07

I'm sorry what now? Arachnids aren't all spiders? Mind blown and off to Google...

whyamiawakestillitssolate · 08/10/2024 23:10

I’m pretty spider phobic but I’ve learnt to quite like cellar spiders since I found out they eat the horrible big house spiders and I happily allow a fair number of them to call my home their home too. Their rubbish webs are a bit of a pain though!

However I cant stand the huge fat bodied monsters that we keep getting in at the minute - my DH calmly carries them outside in his hands whilst commenting on how he can feel their legs and how strong they are pushing to get out 🤢🤢🤢

Latenightreader · 08/10/2024 23:14

This post has just reminded me that I forgot to defenestrate the enormous spider which strolled along the shower curtain rail this morning when I was mid wash. Its legs were struggling to grip and kept skittering but I couldn't make a grab for it without scaring my daughter (also showering). I managed to trap it under a mug but then left for work and have only just got home. It's going to eat me in my sleep, isn't it...

Icanthinkformyselfthanks · 08/10/2024 23:14

moleymoley1 · 08/10/2024 18:57

😭😭😭 there going to grow into huge house spiders aren’t they

God help you but I think they are F*ing monsters in the making. 😱

HermoniePotter · 08/10/2024 23:23

You always get spider lovers and spider haters on here, it’s the same every year. I use Indorex or squash them. The spider lovers will save them the haters will kill them, spiders will always exist, they’re no loss to society no matter what MN users say. They’re creepy little fuckers and I have no hesitation in making sure none of them invade my living space.

Edited to add I disagree with @WiddlinDiddlin. Spiders do bite as I was bitten by a spider in the UK. They are not harmless but people like this poster who have never been on the receiving end of a spider bite will always profess to them being “harmless”.

Waiting9 · 08/10/2024 23:25

I’m not sure about whether the spiders in your house are hatching/breeding. I don’t know enough about spiders but I remember watching a video where one spider literally produced hundreds of mini spiders, so I think if you’re only seeing 1-2 here and there, you might be okay.

Personally I have a low tolerance to bugs in my home. I just use raid spray and a hoover to get rid of them.

QueenCamilla · 08/10/2024 23:37

There can easily be 4-5 million of spiders per hectare of land. Yeah, so I'm not too precious.

I also bought a semi-abandoned house with an infestation.3 spiders per inch on every surface, whole place webbed up like it's Halloween, spider eating spider... They'll take your house given a chance! 🕸️😁

TealPoet · 08/10/2024 23:56

No advice, just sympathy. I’m bed bound and my mother dropped a spider on me earlier today. ‘Oh you were saying it was building a web above you and sounded like you wanted help’. Well yes I did want help, but that wasn’t helpful! It’s still somewhere in bed with me as far as I know 😰

Mirren22 · 09/10/2024 00:11

I'm curious why not let them be? Is it because you have a phobia? I see spiders as there to eat the bugs and I have two resident spiders by my front door and one at the back door and they just live there, sometimes they get a bit scared when I am too close but otherwise they sit and sleep there and eat the bugs

Kilroywashere · 09/10/2024 00:35

@WiddlinDiddlin Thanks for your info about spiders. Never realised that was a cellar spider, I assumed cave and cellar spiders were alternative names for the same creature - we have cave spiders in the garden which are much more robust - they live in an old underground wartime shelter.

caringcarer · 09/10/2024 00:56

Find some conkers and place Several of them on every window sills in your house. Spiders don't like their smell so keep away.

MidnightMeltdown · 09/10/2024 01:08

Sorry OP you'll have to move out. This house belongs to the spiders now.