To expect HUGE spiders NOT to move into my house when the weather turns cold!

[DaphneMoon]

.............here we go again, summer on it's way out, winter on it's way in and all the bloody huge, hairy spiders are marching their way to my house. I had one last night galloping its way across my carpet, which I could have almost predicted as DP away.

.......now have spider size of donkey trapped under glass mixing bowl in middle of lounge, which will stay there until DP gets home tonight!!

Then had to spend rest of evening with feet on coffee table in case it's big brother came looking for it!

one crawled on my neck the other night when I was sitting nice and quietly, doing my knitting.

it was about an inch and a half across, with its legs stretched out

i can still "feel" it shivers

eewww!!

Sorry to be geeky, but I think when a male has found a female they stay together in the web for a while and mate, the male then dies and the female eats him. The eggs can be laid at a much later time (about 200-250!) and kept in an egg sac until they hatch. They stay in the web for one moult and then the spiderlings take to the air on threads of silk in the spring?

All I know is that the ones in my house look as if they are wearing Doc M boots!

Thanks Linden. Not geeky at all. Lol at the DM's on their feet

Linden, I think it depends on the spider. Some live a short time...some a long time.
They are quite single minded. Wonderful hunters. The mouths are on the bottom side so if you put some sticky paper near the door or window or wherever they are coming in from and put a shallow bowl of water there. They will smell the water (that is why they are in the WC) and get stuck. The first stuck ones will attract the others because they think nothing of making a snack of each other.

Yes wehave - info is on Tegenaria (house spider and giant house spider). Giant house spider can span across 6-7.5cm depending which source you believe and is the fastest runner of all true spiders.

OK, OK, let me tell you about spiders. I live in Sydney and one morning a couple of years ago, I was having a shower and I spied a big spider crawling along the top of the shower rail. These are called 'huntsmen' and although not particularly dangerous (nasty bite though), they are big, and brown and scary (as you can imagine, being in Oz).

Well, I thought I would just ignore the thing and mind my own business (I am a Sydney girl and don't get too fazed about spiders) but then ... the bloody thing jumped on my head!!! It literally launched itself off the rail, flew through the air, little legs outstretched and got tangled in my hair!! I nearly had a heart attack. People here always say that Huntsmen won't hurt you if they leave you alone - but its not true - they're little bastards! MY BIL reckons one attacked him too - so I am not alone.

My husband had one on his towel about a week later and I'd never thought I'd hear my tough English boy from Reading scream like a little girl!

PS - Rereading my post, I can't help but be reminded of that classic scene from the"brilliant film" 'Crocodile Dundee' - "that's not a knife ... this is a knife (aka big, scary spider!)

Tinto I have lived in Oz too and agree that Giant house spider is a misnomer!

Glad back home and do not have to put up with huntsman (in cars), funnel webs and redbacks!

Insects are so bloody selfish. They have the entire outdoors to wander about in, numerous sheds and garages yet they still insist on invading the tiny spaces we call our homes. I hate them all and get irrationally angry when I see one, as if they're sole purpose in life is to wind me up.

YANBU!

spiders are arachnids, not insects

I think we have the same one from year to year come visit...wonder if they can live for many years?

It sits in the same place as well!

Bundle: I would have fainted if I had one on me that size

Tinto: You have taught me something today, I thought Huntsmen were killer spiders! I have made it a rule never to live in any country where I cannot walk across my lawn without dying!

By the way I was always led to believe they lived in pairs too. This is because when I was living at home with parents still in very very old house, we used to get huge ones and when one ran out and you smacked it one, another would come out soon after. I am always on the look out for it's mate when I have killed one.

We've got a huge one lurking outside the dining room window. I know it's looking for an opportunity to scuttle in. I can't get close enough to kill it.

Oh by the way DP killed sorted the spider under the bowl. It was under there until 7pm last night. I thought it might have died, but every time I came in the room it had changed position. I think my DP was very brave .

As a child I was reading in bed one night when I moved the book to the side, only to see a huge black hairy spider running up the duvet towards my face. That's where my spider phobia started.

I don't know how they get in sometimes. Just lately I have not had the windows open in the day downstairs as it has been too cold and wet, but they still get in somehow.

Oh Lyra that's the stuff of nightmares!!!!

They only need a space the size of their bodies. If you have sky they can come in via the cable that goes outside to your dish.I thought this was an urban myth until I actually witnesses one do exactly that!

witnessed ! Got ssssssss on the brain!

I REALLY wish I hadn't read this. Why oh why am I drawn to read this? And why oh why did I continue reading after the first few posts had already made me tearful? I thought the pairs thing was a joke, then I read about giants, now someone is AGREEING with the pairs thing in a non-joking way... Yuck. I can't tell you how much worse I feel now!

Tinto - PMSL @ the spider jumping into your hair with his little legs outstretched!! I know it must have been so scary (i think i would have died in the panic, personally), poor you!!

Lyra - Yuk!!!

This thread is freaking the crap out of me!!! I'm finding myself holding the bottom of my trousers shut incase one runs out from under the sofa and up my trouser legs.

OMG at the spider on the head and the spider in front of the computer. Dh picked one up once and decided to carry it across me sitting there with my laptop. As an instinct I jumped up (screaming of course), laptop flying across the room...that obviously broke it and he's never been forgiven! Infact he had to buy me a new laptop!

We've been getting some seriously big ones lately. How the hell do they get in? I've got double glazing on every window and door. Don't open the windows or doors (apart from to get in) because of intense daddy long legs fear. So how?!?!?!?

Like the conkers idea but dd2 eats them and they are poisonous. Like the sticky patch ideas too but just KNOW dd2 will stick herself to them. I got one stuck in my hair once (don't ask!) which wasn't fun! Think Citronella might make me vom (7 wks preg). My mum has one of those high pitched plug in thingies and still has spiders although she reckons less than she used to.

And I'm never going to Oz now! Is there any country that doesn't have them?

Or even better somewhere that doesn't have daddy long legs?

Actually, thinking about it, DP and I were planning on emigrating to Oz in a few years. If they've got jumping huntsmans there's NO WAY i'm going out there to live!!