Global warming is bringing a new threat to our back gardens - poisonous spiders (oh good)

[Tutter]

Global warming is bringing a new threat to our back gardens - poisonous spiders.

The False Widow spider first arrived in banana shipments from the Canary Islands in around 1870 and is now growing in numbers thanks to increased temperatures.

The good news is the spider's bite will not kill, although it can cause swelling and severe pain.

Michael and Pam Willis recently found one in the garden of their home in Verwood, Dorset.

Mrs Willis, 62, said: "It was black and shiny, not like a normal, hairy spider. It's terrifying if numbers are rising. I'm worried about our grandchildren."

Stuart Hine, of London's Natural History Museum, said: "There has been a dramatic increase over the last seven to ten years; no doubt due to global warming. They survive winters to mate."

He added: "There are probably tens of thousands. In a few years they will be in every garden in the south of England and more will be spotted higher up the country."

"black and shiny"

Informed Rowan, means you never have to go to these places and be surprised!

I was going to get this phobia seen to but I believe they make you face your fear. I do not want to be in the same area as anything like that, it is bad enough they exist around the house.

[whimpers] but it says every garden in southern England. I have to go into my garden occasionally, if only because DS2 keeps locking DS1 in the playhouse.

[note to self: carry flame-thrower]

CHESTNUTS ROWAN! Put them in little washing tablet string bags in the corner of the window ledge and it works, maybe even in playhouses!

Or a can of Raid.

Raw chestnuts? inside or outside?

Inside, and straight off the tree if you can elbow the kids out of the way to collect them!

I found a bizarre spider in our playroom the other night. It had orange legs and head and a white body. I was suspicious that it might have arrived with some bananas so I googled it. Turns out it's a wood louse spider - the only native spider that can bite and break the skin . not poisonous but pretty nasty, and some people are allergic to it.

Thats it, I am moving to the orth Feckin Pole.

North

Very scared.......... Hairspray works too.

youu really shouldn't use hairspray. That is very cruel. I can understand being scared of spiders but they are harmless and actually do us a favour. Sorry to get all serious but if we didn't have spiders we really would have a much more serious problem with flies and they spread disease. It is very easy to catch them in a glass and put them out of the window.

Spiders are why we have husbands.

I would say that I have always killed poisenous spiders because of the threat to children and the elderly ( There were black widows where I grew up) but Ruty is correct spiders on a whole do us a lot of good and should be respected as such. They are more afraid of you.

ROFL Aloha! That's what I said to my dh last time, when he was giggling like a mad thing (And sitting scrunched up with feet well off the floor) and I was stalking the damn Queen of Arachina with a tumbler and peice of card....

I belive I said something like: ''remind me exactly why I married you?''

As a self confessed wuss, I am very proud of myself that I have graduated fom dropping the Yellow pages on them from a great height to the cup and card removal system. Hey free flying lessons for them!
But now your telling me that these little buggers can bite me? Rolled newspaper a la Garfield methinks.
EEEEEWWWWWW.

ruty - I am not leaving red back spiders or any other poisonous spider anywhere on my property for them to bite my wee ones. However those that are not poisonous - by all means.

no i'm talking about common garden English spiders.

Hand still tingly and it's almost two weeks ago that I had the encounter.

Boco--I am petrified of spiders but didn't connect the needle stick pain with the loofah until hand went all funny. Have spent a good deal of time since holding my hand up to the light and muttering, "How very, very odd!".

This thread makes me sweat.

On the plus side I do live on the South Coast so maybe you live where the loofahs have not yet reached?

Lionheart i'm on the south-east coast, -d'you think they're here yet? How long before i should pack - and which direction should i move?

They won't come, girls. The climate-change-doom-mongerers are just airing their new religious belief, along with the expected plague of locusts, floods, blah-di-di-blah.

But if they do come then they've underestimated the British fighting spirit. We'll 'ave 'em (little bastards).

what the hell is a loofah?

They live in colonies!!

Eidsvold ... I invented arfyshy's spider fighting belt ... it is patented to me ...
She built it, I designed it. We were an amazing team

You are a bunch of softies, black widows, scorpions and tarantulas in the garden and the occassional rattling of a rattle snake in the fields were quite common during my childhood and we weren't bitten once.

Now... I wouldn't trust a strange spider at all, forget about nicely taking her out of the house to live in the garden, they all are flushed down after quashed, but with a childhood like mine, I guess nobody would blame me!

Boco--go North.