to kill all the spiders?

[bessarabiantiger]

We live in the country, we're very lucky with our house and we've been here two years. There's a lake on the property and with lakes come mosquito hoardes (fine, live and let live, we knew about this when ee took the place, and with mosquito hoardes come spiders.

I am alright with most types of spider, I allow Huntsman (? Spindly legged) in every room as they're no bother and keep the mossies down when we have the windows open. Brown recluse get ejected with a glass & cardboard or eaten by the cat.

This year we have a problem with false widows and a kind we've never seen before. They are awful. Striped and with extra long front legs, they shamble across the ceiling as if they're drunk & often fall in your drink/dinner/hair.

We now have around 80 of the fuckers in the kitchen. They are making nests. For many people this wouldn't even be an issue. But me being me I've said to myself, well the windows are open, they aren't scaring me on purpose (even after the night I walked into the kitchen without turning the lights on and had one who was making a web land on my face. ARGH!) Etc. Etc.

We've used every natural repellant going. From plug-in spider scarers (knew they were bullshit but was at wits end last sept) to conkers, peppermint oil, spider hoover, removing them all outside (shudder. That was a horrible day) only to find a new gang there in the morning.

After me and DH being bitten this week (him on the neck, me on the hand WHILST ASLEEP IN BED! Hand swelled up for the next 24 hours, yes, it was a spider, found it crawling down my leg) I have finally and very reluctantly bought spider poison.

I am hoping someone can offer a better solution before I have to use it. DS has mild asthma and am worried about the effect on him (we will evacuate for the day after use) and it's an aersol as well as a poison. It sounds silly, but I've only ever used aerosol twice- the ozone layer was so drummed into me at school it feels akin to pooping straight down a whales blow hole!

AIBU to kill the spiders so they stop biting us? Has anyone got any other solution?

We break webs and remove visible offenders bi-daily BTW.

Yes thumbwitch, I believe they are.

Very brutish looking, seeing that they live around our front door, they're like our very own door Bouncers!

I live in Kent.

lobster I know it's terrifying. But we're doing this for science. science

Be brave.

Thank you, this is the genius kind of thread I love on mn

Ps sorry for your distress...

strumpers it's been surprisingly cathartic really.

Walked out the front door this morning, web across door, went right across my face. I just shrugged, assumed the spider inhabiting it was now perched on my bun, grabbed a glitter glue pen, decorated it and
Considered it a hair accesory.

tellme PUT BOWTIES ON THEM AND MAKE THEM CHARGE AN ENTRANCE FEE TO YOUR HOUSE.

With the money you make you will be able to afford to move and burn your house down.

We already have Barracudas with parachutes, they're called Barrachutes. Your spiders are scarier than my Barrachutes. You are so brave.

I live in Sussex too and this thread has just confirmed why I will never, ever live in the country.

I stayed overnight at a friend's house once who lived out in the middle of nowhere. There were 3 Isambards on the wall next to where I was supposed to sleep and she didn't see the problem. Hardened to it I suppose. I was crying and she popped them all onto a yellow pages and moved them for me.

I still didn't sleep a wink.

Dead ard you are OP.

Tellme where in Kent?!! Please not West Kent??

owl I may have to do a science drawing of a barrachute...

megan three Isembards? Take a pop up tent next time and sleep in that. With a gun full of magic earth, some holy water and several cats.

Oh and a bugle, to measure in the official Bess Tiger standard measurements of arachnids-per-bugle.

I will also posit that 1 Isembard = three Stripus Bastardicus. So if all three Isembards were within the span on one bugle you would have 9 APB (arachnids per bugle) which equals a Fuck That.

science

Your science is impeccable bess

We returned home to a spiderless flat thankfully. Not a Charlotte or a Jorah in sight!

Is it possible to make a Fuck That out of Charlottes? How many CPB = a Fuck That? I think it's probably a few. Maybe 6 Charlottes = 1 Isembard. So 18 CPB = a Fuck That.

maths

at the science and maths!

Lemon I have two pregnant Charlottes and a Thomas Aragog Von Antlers in the porch. If both Charlottes hatch a full squaddle (collective noun for baby Charlottes) then I shall distract Thomas with Cardinal and get in there with the bugle to measure the precise number of CPB that = a Fuck That.

I think there are decidedly fewer PAPB (pregnant arachnids per bugle) in a Fuck That than APB.

Well, I just found a fuck off great big centipede in my Crocs. And that's pretty big, I'm sure you'll agree. And I found it with my toes too.

Centipedes breed on our garage. I wouldn't want to find one with my toes though.

Puffin I'm going to need an approximate bugle to centipede ratio if we're going to enter that into the official records.

Oooh my Barrachute loaded.

art

But if nobody's there to hear it land, does it make a sound?

philosophy

I think that just means it landed in your hair, muffling the sound.

bad luck run.

Thumbwitch how are you not a nervous wreck? How? I'm awed by your toughness.

Imagining a rooftop centipede sex party has made me need a shower. Possibly in bleach.

Jorah do you want me to fed-ex you a pregnant Charlotte in a Pringles tube? I have two.

I'm ok because we don't have scorpions. If we had scorpions I would have utterly lost it by now.

Snakes - have seen a red-bellied black snake just down the road from us, but none in our garden (well no live ones anyway, just a dead youngster that was probably dropped by a kookaburra) and they run away from humans so don't really worry me. Brown snakes - haven't seen any in our yard.

Centipedes - well we keep away from them and do the glass-and-cardboard thing when they get in the house.

Spiders - shoe or glass-and-cardboard (although actually, plastic sandcastle thing for Huntsman, should they need to be evicted, glasses genuinely are too small)

Oh and as if this wasn't already all too exciting for some people, I have to tell you our latest acquisition - I have a bees' nest in my bedroom wall! Fecking arses. It's an old house, clapboard (weatherboard it's called here) and timber construction, with gyprock (aka plasterboard) on the inside. It would have had some kind of insulation when built but it's all gone courtesy of rats and white ants since then, so our house is pretty uninsulated. This leaves nice gaps between inner and outer walls - and the bees have found their way in through an airbrick on the outer wall (the inner airbrick is blocked up) and made their home in there. I had people out to look at it - they said the only way to remove them is to cut the wall away (no chance) or block up the airbrick on the outside and wait for them all to die (don't want to).
They may decide to move on in Spring (i.e. soon) because the space is limited by the timber frames, and they might run out of room and fly off to pastures newer and bigger - but unless the queen goes, the rest won't.
SO I have to keep an eye out for the silly buggers getting into my bedroom via the window frame every now and then, and evict them (glass-and-card of course).

We have a wasp nest, the only way to stop the fekkers ruining meals was to install a glass wasp-trap filled with beer. We call it 'The Arsedagger Arms'