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.

Oysterbabe, that is terrifying.

One fell in my lap when driving once. How I did not poop my pants, crash, poop my pants again and then have a nervous breakdown I don't know.

Thumbwitch, I thought brown recluse werethe big brown ones that run across the carpet?

My guess is that they are neither huntsman nor harvestman spiders, but Pholcus phalangioides, the daddy long legs spider.

THE BEAST IN THE WOODPILE

A novel, by Bess Tiger.

Just get a trigger warning to add to the title, please OP then we shall have pictures! (rubs hands)

Maybe I should rename this: help me identify all the bastard spiders that have moved in? I am currently standing on a chair trying to get close enough to photograph of a trio of what we shall currently refer to as 'shambling drunken striped bastardus'

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Ah, mucho crossposting while I checked my sources.

I think the big brown ones that run across the carpet are large house spiders, aren't they?

Brown recluse = violin spiders, they have a violin marking on their backs. And are venomous.

Am now poking the woodpile. Husband is talking to a caterpillar. It's all going on here.

are the striped bastardi wasp spiders?

This morning there was a huge hairy spider in the bath. Very calm he was. Just scooped him up, though he didn't quite fit into the tooth mug and put him outside but they're on the increase in this house too. I don't mind them hanging about and luckily have never been bitten and I don't seem to have the poo problem you have. All spiders in this house are called Robert.

I watched a battle between a huntsman and a daddy long legs (the winged things) one night while in bed. It was strangely hypnotic.

Don't poke the woodpile too hard, if you're that countrified there might be hornets nesting in there!

Thankyou thumbwitch. I think you're right. I'm going to use this thread to educate myself on aforementioned arachnid overlords.

Caterpillar now repatriated to a cabbage.

Now photographing kitchen gangs using a bugle for scale to demonstrate number of spiders-per bugle.

I've had/got false widows here in my Kent garden. I do not like them!! I even resorted to killing one and I really don't kill spiders usually. I even drove one (my first find!) in a jar 12 miles from home so as not to kill it.
I will try to find a picture of it.

The big brown ones that run across the carpet are probably Giant House Spiders. The males tend to move around the house in the autumn looking for the females. Funnily enough despite their relative sizes, Daddy Long Legs spiders eat them.

Have stopped poking woodpile. We have seen hornets, although with my identification skills they could have been bloody kingfishers...

Solo that sounds exactly like something I would do. DH now also used to returning home to be told he can't go in bathroom because there's a swan in there.

Now see, if you'd been in my house this morning, life would have been very interesting for you, as it was for me (I am in Australia) - I was just trying to hand-feed DS1's lizard a piece of cucumber, and it was licking it but not taking it, when a movement caught my eye and there was a fucking white-tail spider a few inches away from my hand, walking towards it. A BIG one.

White tail spiders - lots of debate about those over here - I know people who've been bitten by them and had the bad ulcerated infected bites, but yet the authorities still say that they don't cause necrotising arachnoiditis. Let's just say I don't want to find out!

So I got it out the house using the time-honoured glass-and-cardboard trick, and it's still under the glass outside. I should smash said spider with a shoe - they're not things I want in my house, as they are hunter spiders and hide under clothes/bedding/towels etc., or in dark corners

I don't mind Huntsman spiders - they're big enough to see clearly and we get one in every year through the air-con box - but white tails give me the creeps. (Red backs might be more dangerous but they're bloody slow and dim, so easy to kill - white tails scuttle because they're hunters.)

Ridingcrop, I think that book is a fabulous idea. Have resorted to watering the web onthe woodpile as THE BEAST usually flies out and attacks the droplets. THE BEAST is clearly not at home.

Which makes me worry where the fucker has got to...

Still trying to hold phone close enough (but not too close) to spiders whilst wrangling bugle. That gets filed under 'things I thought I would never have to say'

Just googled white tail spider. Wish I hadn't.

Thumbwitch your house sounds terrifying.

Depends on how much you hate cockroaches, really, Bess!
The spiders are a breeze in comparison.

Bumbledum, so they're shitting and shagging all over my house? Great.

Although I am now singing 'spiderporn' to the tune of 'spiderpig'...

It was in a large jar and it's abdomen was the size of a large blueberry!!

Sorry! I should have warned before the actual post!!

I think we've gone beyond that now Solo. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have stopped reading after being shown the poo!