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.

True bess, true!

Should have asked really - was the spider that bit your DH a false widow? or one of the stripey bastards?

False widows can be a bit of a problem in the biting respect, hence earlier advice to burn down your house.

wiki.britishspiders.org.uk/index.php5?title=Main_Page this is your best bet for identifying the resident arachnoids in your home. :)

Solo - your pic doesn't show up on my page until I click on it

Ok, Bess Tigers guide to her arachnid hotel Volume one.

One 'Charlotte' (I like all the Charlottes)

Vs

one small wanker of indeterminate parentage.

They are having a very slo-mo fight.

Spiderporn, spiderporn
Future generations born
In the bath, up the pipe
Glass and cardboard or duster swipe
Look out, out for the spider spawn

I should, though my family have always called them huntsmen. That said my family delighted in teaching me the wrong names for things, it wasn't until I was able to read for myself that I discovered woodlice are called woodlice and not 'Erics'.

I wish I was joking.

Enb, BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

British Wolf Spiders maybe? Massive, stay on the floor and fast as fuck? They're hunters. I had one for ages called Ole' lady but she's dead now never had bugs when she lived under my bath. Could be the same big ones you're all seeing

Am glued to this thread is fascinated horror, every so often looking up to glance nervously round the room in case one of the hairy fuckers comes galloping out....

Tried to get a full Bugle to spider picture but apparently file size is too large to load from phone. So you'll all have to settle for a semi-bugle as I'm not getting any bloody closer. For those interested the exact measurements are 6 arachnids to a bugle.

no good striped-bastardus pics yet as they're all asleep. I have given up on the idea of poisoning or evicting any of them and instead will be creating a Mumsnet mini-series documenting their adventures. You can all name one, we've plenty for everybody!

Yes notasinglefuck. And ours run AT you instead of away. Am going to glue toothpicks to them and challenge them to a dual.

Duel...

Ah them's definitely these jobbies - the daddy long legs spider, or cellar spider, as has been mentioned upthread by spider-knowers.

We have tons of them too. Except when the huntsman is around, because the huntsman eats them (and other spiders).

Love your song, Enb!

X-post again - the first pic = the daddylonglegs spiders.
Second pic - too small to work it out.

We had the brown recluse when I lived in Missouri in the US as a child and the black widow spiders and scorpions in Arizona. They liked to hide in shoes and closets and such. My dd's school had to teach all the children what to do if they spotted a rattlesnake in the playground, which happened quite a lot as there was a lot of building work nearby with new housing. I like that here in the UK there seems to be less worry about poisonous spiders but I do hate those big fat fast ones!! The spindly ones don't bother me at all.

OP - I find that unloading a fair amount of hairspray on the fast ones slows them down enough to whack them.

Thank you Thumbwitch, I have renamed one of the baby Charlottes in your honour.

Am still catching up with replies whilst stalking round the house trying to take Isembard unawares...
Stripus Bastardicus are def. not wasp spiders, thank fuck, but they are the biters - we found the one that got me crawling down my leg. I reacted with spectacular maturity...

Hmm, they sound narsty then. Spray em with hairspray, then set fire to them.

Big Thumbwitch, meet little Thumbwitch! She's about 1.5cm and lives above the sofa.

Who else wants a spider named after them?

Aw the spindly daddy long legs are harmless, eat other bugs and spiders, and move slow so aren't really threatening at all to me. The fast ones terrify me.

That would involve setting fire to my bed. Which was indeed my immediate reaction. DH threw spider out of window at which point 3 more crawled in. I then decided the simple answer was never to go to sleep again.

I'm in Sussex OP, hopefully the opposite end from you (nothing personal).

We're pretty rural and all I've seen up 'til now is a few stripy ones in the garden. House is not old though and I suspect that's your problem. There's probably been spiders breeding in your house for generations.

Looked on the link about british spiders. I had absolutely no idea there was such a variety of nasty looking spiders in the UK. I always understood all the spiders in Britain were too small to give a nasty bite, apparently that's not the case.

Who knew MN was such an educational site.

Alice I don't have hairspray. Maybe I should offer a shampoo & set instead.

Pigs I know more about spiders than I ever really wanted to, especially the ones at Thumbwitches house (do not google her spiders, just don't).

Am now waiting patiently for dusk so I can snap a stripus bastardicus (which I think are garden spiders, but again, with my ID skills could be a type of fast-moving fungus...)

Still no Isembard or BEAST.

The spindly ones move fast when you disturb their big wavy webs! I have a small colony of them in the hall which I tolerate because I can't reach the ceiling without ladders I once saw them gang up and eat one of the big gallopy fuckers.

THUMBWITCH! THUMBWITCH! WTF IS THIS PLEASE? HALP!