Spiders - big hairy fellas

kaiphas

Hi,

I've noticed in the last week or so a few really big spiders around my house. Also my g/f has noticed a massive increase in spiders in the last few days in her own house (haven't managed to put tippex marks on them to see if it's the same fella playing tricks).

I presume it's the weather that is driving them indoors. Anybody any ideas on (1)how to keep them out of the house (2) how to get rid of them when they get it (standing on them is a last resort as the splat they leave is fairly massive.

Cheers

blondie83

Yeah we've had loads of them in our house recently as well. At first we just put them back outside, but they kept coming back in so we had to resort to using the hoover on them. It's a good way to get rid of spiders if you don't want the messiness of splatting them :cool:

tk123

This was in the corridor in work today - my friend freaked out and made me "walk her thru the door" a bunch of time cos she was too scared to walk by herself. I tried to catch it in a cup and release it into the wild but it ran under the door and is now living in this indoor garden thing in work - it'll prob lay eggs and take over the building ala Arachnaphobia(sp?) :eek: I'm sure he came out of some pcs we got in last week from Germany. We got a few hundred last year and those spiders where everywhere!!!!!!

kaiphas

whoa - thats one big mf!!

jesus_thats_gre

kaiphas wrote:

whoa - thats one big mf!!

mf = mutha ****a = mother ****er!

Tusky

I was gonna make a post about this today , They are not only big spiders but they seem to be a different type. A type I have never seen in Ireland cept in the last month or so. They are really big , low to the ground and really really fast. Also they have v.big fangs... At first I thought they were only in a friends hosue ( ive seend at least 6 different spiders of the same type there in the last few weeks ) but two days ago I saw one in my own house...weird.

Tusky

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

mf = mutha ****a = mother ****er!

...... what ?

bombidol

yeah seen a few of those bad boys myself, they are feckin huge man

OY

That picture is the only type of spider that i hate. My wifre FREAKS out when around anything spiderlike but those are wierd. they are fast...real fast and i think that that is the problem.

last week there was a similar horror on our wall and i grabbed a glass and some cardboard to trap it in. So i am in pure stealth mode and sneaking up on this beast and all of a sudden i feel one run across my bare foot, when isay i felt it i mean i saw it in my mind, all legs and hair racing across my exposed foot. I FROZE and was so freaked out that i could not look down, could not do anything except stand there. My whole body tensed up and it was only after taking a deep breath and composing myself i realised i was wearing my worn jeans and it was a stray string as i stepped that ran across the top of my foot.

I have yet to tell my wife because in our household i have to be the spider catcher and i do not want to inspire a lack of confidence but i can honestly hold my hand on my heart and say there have been few times in life that i have been seriously spooked like that.

Just thought i would share this story here because it was that exact spider that i was creeping up on. I hate those b****rds!

Nemesis

I had to deal with 5 of these critters in the last week.
One in sink...one in Bath...one in middle of hallway..and one ran by my shoulder on the sofa..thats only 4 isnt it.:).
Anyway I asked my sister and she has seen them in her house recently too.

Anyone know a wildlife type guy that uses boards to get some info on these big mutthas!.

I too was going to post here tonight and ask did anyone else notice these Spiders.
A girl at work told me her father used to pick these bad boys up with his hand to throw them outside...
He doesnt pick them up anymore...Ever since he was Bitten on the hand by one...!!!!!
Arghhhh!!...

Nemesis.

Cake Fiend

I've come across one or two of these manky little (big) bastards. We used to get loads of spiders when I lived in an old house in Rathfarnham, but luckily they were usually the little spindly ones instead of the big hairy feckers.

I'm arachnophobic BTW... :eek:

impr0v

I'm glad to see this thread, our house is plagued with them, the same as in the picture. We were thinking of abandoning ship and letting the landlord deal with them. Wtf is with them? I've never seen that type before this summer, now they're appearing unannounced at night and look like mice out of the corner of one's eye they are that big. I examing all the corners of the kitchen and found about 7 of them, they're almost invisible until they get to scary size, so they grow up in peace.

I heard today that apparantly it's mating season, the female spider lives indoors while the big black males live outdoors during the year but at this time they go to their usual places to swap fluids.

luckat

No wonder it's raining - people all over Dublin must be killing spiders, poor little beasties.

If you want to know what it is, ask the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club - www.dnfc.net. (By the way, they also do an annual Fungus Hunt, for those interested in such things.)

BrianD3

The spiders people are seeing are most likely big house spiders such as Tegenaria gigantea They are pretty harmless but can startle people due to their size (I've seen one which must have been 4-5 inches across) and the speed they move at.

BrianD3

l3rian

all the spiders are coming into the dry

ive had 5 in my room lately, i use those pc mags to squash them

one was the size of a cd, it freaked me out, so i let my dog deal with it

Hello Kitty

I really hate spiders especially big ones, luckly enough i havent seen any big ones in my house but i have seen small ones....
I hate when there in the bath or anywhere in the bathroom.:mad:

Ive been noticing that theres loads of daddy long legs and wasps!
What i usually do is just grab any kind of spray bottle and just spray anything i see moving until its drowned!!! :eek:

grimloch

yeah these huge yokes bombing it across the floor is some sight, house is ''crawling'' with them, ive had to engage a few in combat in the past few days, my holiday home in galway was much worse though, 2 a day were assisanated at least

shocking...

Capt'n Midnight

Yeah've seen a few

Are they Wolf spiders ? - active hunters, don't sit around waiting by a web.

Hello Kitty

Now arent we lucky that spiders this size dont live in Ireland... :eek:

Stark

We get the same spiders tk123's posted in his/her attached image all the time in my house. I'm paranoid there's a nest somewhere They can move pretty quickly too

Capt'n Midnight

That's a coin not a saucer

How about this little beauty
Japanese Spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi); fully grown it can reach a leg span of almost 4 meters (13 feet), a body size of up to 37 cm (15 inches) and a weight of up to 20 kg (44 pounds).

Link to wolf spider
http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/factsheets/wolfspid.html

BrianD3

They're definitely not wolf spiders, wolf spiders are smaller.
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/insidewolf.html

More info about house spiders here:
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/bathtub.html
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/comein.html

BrianD3

weemcd

ive noticed a lot of daddy long legs and spiders this year, the long legs annoy me more because they are noisy clumsy ****ers, i can live with the spiders ok

tk123

I don't have any bugs in my house like that - well any I can see anyways cos I have my kitty trained to kill them all!!! I just point and the offending bug and say LOOOOOK and make a sisssss sound and he'll come running over to see what i'm pointing at...then he kills them for me!!! :cool: :cool: :cool:

Repli

I just grab them and throw them out the window.. what are they gonna do - kill u?

grimloch

tk123 wrote:

I don't have any bugs in my house like that - well any I can see anyways cos I have my kitty trained to kill them all!!! I just point and the offending bug and say LOOOOOK and make a sisssss sound and he'll come running over to see what i'm pointing at...then he kills them for me!!! :cool: :cool: :cool:

my puppy does the same hehe, he just stands on them

hopefully this spider invasion will cease soon as its getting a bit annoying to have to exterminate one at least every day

Hello Kitty

tk123 wrote:

I don't have any bugs in my house like that - well any I can see anyways cos I have my kitty trained to kill them all!!! I just point and the offending bug and say LOOOOOK and make a sisssss sound and he'll come running over to see what i'm pointing at...then he kills them for me!!! :cool: :cool: :cool:

ahhh thats what my cats do, i point at the spider and make it move so it catches their attention and they paw at it, but they never actually kill it i always have to do that!!!

snickerpuss

Yeh there was a huge spider in my sitting room the other day.
Im not normally so scared but it was the fact that it was so damn fast that freaked me out.
Also it was heading straight towards me.
Eeeeeeeeee.

BrianD3

The reason people are seeing lots of big spiders right at the moment is because this is the time of year that male house spiders go on the prowl for a mate.

House spiders have not come in from outside because of cold weather etc. They actually live in your house all year round, hiding in various places.

Putting a house spider outside instead of killing it doesn't do the spider any good. It will die pretty quickly outside as its natural habitat is indoors.

BrianD3

Hello Kitty

BrianD3 wrote:

The reason people are seeing lots of big spiders right at the moment is because this is the time of year that male house spiders go on the prowl for a mate.

House spiders have not come in from outside because of cold weather etc. They actually live in your house all year round, hiding in various places.

Putting a house spider outside instead of killing it doesn't do the spider any good. It will die pretty quickly outside as its natural habitat is indoors.

BrianD3

So just save it from a cold painfull death by squishing it straight away.

BrianD3

Nah, don't squish 'em. Big spider = big mess when squished Leave them be, they are good to have in the house as they feed on beetles, earwigs etc. If you're unfortunate enough to have cockroaches in your house, the spiders will eat those too.

One more tip: don't sleep with your mouth open when you've got house spiders :eek: hahaha

BrianD3

Karl Hungus

Funnily enough I had a journal entry about my desk being under seige by spiders a while back, but right now they've completely backed off. Dunno where they're gone. Maybe all those mad ones you all seem to be seeing are my lads, buggered off and grown up a bit?

Tell 'em I said hi.

elivsvonchiaing

BrianD3 wrote:

Nah, don't squish 'em. Big spider = big mess when squished Leave them be, they are good to have in the house as they feed on beetles, earwigs etc. If you're unfortunate enough to have cockroaches in your house, the spiders will eat those too.

One more tip: don't sleep with your mouth open when you've got house spiders :eek: hahaha

BrianD3

I know a girl who threw out a pair of shoes after squishing a spider. Banana leaf spider. Thank fcuk we don't get them in this country - big as yer head (legs)- body about size of creme egg - yeurgh!

pork99

Some lovely pictures here

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/Spiders/Agelenidae/Agelenidae.htm

Theres 11 sub-species of Tegenaria (House Spider) in Europe, our remote caveman ancestors brought them with them from the caves.

Check out the one that was too big to go into jar. :eek:

Apparently we are lucky to have the Tegenaria Gigantea as the alternative species, common in parts of the US, is the Tegenaria Agrestis or Hobo Spider. It bites and this is what the bite looks like;

http://www.srv.net/~dkv/hobospider/poison.html

sci0x

Take a look at these guys. Imagine finding one of these in the bath...

pork99

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

That's a coin not a saucer

How about this little beauty
Japanese Spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi); fully grown it can reach a leg span of almost 4 meters (13 feet), a body size of up to 37 cm (15 inches) and a weight of up to 20 kg (44 pounds).

http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/factsheets/wolfspid.html

Yes but thats a crab therefore a crustacean not a spider?

The Megarachne servinei was thought to be the biggest spider ever but "but is now thought more likely to represent another type of spider-like ancient arachnid". It would have had a leg span of 20"

http://www.amonline.net.au/spiders/diversity/what/largest.htm

Sugarbear

The spiders you are all seeing are totally normal house spiders.
They are just a few of the many different species of house spider all of which are harmless.
If we didn’t have house spiders we'd have tons of beetles, flies, centipedes and all the other ugly creatures running around so it's not all bad.
The only reason people are noticing them now is because of the odd weather we've had this summer, which brings an increase in all the other nasty bugs, and to spiders, this means feast time! So they naturally get bigger.
I estimate the one I seen in the kitchen the other night to have been about 2 inches, which is HUGE, but still normal.
Ohh and the spiders you see running across the living room at 2 am are actually hunting spiders and usually lay dormant in the morning.
There’s nothing you can really do to keep spiders from coming into the home, but having a pet dog or cat usually keeps the amount of them at bay.
Once the winter season comes in, there wont be many left, so you all have something to look forward to this miserable winter eh?

Pyr0

OMG!!!! was just reading the thread when i looked down at a runner that was on the ground and the laces were tied a certain way,that they looked like one of those huge spiders! :eek:

sci0x

Paranoid!

davej

I was just forced to dispose of a daddy-long-legs because it kept crashing into the monitor.

Not really in the same league as the professional spider hunters in this thread i guess..

davej

munkeehaven

i used to have a spider for a pet when i was younger (as a compensationf for animals)..well one day it had this weird ball of what looked like cotton..i had it on my windowsill in box and i used to feed it daily with flies and other insects..one day the fluffball kind of fell apart and all these minute spiders came out of it..i was thrilled.anyway spiders are lovely little things.they are really cool to watch when they are feeding.its mad the way they can feel the slightest vibration going through the web, and how they wrap the critters up in their cocoon thingys.did you know that the same length of spider web is stronger than an equal length of steel wire??..they are some cool eight legged freaks i tells ya .

Suaimhneach

The only time I freek out by a spider is if it's IN the bath or shower while I am. Otherwise they don't bother me. There is a HUGE one living under the fish tank in my mates house.

But your right Munkeehaven, tehy are interesting to watch. The ones that live on the ceiling in my bathroom entertain me while I shower.... They a web like an inch below the ceiling, rather than just walking on teh ceiling.

I don;t mind daddy long legs, I just pick them up and let them out the window.

I HATE centipedes though. And earwigs. UGh....only things that freek me out.

munkeehaven

it defintely is a learned response to be afraid of spiders,snakes,etc. young babies will have no problem being around a crawling snake or surrounded by wriggly ants, but as a child gets older it sees the reponses of others and begins to have the same irrational fear that they show (obviously snakes are a rational fear if they are poisonous).

JackKelly

i hate you all.im now going to have to take my bed away from the wall, check under ,around, inside, outside, beside, on top of, in the covers , outside the covers, on the covers and under the pillow.I dont want any of those biatches near me!

Tusky

TimAy wrote:

i hate you all.im now going to have to take my bed away from the wall, check under ,around, inside, outside, beside, on top of, in the covers , outside the covers, on the covers and under the pillow.I dont want any of those biatches near me!

On average three spiders crawl over your face every night - we also eat about a half dozen spiders in our sleep in a lifetime !


some info - House spiders colonize new houses by egg sacs carried on furniture, building materials and so forth. They usually spend their entire life cycle in, on or under their native building. If a large number appear at a specific season, it is usually late summer (August and September) -- not a notably cold time of year! -- rather than fall, and their appearance coincides with the mating season of the given species. What you are seeing is sexually mature males wandering in search of mates.

pork99

Sugarbear wrote:

They are just a few of the many different species of house spider all of which are harmless.

Did you look at the photo of the spider bite I linked to above? You should say mostly harmless.

The Hobo Spider is a variety of Tegenaria or House Spider, in this country they're mostly found outdoors or in derelict buildings as the Tegenaria Gigantea (which doesn't have a poisonous bite) has displaced them indoors (as far as I can find out from the internet anyway).

In its native Europe the hobo spider is a resident of fields, rarely entering human habitations due to the presence of major competitors, particularly the giant house spider, Tegenaria gigantea, which is a common resident of houses and other man-made structures in Europe; thus, human contacts with the hobo spider are uncommon in Europe.

http://hobospider.org/story.html

I'm not an expert on spider identification, as far as I can find out all varieties of Tegenaria look very similiar, therefore I would never pick one up.

Non-hobo agelenid spiders are also important as "look-alike" species to the hobo. Some species are very difficult for the untrained eye to distinguish from the hobo spider, and many non-arachnologist "hobo spider" identifications ultimately turn out to be other Tegenaria species or other members of the family Agelenidae.

http://www.srv.net/~dkv/hobospider/european.html

Hello Kitty

Tusky wrote:

On average three spiders crawl over your face every night - we also eat about a half dozen spiders in our sleep in a lifetime ! [/i]

Okay thats disgusting.... im sure id wake up if something was crawling on my face, actually id get up and run!!

But are they still alive in your stomach??? :eek:

Sarky

For a little while.

pork99

Tusky wrote:

On average three spiders crawl over your face every night - we also eat about a half dozen spiders in our sleep in a lifetime !

Disgusting! What's your source for that? I can only assume that applies to smaller spiders. One of the big hairy carpet monsters would choke you surely?

pork99

Myth: You unknowingly swallow an average of four live spiders in your sleep each year.

Fact: This very widespread urban legend has no basis in fact. It exists in various forms; another common version is that you swallow an average of 20 in your lifetime. (At 4 per year, that would make a very short lifetime of 5 years...) For a sleeping person to swallow even one live spider would involve so many highly unlikely circumstances that for practical purposes we can rule out the possibility. No such case is on formal record anywhere in scientific or medical literature.

http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/spidermyth/myths/whileyousleep.html

The myth of swallowing spiders in your sleep is simply that – a myth. Like most arthropods, spiders flee from warm air (i.e. your breath). Therefore, in order for a spider to get into your mouth, you would have to have it open, there would have to be a wandering spider near you and it would have to fall from a distance into your mouth. It is possible, by some anomaly of nature to swallow a spider; however, you can sleep easy knowing it is very unlikely.

http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/2002/November/7/Campus_and_Culture5.htm

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm

Sarky

You'd be surprised how well you swallow in your sleep.