Spiders, spiders, so many spiders

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Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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S. Lanarkshire
It has been a rare drying day (as in a good day for drying washing) here. The lines have been filled, emptied and re-filled and every bed in the house has been stripped right down, washed and dried......but the spiders are everywhere.
Every blooming thing has to be shaken off, even my own clothing when I go out into the garden, and an opened window or door left for fresh air seems to be a golden invitation to the blighters to come in :sigh:

I am not feart of spiders, thankfully, but I don't like them in my house.
Usually it's a month from now before they're trying to come in and coorie down in some chosen hidden corner.
Why are they so blooming early this year ? Is the wildlife aware of something we're not quite seeing yet ?
Or has it just been a good year for them and there are a heck of a lot more than usual ?

M
 

Chainsaw

Native
Jul 23, 2007
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Yep were are the same, thought it was to do with a night time temp drop, drives the monsters indoors. Our cat deals with a lot of them, any survivors get put back outside (hopefully to come back in again!)
 

dwardo

Bushcrafter through and through
Aug 30, 2006
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All of our spider are called "bob" according to my little girl. I have tried my hardest to remove any fear of our many legged friends and I believe its working.. Although we do have to have to occasional "throw out" as spider space seems to be at a premium. :)
 

gra_farmer

Full Member
Mar 29, 2016
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Kent
All of our spider are called "bob" according to my little girl. I have tried my hardest to remove any fear of our many legged friends and I believe its working.. Although we do have to have to occasional "throw out" as spider space seems to be at a premium. :)
Same here, getting the girls / babies used to our eight legged friends.....thanks to pepper pig, they are called Mr skinny legs..
 
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Nice65

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Apr 16, 2009
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All of our spider are called "bob" according to my little girl. I have tried my hardest to remove any fear of our many legged friends and I believe its working.. Although we do have to have to occasional "throw out" as spider space seems to be at a premium. :)
Try living in a campervan on a farm for 4 months. We’ve built an entire ecosystem. :D

It’s very satisfying to bat a fly sideways (especially the ones that get on your food), and hear the trapped buzzing as one of our mates legs it out and fangs the little bugger. Even more fun when the Horseflies were out in force early June. Even the tiny spiders are fearless hunters, and none of them bother us at all. The flies are relentless and annoying, all hail the spiders.
 

chimpy leon

Full Member
Jul 29, 2013
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staffordshire
I personally like them, not so much the giant house ones it must be said - they cause all kinds of upset and anxiety with missus and daughter, and this time of year being next to fields I’m kept busy all night with the glass and cardboard.

The cats love them though - Just he other morning I woke to 3 dead house spider carcasses on the entry floor. Busy night!

Just a quick question:
Are we sure these house spiders don’t give a painful bite? I was moving some logs back in January and caught a particularly big one. I had not agitated it as it was slowly running free over my gloved hands, but I did notice as clear as day venom oozing from its fang. Very appreciative for the gloves as they do possess some quite large fangs.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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S. Lanarkshire
Just to the right hand side of my kitchen window there's a tool shed. It was build to fit the space at the end of the 3' wide slabbed path. Standing at the sink I can see the doorway of the shed, and there's a big fat looking spider, with striped legs, that has the most amazingly perfect web built across from the door jamb to the wall.
It's called Fred, and Fred catches a huge number of flying pests :)
He's sort of fun to watch, and will come to visit if you gently brush one of his guy lines.

Thing is though, Fred lives outside, and that's fine, but I don't want him inside, iimmc ?
I'm wondering just how big Fred is going to grow though, because he's at least tripled in size since May.
 

Dave Budd

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Jan 8, 2006
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On a similar note, i have some leather sleaves (not gloves, just sleaves) that i use when grinding and welding sometimes. I put one on today and wondered for a split second why my hand had so many fingers and then why it ran off on it's own accord!

Then my brain caught up and i realised there had been a humungous spider inside!
 

Cosimo Greco

New Member
Aug 4, 2022
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cosimogreco.com
This time of year when the temps drop, wolf spiders will venture indoors. Last year, I had a full-blown invasion. They were behind my bedside table as I tried to sleep, ran in when I opened the door, and one even crawled out of the bathroom keyhole and gently touched my hand as I opened the door handle. About 3cm long bodies (and a whole lot bigger with the legs). If they're brown/grey, big and don't make nets, rather run along the floor, it might be them. Peppermint and lemon keeps them away, as does hoovering.

They hunt at night and are attracted to the light, btw. One or two of them to keep the other bugs in line is all right, but at the end of August, beginning of September, they all want to come in from the cold. Especially if you live next to the edge of the woods.
 

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