Anyone else in Sheffield being plaqued by house spiders ? Not just the little ones, huge big things which run like Linford Christie..

Someone told me if you kill one, you get loads more appearing for the funeral?

Its probably true :( As we're getting hundreds of them..

spiders hate the smell of cloves. if you get some clove oil from the chemist and add a few drops to some water and spray it everywhere they hate it
iv just come back from holiday and the house is full of the big buggers iv got to get spraying!

ive got an army of them,used clove oil and tea tree,they work,i try not to kill them but ,its survival of the fittest:lol:

Yes, we had one during the week then another 3 yesterday. Not half as bad as what we see back in Australia but still too big for me.

Any ideas why the onset of them??

Cheers,
MissyB

I put it down to the warmer than, dryer than normal summer. Plus an abundance of food - caused by the aforementioned weather conditions..

oh dear i hope they dont reach rotherham or ill go absolutely mad. Youve got me really worried now ill be up all night watching out for them.

Iv'e been troubled by them for 27 yrs and I hate the horrible things, so it's not the warm weather that is bringing mine, they must like living in this area!!!

Yes I have lots of them too. They are very fast at spinning webs too. No sooner have I cleared one there is another. A couple of weeks ago my son woke in the night to find one crawling across his face. Horror of horrors.

Originally posted by halevan
Iv'e been troubled by them for 27 yrs and I hate the horrible things, so it's not the warm weather that is bringing mine, they must like living in this area!!! LOL.......Try moving to Wybourn Hal, they won't follow you there.

LOL... am afraid they will follow you to Wybourn, and to Manor, our house is full of em and so is my sister's! My niece who's 2 loves watching em! She always shouts "Dad, get me a cup!"
LOL
Chloé

Must be something about Longley. I keep getting the big ones as well, Scare my wife senseless!

Originally posted by speeder
Must be something about Longley. I keep getting the big ones as well, Scare my wife senseless! I live in Longley to but have no problem with spiders.
Just out of interest is your username of some relevance to your lifestyle, interests or something.

For info...they're called Wolf spiders and they grow bigger than the garden spiders that we are used to.

I have them too, and they are always worse at this time of year.

Explain about the cloves please, and tell me, when they leave me because of the smell of cloves, where will they go?

Back under the floor, or next door, or what? Will they really go away or just retreat a bit?

Shudder

I hope they're not really wolf spiders cos I saw one of them in a museum in Australia and it was the size of my fist and very hairy!! I seem to have lots of black and white ones which jump when you try to kill them - very freaky!! I live on the top floor though so I don't get the harvest-like ones!!

Originally posted by The Cycleracer
I live in Longley to but have no problem with spiders.
Just out of interest is your username of some relevance to your lifestyle, interests or something.

Love motorsports and driving fast(in the right places! ie; not on the estates)

Hope that helps

I used to have a cellar full of wolf spiders at a flat back in Barnsley. It was an old converted victorian house and they had built a rather large nest on the meat slab in the cellar.

Generally I leave them alone but if they start getting too big for their boots then they is done for!!!

Don't ever try to kill one of those wolf spiders they are annoying critters.
I tried bleach it kept moving, flushing it down the plug hole - it climbed back up. I eventually found that a few hits with a rubber hammer did the trick eventually.

For the smaller ones I like hairspraying them to their webs!!

All of the above involve not touching them

We haven't got many house spiders I suspect they know my methods of extraction. But the garden spiders I have seen round here are fantastically BIG!!!

I have been told stories about the spiders in Oz. I am always worried about them being in our bedroom at night - our ozzy friend said it was okay with the spiders back home because you could here where in your room they were :o

*tap tap tap*

Moon

What a bunch of shameless arachnophobes you all are. Spiders are our friends, and without them we would be plagued by flying and crawling insects in numbers you simply cannot imagine.

Moon, for someone who holds the planet and her children in such high esteem, I am especially surprised at your inventiveness when it comes to dispatching them.

I love spiders because they are so different, and really, in this country, there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Most spiders are actually less than 2mm big, and go laregly unnoticed by most people.

Wolf spiders in this country rarely reach more than 5-7mm, and the orb spiders, (the big web spinners in the garden) can grow to over 10mm.

Tegeneria Gigantica is the most common house spider, and it spins a funnel web to catch crawling insects, and victorian terraced houses are a dream environment for it. I have personally captured a specimen that was 14mm from fangs to spinarets.

Let's hear it for spiders, our eight legged friends!

5-7 mm ?

Then these things are twice that at least! Perhaps I should call someone in the next time I catch one - they are really aggressive too....had I in a jar and it kept bouncing all over the place..

The cat deals with them fine, if not, then what do you think the Yellow Pages is for? Slide it across the floor as if you're throwing a curling stone and flatten 'em against the skirting boards!

Originally posted by The Cycleracer
LOL.......Try moving to Wybourn Hal, they won't follow you there.


Are you sure cycleracer? you wouldn't lead me wrong would you? as a Forum member you could not ever be forgiven if you did!!!

Moon, for someone who holds the planet and her children in such high esteem, I am especially surprised at your inventiveness when it comes to dispatching them.

It is survival of the fitest mate. As a witch I revere nature - no one said I had to help it

Moon Maiden

Originally posted by Internetowl
5-7 mm ?

Then these things are twice that at least! Perhaps I should call someone in the next time I catch one - they are really aggressive too....had I in a jar and it kept bouncing all over the place..
Tegeneria Gigantica, common house spider, brown with darker markings on back, long legs, runs like buggery - anything up to 15mm long with visible blood red fangs.

wolf spiders are the little ones that jump. If you have a 15mm long wolf spider you need to take apic for me or look it up to see what it is.

Wolf spiders tend to have short legs drawn into the body and a very compact form factor, whereas giganticas have long legs for running, so they can comfortably sit astride a 50p piece without standing on it.

when you say the size of your spider is 10-15mm you are just talking about the body, not the legs right?


Moon- survival of the fittest? Come on. These things don't threaten you, it's just an irrational fear of things with too many legs. Live and let live, it's not like they are unhygeinic, dangerous or venomous. THEY CAN'T HURT YOU!!:)

Hey, leave the poor spiders alone, you lot. Kill 'em all off and next you'll be wowing because of all the other bugs infesting your houses.
If the charlotte's too big for you to be comfortable with, pop a glass over him/her, slide it over some paper, and take it outside. If you keep finding them in the bath, put some kind of makeshift ladder in there and they will make themselves scarce.
Didn't your grandparents ever tell you it's terribly bad luck to kill a spider?

It's not an infestation. It's the right time of year for spiders...although phan could prob'ly tell you in more detail, I believe all the wee baby spiders have grown up now into bigger spiders. It's an active time of year for them, and with colder nights drawing in, you're bound to see more.

ps...'charlotte' = big spider with a personality all it's own. From Charlotte's Web. :D

Spiders are okay but i could not eat a full one

fear??? possibly. I have no desire to wake up with one crawling across my face. They should know their place which is under my foot if they even dare!

Hurt........hmmmmmm lets see it depends where they decide to camp for the night does it not??

Moon

if we were smaller than spiders and went into their webs theyd kill us so when i shout for someone to get rid of them for me i dont feel too bad about it.

has anyone tried this device out?

http://www.buyabugbuster.com/products/listProds.asp?catID=1

its a spider vacuum thing, it just vacuums them safely then you can throw them out afterwards.... it seems quite good, there is a video on the site... im actually thinking of ordering it, unles i can get something like this from any shops in sheffield?

i had a sleepless night lastnight..i feel so crap today... a massive spider was crawling at the side of my bed.... i had to sleep inm the other room.... i feel so messed up right now...

hee hee, a battery operated pooter.

make your own here http://www.learn.co.uk/glearning/primary/lessons/ks2/habitats1/default.asp


If you dont like spiders, you might be interested in one of these (http://www.netheredge.com/macros/pages/B0003401_edited.html)

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

If you dont like spiders, you might be interested in one of these (http://www.netheredge.com/macros/pages/B0003401_edited.html)

Couldn't trust anything with eyes that close together.....is that a UK model ?

Originally posted by Greybeard
Couldn't trust anything with eyes that close together.....is that a UK model ?

It is indeed - Tegeneria Gigantica, aka the common house spider.

It depends which eyes you are referring to. The reason they are enlarged is to show the light reflecting off the spiders 'retinas' - arachnoid red-eye!

We have been getting lots of big spiders in the house over the last few weeks, I've noticed that they tend to come in to homes when its going to rain. Luckily I never have to kill them once they see the cat and the 20 month spider destroyer there off!.
But they do seem to be getting bigger there was a huge Gigantica scary beastie in our bath the other week I'd say its body was about 8-10 mm and its legs were soooo long. I think insects generally are getting larger maybe its all down to climate change

Well, although spiders aren't insects :) , I think you are right. As it gets damper and warmer (which seems to be the trend) there is an increase in the rate and amount of microbial activity - right at the foot of the food chain. I've seen some very plump looking spiders indeed recently, fattened no doubt on the profusion of insects and other arthropods about the place.

I think spiders are fascinating creatures. I used to collect any big house spiders and put them in my room so they could make a web and catch flys. It's strange that people are so scared of something so harmless. Friends have said that their main fear is a spider wandering into their mouth at night. In that situation I think it would be the spider that gets the rough end of the stick, it certainly wouldn't do any damage to us, in fact we probably wouldn't even wake up to notice.
I wonder which process in our mind decides whether something is nice or nasty. Why do we look at a kitten which, with sharp claws and teeth can do far more damage than any British spider, and think 'aww, how cute!'

Originally posted by The Zeppelin
The cat deals with them fine, if not, then what do you think the Yellow Pages is for? Slide it across the floor as if you're throwing a curling stone and flatten 'em against the skirting boards!

ROFL!!!

I employ the method of dropping said Yellow Pages from a great height - cos the thud it makes as it hits the spider on the floor masks the crunch the spider makes as it gets squished!!

Although might try your method next time!!

Following on from my previous post, I wonder how many people that intentionally kill spiders or any other insect would do the same to an animal. Last year I was at a friends house in France; outside was a bunch of wasps busy building a nest. It was interesting to watch as the wasps didn't bother us at all, they just kept themselves to themselves building their nest. However, my friend thought it was reasonable to kill all of them with some kind of wasp killer spray type thing. As she was a vegan I asked her how she found it acceptable to kill them for no apparent reason. she gave no answer. This annoyed me as she would frequently preach to us about being a vegan and the moral issues involved.
I wonder, are there any other vegan/vegetarians out there that would have no qualm killing insects/spiders just because they aren't cute and fluffy?

I agree Andy.

And how many also kill slugs, greenfly etc in order to protect their veggies?

We all kill several million insects accidentally underfoot every time we go on a country stroll, but to kill them intentionally just because we 'don't like them' or 'are scared of them' is a bit unreasonable.

I think I have the mother of all spiders in my cellar. Its way bigger and thicker of leg than the normal BIG spiders. It has unusual black legs and a black pattern on its brown body.. It scared the life of out me when I cleared my cellar out..

I was so impressed by its size I couldn't kill it. Anyone know what type of spider it is.. ? It looked almost tropical in origin! Like a bitey poisonous one...

I have a fear of spiders, but my new house (building site at the mo) is SO full of different types of the beasties that I can't be too precious about it anymore!

I'm trying to learn to like them.

We get lots of spiders in the house, I think they just spend the summer in the Wisteria etc. on the house and come in for Winter.
I don't mind them as long as they don't scuttle towards me, or run across the carpet at night when you are watching TV.

Reading this thread has made the hairs stand up on my arms,

Lets hope they don't find their way to the otherside of sheffield cos I should have to leave home.

I can only get rid of them wih the vac extension, keeping them at as far away as I can. Then if they escape I run away.

Hazel

AAAARGH! Scarey stuff. We've had a few and thankfully the other half flattened a massive one while I was out.
There was a relatively small one galloping across my pillow a couple of weeks ago, needless to say I was petrified and had trouble sleeping.
I don't know why I'm afraid of them but a phobia is described in the dictionary as an irrational fear, something uncontrolled. Therefore I do not feel obliged to try and like them since I can't control my fear and will be employing the phone book technique at the earliest opportunity. Hairspray works but we don't have much in our house. I leave my trainers all over the house so I generally have one on hand and I also have two murderous moggies who occasionally help out.
Just need some clove oil and I'll be sorted!

Originally posted by Zebra
AAAARGH! Scarey stuff. We've had a few and thankfully the other half flattened a massive one while I was out.
There was a relatively small one galloping across my pillow a couple of weeks ago, needless to say I was petrified and had trouble sleeping.
I don't know why I'm afraid of them but a phobia is described in the dictionary as an irrational fear, something uncontrolled. Therefore I do not feel obliged to try and like them since I can't control my fear and will be employing the phone book technique at the earliest opportunity. Hairspray works but we don't have much in our house. I leave my trainers all over the house so I generally have one on hand and I also have two murderous moggies who occasionally help out.
Just need some clove oil and I'll be sorted!

I too have a serious Phobia of them... I bought myself a second hoover when i moved to Sheffield (not that i have my own place lol yet!) so i can keep one upstairs and one down... Also like you in my previous house i always kept shoes of some sort near to hand if not already on my feet :lol:

I hate them... unfortunately due to my phobia i tend to suffer with my breathing and clamy hands when i spot a biggen...

When i was younger we used have names for them (i know but i was young lol) Big black/brown onces were freddies... Or should it be of the same colour an a tad smaller that would be Mrs Freddy lol Then you had the little strippy ones that jump should you try and kill em they were called spiderlings lol i know its totally crazy... but at least Dad would know what he was to expect when either Me or my sister shouted out to him lol 'Dad! theres a Freddy in my bedroom' hehehehe :lol:

I hate May/June thats when they all come out of their hidding places to go outside then September/October time they all come back in again ewwwwwww.... why? :rant: go find ya own place :razz:

Fact: A regular house hold has 500 spiders.... We swallow 7/8 Spiders a year....

Think i'm gonna have nightmares tonight now i have shared all that knowledge... :suspect:

The seven or eight spiders thing I knew about, the 500 bit - AAARGH! I'm going to Meadowhell to live in a perspex box free of spids!

Some other devices have already been posted to get rid of spiders. I've got this one:

http://www.lakelandlimited.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/GBP/DisplayProductInformation-Start;sid=rLEbylQIGLlQ9hVVO8gXzPzIYNRiKrOk-o8=?ProductID=L0jCy5OSqrUAAADmKWW3SAvJ

And you can order on-line (good service too). A tenner may seem like a lot to get rid of the odd spider but take it from me it really works! I'm not too keen on letting my cats play with a spider and this device won't kill it. It may not work with REALLY BIG spiders though but luckily I don't seem to get them (..quickly looks round to check...)

Originally posted by Angel05
Fact: A regular house hold has 500 spiders.... We swallow 7/8 Spiders a year....

Think i'm gonna have nightmares tonight now i have shared all that knowledge... :suspect: [/B]

Aarrgghh no, Angel, I didn't need to know that!
(:)) That's gross!! :gag: I'm not going to sleep tonight!!

I hate spiders with their huge long legs and the horrible way they scuttle around - there's just something about the way they move that freaks me out.

I never kill them or anything cos I'd feel awful - I just don't want them coming anywhere near me!!

StarSparkle (with a shudder) :)

Yes, seen one or two around,but have just read on Teletex that some Council Authority is daubing them on their Urinal walls to encourage better aiming. Now, theres an idea. Tough for the women though. Tets

I hate spiders, i have a massive phobia of them. A few years ago my boss at that time came up to me and asked me to put my hand out and close my eyes, fool that i was i did just that and he dropped a very large horrible spider into it. I`m surprised i kept my job as i totally freaked and almost battered him to death. We did have a tarrantula as a pet years ago and strangely as i got used to it it didn`t bother me at all, in fact i grew very fond of harriet and used to spend hours making different houses for her out of green oasis and cleaning out the tank etc. She was facinating to watch and the tank was very decorative. I think that as she was slow moving and i knew she couldn`t escape thats the reason i could cope, i used to sit up all night at moulting time to watch absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. Our cat couldn`t care less about the horrors running around the house and i think as it gets colder they all try to get indoors for warmth. As they move so quickly and are so big i`ve found the perfect thing, my dyson!! out comes the wand on goes the hoover and i can get as far away as possible and still watch em get sucked down the tube ans see em go round and round in the clear bin. I wouldn`t have it any other way.

I personally dont mind spiders!
BUT ****ing wasps - now there is a pain in the arse!

Why do people always say-
'If you dont bother them- they wont hurt you'

When they ****ing well do!

Kill them all I say

Agree on the wasps thing, though i have never been stung that i know of. :D

Spiders i don't mind, they get left to roam, though the cats will sometimes find them interesting. The only time they are evicted is if they are in the bedroom.

Remember when i first moved in with Nomme i found a tarantula in the tub in the freezer, :o , cant remember why it was there but there was a reason. Mind you we did have a hamster in there at one time too :suspect: that was awaiting burial at Fletch's dads.

I've never been stung by a wasp or a bee but I have a total fear of them both.

I'm just at the stage now where I can capture a bee and put it out of the house, but wasps I'm tempted to reach for something to spray or whack them with.....but wherever posisble I try and shoo them out.

My greatest feat of stupidity re. bees was when one got itself in the lamp shade in our bedroom. It wouldn't move and it was bed time. There was no way I was sleeping with that horrible furry flying stinging machine in there.....so......

I turned off the light, used wire cutters to cut the wire and threw the shade out of the bedroom window. I did have the presence of mind to open the window first...

And the following day I replaced the light fitting...:)

Spiders I'm OK with.

Joe

oh i just love what you did with the lampshade!!!!!!:D i thought i was the only one to do things like that!

I was just pleased that I remembered to turn off the power and open the windows....:)

Spiders, I love 'em.

Just two furry, four eyed dogs stuck together, but with only one mouth to feed and one backside to clean. (and they don't lick your face when they've done it!)

They're all called 'Harry' in our house. (The wife's idea, not mine you understand)!

Fascinating creatures. Easily replaceable pets, and vets bills are negligible.

Let's hear it for the spider :clap:

Well I like spiders. The get a really bad press. I even like the big monster ones. I don't understand why so many people are scared of them - it's very rarely an actual phobia (people say it is, but they're uncommon), and why indeed would so many people have an irrational fear of the same thing? It being an irrational fear, surely people should be scared of many different things. I reckon it's socialization.