It's officially here--It's SPIDER season

[Mandate My Ass]

This summer I made a conscious effort to overcome my totally irrational fear of harmless house spiders. A few weeks ago I got back from vacation and found a five-foot spider web with its impressively-sized resident architect hanging between my dining room air conditioner and the antenna of my husband's car. He asked me if he should tear it down and kill the spider. I said no. Granted I've checked the seal between the window and air conditioner about 27 times a day since then, and I've given the web a very wide berth when taking out the trash or watering the garden.

Just now I was doing my weekly wash. I accidentally splashed fabric softener on the side of the washing machine a went to pick up a towel that had half fallen from the hamper and was draped on the floor. Sitting there was a huge dark gray speckled spider with at least five or six sections to each of his eight very long legs. So, his cruising speed was about 80 MPH by my reckoning. I let out a high-pitched screech and lifted the open fabric softener bottle high over my head and hammered it down bringing death to the spider while spraying gooey blue liquid all over myself and half the basement. My son, startled by the chaos, ran down the basement stairs and stood doubled over laughing for at least five minutes after he found out the cause.

Now I have to go to the store for the second time today to buy more fabric softener. I itch all over. I think I'll probably buy three cans of insecticide spray that will do nothing to keep spiders away but is probably highly carcinogenic and spray my entire house in the vain hope of eradicating spider alley (as I call my basement). There must be a twelve-step program for this somewhere. :cry:

[Raven]

1. Oh honey! I'm trying not to laugh at your account.

Get that spray and keep your distance from those pesky things! :-)

[MuseRider]

2. The hangy downs get me

I hate hangy downs! I have three beautiful Orb Spiders with big webs on my barn. I always watch them with interest then when it gets cold and they die I knock down the webs and egg sacks. Spiders are pretty cool as long as they don't hop out or HANG DOWN!

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

3. Hope you've managed to calm down!

As a landscaper, I used to be called upon to do irrigation system (sprinkler system) maintenance. The problem is-- irrigation control valves are usually buried below ground level in open plastic boxes, which in turn become perfect cool, dark, moist nesting spaces for spiders and such. I had to make it a point to carry a flashlight with me, because sticking my hand down into those dark holes was dangerous-- I came across more than a few black widow nests! As long as I could do my job okay it didn't matter. They are really beautiful creatures, and are entitled to their time and space as much as we. I just had to be cautious while working around them.

I once opened a water meter box that had a mama widow who had just hatched out a couple hundred or more itty bitty baby black widow children! Needless to say, I lowered the lid and did no work in that vicinity...

[LWolf]

4. I love spiders.

I welcome them, and they've never bothered me. We live in peaceful cooperation. I do clean up their webs a few times a year, making them start over. I don't put my hands or feet in dark places where they've been hanging out. I'd rather hang out with the spiders than the flies....

[Karenina]

5. YES, Monica

I, too, keep repeating to myself that the fear is irrational. At some point I'm sure I will be able to talk some sense into myself. Some weeks ago I was trolling through some "Spermüll" (people throw away wonderful stuff... got some crystal glasses, porcelain plates and other utilitarian items) however a HAUSSPINNE (as big as my hand, red-eyed, fangs, armed with an AK47) somehow hitched a ride and scurried under my fridge at 95 mph. I grabbed my duct tape and plastic sheeting and WALLED OFF the entire kitchen before going to buy some insect spray. Finally found a can which admonished me in big letters on the back NOT TO KILL USEFUL INSECTS UNNECESSARILY. Knowing it was trapped, the creature appeared on the plastic, at which point I ran SCREAMING to my downstairs neighbor who removed it from the premises but fussed at me about the karma of killing it. I'm not into killing them UNLESS THEY ARE IN MY FUCKING LIVING SPACE!!!!

A few days later, upon leaving my flat, I spied ANOTHER ONE on the wall of the stairwell. This time I ran SCREAMING to my upstairs who patiently took a glass and a piece of paper, captured it and tossed it out the window. A day later an EVEN BIGGER one installed herself on the far wall in the stairwell to the basement. I walked by her for DAYS, consoling myself that at least I knew where she was, meditating on the oneness of all beings each time I went out... Then she disappeared. I spotted her again under the railing of the basement stairs when our hausmeister was heading down there. HE simply plucked her up in his hand and deposited her outside. :shrug:

[Mandate My Ass]

6. HAUSSPINNE----eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekkk!

I know whereof you speak, Karenina. I'm now much calmer and feeling rather guilty about killing the (relatively) little speckled guy in my basement, but Jeebus H. Crispies, my whole body was flooded with adrenaline, fear and freaking instintive loathing.

Just to prove I'm not a total wuss, I often pick up worms, garter snakes and praying mantises (which freak my mother out as much as spiders do me) and move them away from our house or yard without batting an eyelash.

There must be a way I can learn to corner and capture the spiders indoors and let my menfolk deal with them rather than having the homicidal screaming meemies like I do now. One step at a time I guess.

Thanks for your input and sympathy, DUers.

[Karenina]

10. This is the weird part, eh?

I have NO PROBLEM with lizards or snakes, even poisonous ones... grab 'em by the back of the head, let 'em wrap themselves around my arm, or potato bugs or beetles. Aren't they sweet? But just let me see an arachnid bigger than a quarter and I go ballistic. :silly:

[scarlet_owl]

17. Same here.

I'm the daughter of an amateur herpetologist (sp?), and I have been handling snakes and other reptiles for 20 years. No animal bothers me except spiders. I have a horrible phobia of them. I can't see pictures of them in books without freaking out. In fact, I'd better stop typing now.

[short bus president]

7. Heh. Seeing spiders, are ya'?

Unless you feel them crawling under your skin, you can safely have another drink. ;-)

[Mandate My Ass]

8. Oh bite me, SBP!!!!

It's not the DT's I tell ya and I can prove it because I haven't stopped drinking since late August. So there. Mmmmmmmm Evercleer!

[short bus president]

9. maybe next summer at the beach

if you'll send Mr. Monica_L away for awhile...

:evilgrin:

[Mandate My Ass]

11. ROFL. I'm coming back to DU as Little Miss Muffet...

But I won't be munching on my curds and whey.... and you can't frighten me away. }(

[short bus president]

12. which begs the question...

what exactly will you be sitting on?

:evilgrin:

[Mandate My Ass]

13. an elongated flexible outgrowth

what else would Little Miss Muffet sit upon? :shrug:

Ooooh I've been so bad haven't I? Dangling a preposition like that? It's just so inexcusable......

[Karenina]

14. Just keep a can of Raid nearby.

.

[Elad]

15. I hear ya!

I'm totally arachnophobic - the damn things give me the creeps, and I freak out. I don't find the smaller ones any less scary, either - the smaller they are, the easier they can hide from me.

It's totally irrational but I can't seem to get over it. I think I'm making progress though - this year I've been growing some veggies in the garden, and when the bugs got real bad I found the spiders in the garden helpful to keep them under control, since I won't use pesticides.

But at any rate, it's funny you should post this, because two days ago I woke up to find this little bugger had made a home right outside my living room window. It's a little bigger than a quarter. I'm using it as therapy - letting it stay there for now, trying not to let it freak me out - since it IS outside... but it's tough. But hell, 2 days, and I haven't killed it/had someone get rid of it - that's progress I tell ya!

Check it out:

[Mandate My Ass]

20. Elad, that is one SCARY spider

I hope you have better luck with outdoor spider aversion therapy than I did. THe garden ones also don't freak me out nearly as bad as when I encounter one unexpectedly indoors.

You're peacefully cohabitating with that guy, huh? You're a better man than me. :-)

[Crewleader]

16. Oh Monica_L

We have alot of spiders here year around (Florida) and I know what it is like to get biten by one, I was raking leaves at my in-laws and scooping them up in lawn bags. This spider happen to be one of those brown ones that make ya deathly sick and it did me.

I had a high fever, both ends, no control and very weaken...my good friend put salt pork on the bite wound on my arm to suck out the poison, and it helped me recover but I thought I was going to die. I felt that bad for two days.

After that I had bought my old house which stood empty for seven years and guess what, the house was full of spiders, all kinds, shapes and sizes. Mostly covering the windows, it was quite the cleaning getting rid of them and you still get them from time to time but it's those big ones with the long legs that get me but it was a small brown one like the picture Elad showed that made me so sick. And in my yard is maples trees that need raking every winter.

Now when the leaves fall on the ground and it's raking time, I put good lays of clothes on with gloves and still get out there and do it!
It's gives me the creeps too, you are not alone friend!

And did I ever tell ya about the rattle snake by my feet while out on the back deck when I got my head in the deep freeze till I hear the rattles and stand back and notice the snake was right by my left foot,oh yeah that was a close one! :hi:

[Mandate My Ass]

22. Brown recluses can make you deathly ill

Be careful, CREW! They're nice and plump this time of year from eating the bugs all summer. That doesn't stop them from biting us humans though.

I know it's silly but sometimes I think they have evil intelligence. I've tried to convince myself they're just as scared of me as I am of them but they are BOLD, I tell ya. One ran right at me once and I'll never forget it. :scared:

Section_43 is proof of that because it bit him in his sleep.

[Section_43]

18. This should ease your fears...

I was tagged by a brown recluse two weeks ago. Deathly sick for 36 hours. I have no idea when I received the bite, more than likely while I was sleeping.

[Crewleader]

19. Sorry to hear that Section_43

That's what exactly the brown spider I got biten by...deathly sick is right, I didn't think I was going to make it either with a weak immune system but we did friend and hope no-one has to experience that horror.

Nice to meet you Section_43...:hi:

[bleedingheart]

21. I view them in the same light as lady bugs...they kill other pests

so I really don't mind them...

Now I got scared out of my mind by a harmless garden snake the other day...my husband was laughing up a storm about that one...