I facilitated a horrendous murder today...

[xRIEx]

Gaz. said:

xRIEx said:

Gaz. said:

... a false widow ... a poisonous spider that large

How big was it? It may not have been a false widow, they're not that big, about 1.5cm in body length at the largest.

Sorry, large as in a full size adult female. Living in this house of horrors I am an anorak when it comes to spiders. People dismiss these critters like they mind their own business and a bit is like a nettle sting- they hide in shoes & laundary (and your bed) and the poison can lead to necrosis (I know of two cases, one is mentioned in wiki, the other is a relation). You wouldn't go to sleep with a hornet in your bedroom would you?

That description sounds more like the brown recluse (hiding in clothes, etc.). I'm not aware of any steatoda bite causing necrosis. Have you got a link to the article? All the wiki articles I read said bites are minor. The only major injury I remember was from a Daily Mail article about a guy who was allergic to the venom (or something like that).

ETA Aye, after a bit more reading, it seems the steatoda venom is neurotoxic (like the black widow) rather than necrotic.

Edited by xRIEx on Tuesday 4th August 18:40

[OzzyR1]

ApOrbital said:

I had a huge spider crawl up my leg last night when i was in bed,thought is was going to give me a b/j.

[BrassMan]

OzzyR1 said:

ApOrbital said:

I had a huge spider crawl up my leg last night when i was in bed,thought is was going to give me a b/j.

Kind of like this?

A comic, but still NSFW. Disclaimer on the homepage & everything.

[LordJammy]

I've named the spider that lives in my van Montgomery. He guards my tools at night from crackheads. So far he has never failed.

[Turkish91]

I don't mind spiders but my other half hates them with a passion. I always try to chuck them outside whereas she just bats them with a shoe. Agreed, watching them wrap up their prey is fascinating!

I did however have one run across my face in the middle of the night a few months ago. It woke me up and in that half awake state I wasn't quite sure what had happened. So I turned the light on, lifted up my pillow and there he was... Sat there with all his muscles and tattoos on show... Wasn't a huge fan of him and he got flattened but otherwise they're alright.

[AstonZagato]

giblet said:

I stripped down my wings mirrors on a car I owned a few years back to get rid of the bd wing mirror spider. Sadly another bd took its place a few days later.

I think I read somewhere that one particular species of spider has adapted to living in wing mirrors. It is now their preferred home.

[croyde]

I always have wing mirror spiders and now I have Vespa spiders.

[texaxile]

A few years ago the housing estate on which we live was built on what was previously farmland, within a few days of moving in, we noticed the amount of spiders was quite surprising. The doris hates them and get me to would move them outside, and she couldn't work out why there are so many. Simply a case of us intruding into their environment so we should let them be, I told her.
On the plus side they eat wasps and daddy long legs which my daughter hates the sight of and to be fair they are harmless. I did have a couple of really nasty looking false widows in the garage though, so unfortunately they succumbed to the stiff broom despite the fact they were probably the most consistent killers of wasps out of the lot.

[medieval]

If you live in an old timber framed house then large spiders will be your ever present non fee paying tenants

They are everywhere - mind you , not as bad as the old thatched cottage we had before...

[sparkyhx]

I had a pet spider in my garage that i used to feed. Quite satifying to see the end of pesky flies