Spiders!

I am phobic and was very stressed when I had 5 gigantic spiders in one week last autumn. A friend recommended conkers and brought me a bagful which I placed in as many corners as possible - not a spider since. Did you use dozens of conkers in as many corners? Better to go for over-kill (excuse the pun). I know the anti-spider sprays sold tend to contain horse chestnut so I think conkers must work.

Oh dear. I spend so much time telling my DGS that spiders are our friends and we must never hurt them. We must just carry them gently outside to be with their friends. I just hope I’m never called on to do it.

Maggiemaybe, I'm with you. I showed my 3 year old grandson how to encourage a daddy long legs into a glass bowl, slide some paper underneath and go into the garden so the spider could live outside happily. He's a bit insect phobic at the moment but enjoyed this experience.
As for big spiders, I find ignoring them works, they scuttle off being rather more scared of me, than I am of them. If I lived somewhere with killer spiders, I'd no doubt behave differently.

I don't like them and have to dispose of them outside using the cup and paper method. When I was still living at hone I would call dad who would scoop them up with his bare hand No point in calling H to do that ! DD has the screaming ab-dabs if she sees one.

I`m another with the screaming ab-dabs!

Me too. There isn't a house big enough for me and a pider. One of us has to die...

That's just how I feel fumancho. They have absolutely no business being where I live I feel!
Tomorrow DH and I are going to clear out a shed. Now I KNOW there's a mammoth spider in there cos it all but waves at me when I get the mower out. It's been there a long time so have asked DH to get it out and set it free (in neighbour's garden)-how generous is that? Shudder just thinking about it☹️

I am border-line phobic. Was far worse when I was younger. Actually called hubbie home from work one time, when I had a young baby and there was a spider in the kitchen!! If one came anywhere near to me, I would need to have a bath or shower, and change all the clothes I was wearing at the time.
I was determined not to pass this fear on to my children and still say the greatest piece of parenting I carried out is that none of my children (or g.children) are in the slightest phased at seeing spider.
Living by myself I have to cope. Have those long handled things which in which I can trap them and remove to the outside (really do not want to kill them).
Three years ago I heard about conkers, and collect them each autumn and they are all around window cills, door ways, skirting boards, etc. Have not had a spider since then

I only get worried when I can see the whites of their eyes
The GC love to see me get hold of those fat brown ones from their web.

Leave them alone! I love spiders.
They get rid of the real nasties such as flies bluebottles and worst of all, mosquitoes.
We leave them to live in their webs.

Anyone seen "Spider" , lovely cartoon series, with great music, think it was a BBC children's programme. Available on YouTube

Really dislike them. Have a human remover, not that I actually would get close enough to use it, but it is there. I do have conkers and the spray not sure if they work but we don't get many, considering where we live.

Err, that should have read humane. But I guess its true that the remover is human, just not me!

Yep, Fumanchu, all spiders must be made DEAD! Well, I can cope with garden spiders and money spiders but that's it.

My Dd had a huge spider in her flat recently. She heard it walking across a poly-pocket when she was filing stuff away! Actually heard it!

Don't kill them - or spray them - just use the humane catcher and put them outside.

They used to frighten me and I have been bitten by a large one (overseas) but I think, after that episode, British spiders no longer frighten me at all.

ps not that I would recommend that as a solution!

"If you want to live and thrive, let the spider stay alive "

I always put spiders outside but I do wonder what happens to them then. Do they feel lost and afraid? Do they miss their family and home? Do they die of the sudden cold or get eaten? They probably just march straight back in.

They do march straight back in!!

I got up from sitting on the sofa. I looked around and to my horror, where I'd been sitting there was a squashed and very dear spider. ??

For dear read "dead".

Nope. No humane catchers here. That's too close for comfort. I try to maintain a minimum cordon sanitaire of 100meters round my house, as far as spiders are concerned.

I'll catch and release mice and moths etc, though, so I'm not a total murderer.

I'm with Fennel I love spiders when my children and GC were small we always gave them names ,we never kill them always take them outside and the kids all learned that the spiders were more frightened of them than they were of spiders.Now the problem is stopping the cat from killing them though we have managed to stop him bringing birds and mice into the house

I once laughed as my DD said she had heard a spider SueD she said it was walking over her books......and it really was! I wish I had hearing like that.