How to scare DH

blueskies, that gave me my first chuckle of the morning.

gmelon, Where did all those spiders in the bath come from, I hope you keep a brick on the plug when you are in the bath! sounds like a sequel to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to me.

We had large Pacific cockroaches when we were livaboards on a boat. Home again and in bed I felt a large crunchy thing against my toe. So disgusting I leapt out of bed. It was half a digestive biscuit.

I also do the glass/postcard thing. There was a fairly big spider on my bedroom ceiling the other night. Before I had a chance to fetch a set of steps, it leapt/fell from the ceiling. Even though it wasn't coming in my direction, I haven't moved as quickly as that in a while. Once my heart rate steadied, I had a look for it, unfortunately to no avail. No doubt, it will re-appear, probably when I'm once again in my bed.

Nannykay
I, too, am an Outlander fan. However, I much prefer the books to the Starz series, even given the good looks of most of the cast ( I'm a big Roger fan). I love that so many of the cast are actually Scottish.

This is my first post since I joined Gransnet, hello to you all. I wish I'd found it earlier, I really enjoy my daily emails, etc.

Never understand why people are scared of spiders. Unless you live where there are poisonous ones, what possible harm can they do you?

Always used to pick them up and put them outside until a big one bit my finger 3 times. It had fell from the loft when my sister threw down some carpet underlay so perhaps was angry at being disturbed. Anyway it felt like s wasp sting was just a bit red. Skin went hard and peeled but no ill effects. Didn't realise they could bite before this.

Oh my goodness muddynails
I will never go to bed again.
You were terrified?

I would have been hysterical, running from the bedroom screaming.

What about a bat you think has flown out of the house, then hearing that rubbery sound of bat wings and feel the draught of it flying by as it comes out from behind the curtains that are above your bed head once you have put out the light and settled down in bed. Visitors ask me why I keep a large childs fishing net in the corner of the bedroom.

To add to my post about the bath full of spiders.
Upstairs in the same house there was a carpet of dead bees in every bedroom. We were crunching them underfoot.

Also a dead bird flat bang in the middle of the kitchen floor and another one in one of the back bedrooms. Laid out on a carpet of bees.

I felt like I was living the beginning of a horror film. You know the bit where the household gets a warning when they move in but foolishly dismiss it as nothing.

The actual reason was that the loft hatch had been left open and the bees came down from their nest up there and didn't find their way back. The birds come into the eaves and found their way down into the house.

The bees returned every year to nest, loft firmly shut now.

We bought a house that had been empty for some time.
There is fields directly to one side and the back and the road ends in agricultural land.

The bath was full of layers of big black, crispy, dead spiders.
All the same type. My husband shovelled them out with the coal shovel.

He finished doing the spider removal and I started cleaning the bath. There was a black mass of crispy spider bits blocking the plughole and more swirling in the water.

Not sure which is worse - the spider or choking on a grape (lucky it was only the juice)!! I've just read the story of the tarantulas in Derbyshire too - very scary. I have a pyramid shaped spider catcher with a trapdoor on it which is also good for little mice but it wouldn't fit a great big hairy tarantula in it!!

I have arachnophobia. It is the most common phobia and affects up to 10% of the population. It is believed to be a once rational response to toxic spiders which now, no longer inhabit the UK.

It is no joke if you have it.

Each September I collect ripe conkers and put one in each corner of every room (and bin last years). I have never been bothered with spiders but that may have nothing to do with the conkers and something to do with living in a first floor flat. Maybe the spiders cannot be bothered to climb up the spout.

I’ve always gone by the mantra “if you want to live and thrive, let a spider run alive”. I tend to call them either Boris or Sammy but I am getting fed up with them monopolising the en-suite. There are rather too many now. I too use the card and receptacle for disposing of them.

At least you can, with a swipe, eliminate spiders. My problem are the winged blighters that fly in my house at dusk, this time of year ,and are the ones you see cows flicking their tails at or settling on cow pats in the fields around where I live. Many that I don't suck up through the hose on my vacuum cleaner settle on the beams in my kitchen. Only in the the morning do you observe the ones you missed by their disgusting black marks on my work surfaces. I can expect this to continue to, and from previous experience,the end of September.

I am utterly terrified of them. Totally phobic.

We live by a stream and when he finds them, my DH always takes them over the other side, to the far bank... assuming they can't find their way back.

Recently he was disposing of a large "Harry"... and bumped in to our neighbour... who was doing exactly the same - but with a mouse.

No actual ???are harmed in the “squishing” * persistentdonor* if the broom is a soft one. When I bang the broom head on the patio it dislodges them and they run away!

My mother was horribly afraid of spiders, but I inherited my father's not scared attitude to them, so I have been "spider-remover in chief" since I was about five.

Stick them out in the garden and Daddy-long-legs too.

I give all my spiders names. I love them!

If you have a phobia of spiders skip this post!
I remember when I was very pregnant with DD1 being aware of a spider running across my pillow in the night! I switched on the light and went to get the tooth mug and some paper to remove it. By the time I got back it had gone- I lifted the pillows and had a look round but couldn't see it so went back to bed.
Next morning when I woke up I discovered it squashed in the bed under my bump!

Aaaaggghhh .... not yet please ..September is the month of terror normally

I have a spider catcher where you squeeze a handle and it opens up the bristles, you release the handle and it grabs them, you then can take it outside unharmed. It actually works for most small creatures, even flies and wasps. Worth a try. But on your leg, that's too much!

I go with the glass and card technique and have demonstrated it to the GCs. Would hate them to think it's ok to kill spiders.

I do hate spiders but they eat a lot of insects, so they are very useful and should not be squished.

Oh dear.
One woman spider patrol here and have been for many years.
The upturned glass and postcard trick usually does it although for really big hairy ones I “squish” them into the bristles of a soft broom then bang it outside on the patio. A wheeze I learned over 50 years ago when au pairing in a house deep in the woods near Stuttgart. I used to have to deal with at least three or four every night before I went to bed. ???? are us!