Arachnophobia…

I don't mind spiders once I've got over the initial surprise if they scuttle across the carpet. We have a glass with a piece of paper in each room ready to remove them when they arrive indoors.
We also have a string ladder hanging from the bath tap so they can rescue themselves from the bath. Haven't worked out how to teach the woodlice to climb a ladder yet though.

My MiL used to spray spiders with hair spray - so gross. Her walls and mirrors would end up covered in it when there were a lot of spiders around. I told her if she ever did anything so cruel in my house I would spray her all over and chuck her in the garden ( she didn't like me anyway ? ).

MissAdventure, we've got one of those tennis bats but no way could I use it on a big house spider. Surely they would take ages to die and in the meantime I'd be bashing away, terrified. The worst thing I ever tried was spraying one with hair spray. It went completely barmy and raced round and round like a mad thing. I think it died in the end but I was a nervous wreck by then. Has anyone tried hoovering them up with the vacuum cleaner pipe? Did it die or just crawl out of the pipe as soon as you turned the motor off. I really need to know this as my DH is going away for a couple of nights soon and I will be at their mercy.

I can recommend the electric tennis bat.
It costs £1 (from poundland) and it means you can bash 'em from quite far away.
It sizzles them up, dries them out, and they stick to the wire until you bang the bat over a bin.
Sorry to those of a sensitive nature, but I'm petrified of spiders.

So which is the best spider catcher, please? I've just looked on Amazon and there are a lot to choose from. I hate the b******s so don't want to get too close. I also don't mind if they get killed in the removal process - sorry.

Fennel Fortunately when I lived in Singapore I was too young to worry about things like spiders and cockroaches ?

When I was about 10 I used to have a street light outside my bedroom window. I saw the outline of a spider running down the curtain and jumped out of bed to switch on the light. A huge spider was sitting in the middle of my bedspread. I picked up a shoe and threatened it for ages (I never could bear to actually hurt anything) until finally my Dad saw the light on and came in to see why. He collapsed laughing at the picture of me, in tears, waving a shoe at a spider. The cartoon Shinamae posted reminded me ?

I have 3 big brothers. You soon learn not to show fear of anything that could be used to tease you

Ugh, cockroaches are vile, too. We got them when we lived in Indonesia and Nigeria. Local people didn’t seem to worry about the spiders but they universally loathed cockroaches. The big spiders didn’t come into our homes but the tiny jumping spiders did, and they can make people very ill indeed. Afaik, it’s not the actually bite, but it seems to set up some sort of response in the body. A friend spent weeks in ICU after a bite and has never got fully better.

Amberone We lived in Singapore for 2 years and it was the same for cockroaches. When we first moved into our house I opened the door under the kitchen sink and a crown of them came flooding out around my feet .
and there were jumping spiders there, very aggressive. So we're fortunate - at least ours are placid.

I managed to ignore my fear of spiders for the years I lived in Sydney, big as they were - I was too horrified by the cockroaches. I lived in quite an old but beautiful apartment near Kings Cross and it was almost impossible to get rid of the damn things.

I love spiders fascinating creatures. I wish people wouldn’t kill them. They’re harmless at least the ones in this country.

We have 2 KARLSTEN plug ins Shinamae.
Sorry for late reply.

Oh the very thought of spiders fornicating in my house! They’re the devil’s horsemen, they must be eliminated from my world! ?

I find it slightly helpful to think of people who have been imprisoned in dungeons with rats and spiders, and I suppose they must have become accustomed to the beasts.

On a walk with grandson 3 years ago (?) in Sydney I said “oh look at that big spider on the fence”
“That’s not big granny”.
?

I’m quite happy to scoop them up in my hand and pop them outside, DH runs a mile!

Try to think positively about spiders. They do a lot of good in the insect ecosystem and are not a threat to you in anyway. Get one of those spider catchers and deposit the spider out in the garden ( alive) .

Spiders, daddy long legs don’t worry me at all, just scoop them up and put outside. “Never kill a spider”.

But mice……

I use a spider catcher from Lakeland ( a clear tube with batteries that works like a vacuum cleaner) I can get into the corners of the room where the daddy long leg type ones linger in Spring and Summer then they get flushed down the toilet - several pieces of toilet paper on top to stop them surviving by floating!

My understanding is that the big hairy ones we see in the autumn are looking for the daddy long leg type ones to mate with. Hence removing the temptation has seemed to reduce drastically the invasion of hairy spiders! I check the corners, ceiling and skirting boards of my bedroom every night, all year long and remove the buggers straight away, however small they are - as baby ones grow into big ones!

I live in a bungalow so sleep downstairs and once we get into spider season, I don’t open the windows at night, just air my room for an hour or so each morning. Even so, I was reading late at night the other week and a blighter dropped down on my face just as I was about to switch the light off! That night I slept with the light on!

Note to self,clean round window edges properly!!!…??‍♀️??‍♀️??‍♀️

I used to go spider hunting with our old tabby cat tucked under my arm. I'd prod the blighters to make them move and Smudge would polish them off. What a team! (Don't tell Chris Packham.)

Oh my, Shinamae, your post made me shudder - and laugh, When I was a child there was a huge glass ashtray in the lounge and I used to catch spiders under it and just watch them for a while. I didn’t really like them but found them fascinating. Now we do get the occasional one in various places in the house. It’s the huge house spiders that make me scream and pull my legs up onto my chair ?. They just seem to appear from nowhere in the middle of the lounge floor. However as I’m the only brave one in the house, I then run for my spider catcher - that’s a lid from a spray can and a piece of card. He’s then taken outside with a warning not to return ?. If found upstairs in a bedroom, they go for “the long drop”. I used to feel bad about that but when they land, they run, so they seem to survive. I do open windows and clean round the edges. There are often spider nests which would hatch lots of spiderlings if left. Last year, my daughter moved flat from the 2nd floor to the ground floor in the same building and she can’t believe how many she now gets and she’s terrified of them! She’s hoping to move again when she can afford it. ???

I think they probably can live in water for a while.

There have been countless occasions over the years when I have flushed a spider down the bath plug hole only for it to reappear the next day.
It doesn’t seem to matter how much water I use to flush it away, Incy Wincy always ends up back in the bath.

We are also coming up to the daddy long legs season. Another pet hate of mine!

I think they will probably be more prevalent in the summer house Lemongrove?‍♀️? I have just ordered two ultrasonic pest repellents one for the summerhouse and one for my bedroom although my bedroom is quite small and I’m not sure what good it’s going to be because it will be plugged into the wall which is only about 6 inches away from my bed!,so don’t think that’s going to really work might have to plug it into my lounge socket…. I might have to invest in a mosquito net I think…?

Shina You will have to go and live in your Summerhouse!?
Although.....
Almost Autumn and spider mating time so they’ll be around everywhere ( shudder.) We usually get the thin leggy ones around all year, but it’s the hairy hunting spiders I dislike that gallop at top speed.