UKH

It's that time of the year folks.

Walked into my front room this morning to be greeted by a massive spider staring at me from the kitchen door.

I've known they are coming as I've seen mega spider activities recently but nothing as gargantuan as this beast though. 

Is there a optimal spider growth date I wonder ?

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I evicted a wolf spider, with a leg span, the size of my palm a couple of days ago.

Biggest one I've seen in years. I'm sure it was wearing boots. I have also been plagued by a load of spiders with very long front spindly legs that make thin minimal webs in corners of rooms. Never seen so many as this year.

Nothing should have more eyes than legs.

In reply to The Lemming:

Spiders are cool. Look after them. 

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

Useful identification guide for non-biologists...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/shortcuts/2014/sep/23/hairy-scary-l...

In reply to Dave Garnett:

Awesome.  

Household was my meaty beast

In reply to The Lemming:

but how would fish see?

In reply to The Lemming:

Spiders are OK then!

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I'm most definitely aracnophobic, the people is my job brings me in to contact with hundreds if not thousands of them. Anything from tiny to big hairy buggers who look like they could eat you. this morning the blower room on site that only gets the door opened every 3 months when I come to do a service was full of webs, I keep an aluminium pole about 1.5 Mt's long in my van to clear all the webs away and the little buggers scuttle in all directions.

Warm prefab buildings full of air vents on waste water sites (lots of flys) are the optimum breeding ground

In reply to Dax H: I learnt recently that a large and burly man I know of is afraid of spiders, the temptation to mistakenly see spiders while around him is suddenly quite high.

In reply to MG:

I don't find it cool the way they eat each other!

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I don't find them cool full-stop. I'm still livid with the French girl who gave me the fear when I was little, and now of course I've only gone and transmitted it to my own kids. The only plus sides to this are that 1. they spot them as quickly as me and the vile creatures can be dealt with (cup over, card slid underneath, 200m walk up the lane), and 2. they don't put them in my mug.

Anyway, here's a question. If you find one in the bath, does that mean it must have come through the plughole or overflow hole? Someone once told me they couldn't climb ceramic, but I'm doubtful. I'm from the block all means of ingress school of phobes, flooding or no flooding.

In reply to Timmd:

It's really not something to joke about. Even re your worst enemy. Seriously.

In reply to felt:

I've never seen a spider able to climb up the side of a ceramic bath, but I don't know if that helps your question. Finding one in your mug as a kid must have been rather scary for it to give you a fear. 

In reply to felt:

Yeah, I wouldn't really, I just have such thoughts without acting on them, there's a gulf being what I ponder doing and what I actually do.

In reply to John Stainforth:

Humans have been known to do the same. 

In reply to Timmd:

I found a small one in a mug after tipping in a sachet of latte and was about to pour on the hot water and saw the little bigger dusted up in milk powder and coffee granules. This was going to be the second cup too.  

In reply to felt:

But if that enemy is Trump .......

In reply to Timmd:

I didn't find one in my mug as a kid. Well, I did, as it happens, an Austrian stein with lapsang in it, but that was much later. What started it was this girl who looked after my sister and me, I was like three, she had the fear and insisted we all jump on a table when one of these creatures appeared and scream 'Araignez'. A measure of the fear is that I've just googled that French spelling to check it, but knew what was in store and shielded the first six inches of the page, not completely effectively, with my forearm. 

There are courses at Regents Park Zoo, apparently. My psychologist friend says it's a very simple one to cure, progressive exposure and all that, but I'd rather be God and decree their extermination (plus all the flies etc), but of course that wouldn't end well either.

Funny thing was I once went for a job interview in a poly tunnel place near Colchester. I didn't know what the job was, but it was apparently something to do with botany. Great, I thought. I left the interview after a minute, no kidding, when they said I'd be breeding spiders on Nicotiana plants as a biological pest control. Truly the job from hell!

In reply to Timmd:

Sorry, I know you wouldn't. Makes me jumpy, that's all.

In reply to fred99:

Sorry, even then I'd still outdo a lama for compassion.

In reply to The Lemming:

Nothing has one "i", legs has none! Therefore nothing DOES have more "i"s than legs!

In reply to felt:

That's okay.  

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I don't find that cool either!

In reply to John Stainforth:

Waste not want not .  

Efficient recycling if nothing else.  

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

The best one was last year, sat on the sofa with my wife, watching a bit of telly, when she said "I haven't seen many spiders this ye-WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?" - a HUGE one, innocuously sat on top of a picture frame.

We have just got back from holiday and they seem to have moved in while we've been away - I've evicted about 10 big ones since Sunday.

My Mum has been terrified of them ever since one of her brothers dropped one down her neck when she was small - her house is covered with conkers to keep them out.

A friend of hers wrote her car off when she pulled the sun blind down and one dropped in her lap!

Don't look at the first picture - https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/home-and-garden/11-natural-ways-to-keep...

In reply to Timmd:

I'm a big burley tattooed hairy bloke and I would take it as a bit of fun if you occasionally did that to me or even hid a fake one in my desk draw.  Too many people getting upset and offended these days. 

In reply to Dax H:

I'm glad you would.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49395718

I'm what some might describe as a liberal social justice warrior (I don't think I am, but a friend called me an SJW in jest), and even I was surprised at Tourettes Action wanting an apology over that Edinburgh Fringe joke. Perhaps in having had a stammer until speech therapy sorted it, I'd just got used to it being a part of humour sometimes, in programmes like Open All Hours for example.  The bullying at school was shit, but stutter rap and things didn't bother me, things which are different or unfortunate can feature in jokes and in comedy sketches from laughing at what is uncomfortable. If everybody was decent maybe more things could be joked about.

Back to spiders, there's one behind you...

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

I ate half a spider once. I was a student working at the Pleasure Beach on a 14 hour shift and on my meal break. I tucked into a meat and potato pie before spotting its legs in the filling.

I was so tired and hungry, that I though "ho well it's been cooked now". In my defence I was hungry.

I ate the rest of the pie and went back to work selling raffle tickets and conning punters.

You really think there are winning tickets in those raffles?

In reply to The Lemming:

Extra protein.  Gulp!

I think we have our winner for the UKC Bush Tucker trial. 

:-D

For another thread......

In reply to The Lemming:

It would be completely irresponsible to put the stem from a tomato on someone's shoulder and then shout '"WHAT'S THAT?!"

In reply to hang_about:

I've a technician at work that will jump out of a window at the sight of a tomato stalk that's fallen off. 

Seriously petrified.  

I resisted the urge to send her a picture this morning of my guest. 

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

BTW, I had a ginormous spider in my upstairs toilet today. They're definitely out there, this year!

In reply to John Stainforth:

I'm sort of expecting the beast to have broken back in through the kitchen door, ready  and waiting for when I go down for coffee in the morning with a look on its face like...

"you see how that works"

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

The one with whom I had a confrontation would have to crawl back up the sewer pipe, which does not seem likely because he/her wasn't looking too good the last time I saw him/her.

In reply to Timmd:

If what you post on here is a true representation of who you are I would class you as an SJW with a healthy dose of the real world tempering your views. Nothing wrong with that at all, in fact the world needs more people like that unlike the rabid SJW who has never looked outside their own mum and dad funded lentil eating bubble. 

There may be a spider behind me but if I can't see it then it can't get me so I'm okay. 

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

House spiders live in your house all year round. 

At this time of year the males come out from behind the furniture to find a mate.

Not to alarm anyone unduly, but they’re watching you all year round.  

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2018/sep/22/stephen...

(Warning: not safe if you're arachnophobic...and called Dave.)

At this time of year we quite regularly spot a teganaria wandering back and forth along the skirting under the fireplace while we're watching TV (a bit like the octopus in that documentary we watched last night).  We usually wave and say hello.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

My Missus called me it to the kitchen once to deal with a 'Huge' spider that was in a sauce pan. I Picked it up tipped it out on to the floor put the sauce pan back and left the kitchen.

She still reminds me of this event after many years.

In my defence *cough cough* I have kept various inverts for years so when someone (in the UK) says there is a massive spider somewhere it always makes me smile.

In reply to felt:

I'm pretty sure spiders don't come up through either because they'd have had to get through the water-filled u-bend / trap to do so.  They've simply fallen in going about their normal day to day business and can't get out. I suspect you find them in the bathroom and not elsewhere because they've got into the house where pipes go through holes in walls and floors. If you leave a towel or string dangling in the bath they can climb out and explore your house.  Their favourite hobby is walking over your face whilst you're asleep looking for mossies to eat.

In reply to Toerag:

https://www.rentokil.co.uk/blog/spiders-in-your-bath/#.XWAN--NKiUk

I've also read that they deliberately go in to sinks and baths to get access to liquid water (they probably only need the small amount that collects around the plughole) and then find they can't get out.

And having sex (see the cartoon I linked above).

You don't accidentally swallow eight of the hairy-legged horrors/fascinating creatures (delete as applicable) per year in your sleep, either:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/swallow-spiders/

"This “statistic” ... was not only made up out of whole cloth, it was invented as an example of the absurd things people will believe simply because they come across them on the Internet."

In reply to Dax H:

Spiders can walk all over me for all I care, however big/hairy they may be, but I *absolutely hate* the feeling of a web on my skin, particularly in the face.  Unfortunately my half a million pet garden/garage spiders like putting webs across the 2' ish wide path between the garage and the hedge, necessitating a Big Stick (tm) to be put by the gate to get rid on the way in.

In reply to Chive Talkin\':

My recently acquired baby carnivorous plants have caught three spiders in the last few days (without my help) judging by the legs sticking out of them. Since getting them, insects have become less of an annoyance and more of an entertainment/feeding opportunity.

In reply to Dax H:

Thanks very much.