Eeek!

OMG I hate spiders too. *shudder*

Urgh, I have a couple of scars on my legs where I was bitten by a white tail a couple of years ago. I hate the damn things.

Tonight I was making DD's lunch for tomorrow. I put my hand into the bag of apples sitting on our bench and pulled one out for her. Then out of the bag crawls this big black spider. I totally freak out and freeze while this thing crawls around the bench. DP thinks its the funniest thing thats happened this week. He finally stopped laughing and killed the damn thing. I was convinced it was some sort of poisonous foreign spider. DP had a hard job persuading me that the apples are in fact NZ apples that were picked and packed here.

Miss Muffet's revenge?  Where would I get that?

Liz, I'm keen for description/photos of your spider catcher too.

That's a good price.  Who does it for you?

Miss Muffets revenge is from the wet 'n forget people. - the one with the weird 'scientist' guy in the ad
http://www.wetandforget.co.nz/
glad you squashed it. not too keen on spiders here either.

I'm like you Andie, I don't mind most spiders as long as they're not venomous infact I hate flies with a passion (disgusting little creatures) so I quite like having a few spiders around the place to keep other bugs away but I draw the line at whitetails/redbacks and anything else that would cause harm.

Ugh I hate spiders! I agree with leaving the odd (little) one around to eat the horrible horrible flies too though.

I always shake my shoes out if they've been left outside...habit after living in Aussie really even though I was only little when we moved back here and I ALWAYS turn my gardening gloves inside out and shake them out really well before putting them on too.

MamaPickle wrote: Liz, spider catcher? Link? Photo? Description? I want!

I've searched high and low on the internet and found people writing about what I have but no photos...

It's basically a square transparent plastic container on the end of a stick. The bottom of the container has a sliding trap door thing. So you open the sliding door part, put the box thing against the wall (with the door down the bottom and you're holding the handle) so that the spider is now stuck. So then you rotate the handle around, and gravity makes the trapdoor fall shut, thus trapping the spider inside! And it's great cos then the spider can't get out and no air can get in either, so I leave it on the bench til I see the spider shrivel up and die (it goes really little and doesn't move lol). Then I just chuck it in the bin. Soooo easy. I only do that with whitetails, other spiders I just leave or put them outside... I'm not fussed with spiders, only poisonous ones.

Oh and those who are having probs with whitetails - if you have any daddy long legs in your house, leave them... they kill whitetails....

Daddy long legs are one of the most poisonous spiders but their fangs (sorry I can't remember the correct name) are so short they can't harm us.  You do need to make sure Issy doesn't squash one then rub her eyes or put her hands in her mouth as that can be dangerous but otherwise they're completely harmless to humans.  They're highly venomous to other spiders and bugs though and so well worth keeping around.

This is what a whitetail looks like.

and this is the sort of reaction you can get if bitten

  

Edited by MrsMojo