monster spiders

[Lisastewart]

I live in Belfast and have a problem with huge spiders! They seem to be getting bigger and bigger and I was wondering if anyone else was having a similar problem? They are bigger than the palm of your hand. I found one in the bath and when I filled the bath up it just skated along the top of the water, played dead for a bit, sank to the bottom, then started crawling along the bottom of the bath, underwater! Nothing seemed to work as when we let the water out it simply uncurled itself and started walking around again! When we finally killed it (by squashing it - the only thing that seems to work) it wouldn't even fit down the plughole it was so big. Later on another one appeared which was just as big, which also met the same fate!

[camille79]

Get a cat! I used to get loads of huge spiders but haven't seen one since I got two cats about 3 months ago. I think they must eat them (disgusting) as I occasionally find a leg. Alternatively, you can get sonar pulse type things (I've seen them in innovations catalogue) which you plug in and the sonar waves apparently repel the spiders.

[saffstar]

OH MY GOD! Please tell me you've got really, really small palms! That's one of the most frightening things I've ever heard and I think that all ports and airports should be closed, just in case.

[Tweed]

Live and let live. They're only spiders after all.

[boognish76]

I was in ROI yesterday and a caller to the Jerry Ryan show said she was being plagued by spiders that sounded very much like the ones you have there. Apparently they are called (and you won't want to hear this) Wolf Spiders, and they don't build webs as, due to their size, they just chase after their prey! They are common across Britain and Ireland but as they seem to be a bit more common over the water at the mo - I'm very happy to be back in England now! Here's a lovely picture of one - http://www.haworth-village.org.uk/nature/pictures/large-inse cts.asp?pic=137 I'm also not going to Haworth any time soon!

[pinus]

I've got a couple of these that have been hiding in my bedroom for years. They can give a bit of a shock when they suddenly start running up the wall or across the bed. But they deal with insects, I suppose. I wasn't too chuffed when I realised once that what had woken me up was one of them running across my face. I'm sure they take Miss Piggy's advice about eating nothing bigger than yourself. :-)

[saffstar]

Live and let live definitely - I accept that they're goodies, it's just that they're so bloomin scary!

[curt1975]

Wolf spiders do get pretty big. I have had a wolf spider (only 1 Thank the Lord), but when I seen it, I noticed it was as big as the palm of my hand also. I had a 2x4 on the floor beside me that was about 5ft long, I picked it up and popped that big nasty looking thing on the back of it, and I haven't seen it since. I was told that I killed it when I did that, but it fell to the floor, and I ran upstairs. I wasn't even going to look to see if it was dead.

[MrsCheeks]

Arrrgh beginning to wish I had NOT clicked on the link to a pic of this spider!!! Invest in a baseball bat to splat the ugly beggar.

[bernardo]

It is no used washing a spider down the plughole because it will cling on to somer air bubbles and eventually crawl out again. Whenever I get a spider in the bath I always kill it by turning on the HOT water. Before long the water gets hot enough to kill the spider, and it curls up instead of flailing about. Then you can scoop it up with whatever and get rid of it.

[Cheesefreek]

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!

[smudge]

Our 4 year old Granddaughter was sitting at the dining table & calmly called out "Nanny there's a spider on the chimney breast". When I went in, I had to contain myself & not scream my head off. It was the most gigantic spider I have ever encountered in our house. Our Granddaughter wasn't in the slightest bit bothered by it, so why are we adults so afraid of them?

[ICEMANSAV]

Think you should use the experience to write horror novels!!

[rinkytink]

According to the link that boognish76 provided the Wolf spider only has a body length of 6mm. Have you guys been seeing a mutant strain ?

[Robinia]

I found one in the bath this morning that only just fitted inside the rim of a glass tumbler! I could see by the smug look on it's face that it planned to be back up the wall & through the bathroom window as soon as I'd gone.....bet it's up there now .....waiting...

[apricot]

The sonar pulsing things do NOT work on spiders. My mastiff has been trained to eat them. Never any trace at all!

[MEGSGARDEN]

JUST DON'T FEED THEM.GIVE THEM BLEECH TO DRINK THAT WILL NKOCK THEM FOR DEAD.

[patsyquinn]

Don't kill spiders just because you don't like the look of them - they do no harm. Just put them out. I read somewhere that the females come indoors at this time of the year for water and that's why you find them in the bath.

[Kranx]

Normaly i'm not bothered by spiders, but last night this HUGE thing just ran into my room through the open window. I've seen a lot of these brown hairy spiders around the house before but usually they're easy enough to squash but this one is massive. I've tried getting my cat to kill it but once my cat saw the ugly thing it ran for it's life! Then i tried my dog but he ran away scared too and now i just tried to squash it and it fell off the wall under my bed somewhere. It's 5:40 am and no way am i going to sleep with that in here, once it turns 6 I think i'm gonna have to start taking things out of my room 1 by 1 with a vaccum cleaner and a pair of shoes handy! When i say this thing is huge i mean it's huge, i can actually hear it running about on some surfaces it's that big. Oh and by the way throwing them outside doesn't work, they almost allways come back. I've tried this with tons of these spiders and they keep coming back to the point where i have to squash them.

[New Forester]

Boognish - Don't worry, British & Irish wolf spiders are not very big at all -- about 0.5 cm (as Rinkytink points out the one in your photo is labelled as 6 mm). They are the little brown ones you see running in very quick jerks amongst grass and on dug earth. If you're bigger than a fly, you're quite safe. The big hairy ones in houses (in Britain & Ireland at any rate) are house spiders. No excuse for killing them -- why should it die because of your own irrational fear? If you can't bear to pick one up in your hands, wait until it's on a flat surface, put a glass over it, then slide a card underneath. Then put it outside well away from the house. If you find this difficult, just take your time and remember you weigh a million times as much as it.

[LARSSON]

I LIVE IN GLASGOW AND IM HAVING EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM ONLY IM FINDING ABOUT 10 A DAY THROUGH MY WHOLE HOUSE THE SIZE OF MY HAND THESE THING ARE LIKE MUTANT SPIDERS THE WORST THING IS I HAVE A HUGE PHOBIA AND IM NOT BRAVE ENOUGH TO SQUASH THEM AND KILL THEM ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY BUT IT MAKES ME FEEL A BIT BETTER THAT IM NOT THE ONLY ONE SUFFERING.