It's just a spider... BUT.... help! please.

I share a lot of your fears. I've additional ones in that I sometimes have some kind of phantasms (a word I haven't looked up lately, probably wrong usage) in my sleep where I'll become aware a spider is right near me in bed and I'll zoom up and try to get away. Then there is no spider. I've even hit the wall with a shoe, yep, no spider. Luckily this doesn't happen often. As I age and get more demented, I am hoping this phantasm-thing doesn't proceed.

On the other hand, I live in immediate black widow country, so I'm real careful - say in the garage with all my unpacked boxes - when I'm wide awake as well. (I don't see any nests, and I can recognize them.)

To deal with real spiders, I use a product called Home Defense, uh, carefully. It can be sprayed as a barrier, say around a garage-house door. I don't like it since it should not get into the water system for ecological reasons.. on the other hand, I might die of fright with a black widow around. (I rebuilt a garage with black widow nests as my studio fifteen years ago, managed to survive with sanity through that, but I've lost some gumption.)

I also despise cockroaches, but not with the same out-of-my-tree fear.

I suppose one can be desensitized from spider fear. (Thanks anyway, I'd rather not..)


I don't have your qualms about offing a spider, though I'm kind to daddy-long-legs, and most small spiders in areas I've lived.

Hey Osso...

yep... that's the expression

"out of my tree" with fear...

I haven't gone too doolally at the moment... but I'm aware I'm getting close to it again. I actually keep thinking I am seeing them and am constantly looking for them - "avid 8-legged watch"...

The really stupid thing is, the thin leggy daddy's and small ones I can cope with without too much problem... I've even got some spindly ones around the house which I have left there to try and get used to them.

It's the big ones tho... and ours aren't posisonous here... but they are just horrible.

This all stems back to "Dr Who and the Planet of the Spiders" when I was about 4.... ludicrous!

When I was in Oz - I had to cope and I did... here tho, when one runs out, I would completely lose the plot - even ended up in ER when I fainted and fell down the stairs. I used to call people up in the middle of the nite and get them over to get rid of the darn things. I haven't had to do that for a while. If I can get the spider-catcher... then I CAN get rid of it - as long as it doesn't move and I HAVE to have it out of the house.... not just outside the door... a good 20 paces away. I even made the spider-catcher longer coz I can't get close to them.

I saw two psychologists when I was in my early 20's (after the hospital episode).... one of the methods one wanted to use was "desensitisation"... errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr... I don't think so. There is no way on this earth I could hold a spider. Never. Sheesh - even thinking about that is making me crawl.

Will look into some kind of spider spray....

This thing is up in the corner... I couldn't possibly get to it and just knowing it's there is freaking me! UGH UGH and UGH. It's huge and hairy.

ooooooooooooh! yuk

Get out your camera and takes pictures of it. You didn't appear to mind insects and spiders when you were photographing the giant webs on your visit to the U.S. a couple months ago.

Just think of it as yet another photo op and think of all the great photos of it you'll have to share here with us!

My only suggestion would be - ladder, broom and a shoe. That would be very much how I cracked my elbow...

probably not a good idea.

Just don't look at it. Try not to. If I was there I would get up there and put it in a jar for you and take it to the woods.

Yanno, a good insect spray works just great on spiders. Or sometimes Windex or other glass cleaner with alcohol in it. That is unless you're superstitious about killing spiders or just have an adversion to destroying God's creatures and all that. A clear glass placed over the spider trapping it against the wall and then sliding a thin something (I use a pancake turner) to force the spider into the glass and provide a lid while you take it outside to dispose of it wherever....works good.

If there is a mishap and you miss trapping what will now be an angry spider, please don't hurt yourself though.

Yep.... I can take pictures... outside is not too bad... it's a big open space - tho if you had seen how I was with the spider in Texas in the funnel... well, I was being very big and brave, but could also get away from it and not have to revisit it. When we were in Arkansas we had to get out the canoe and clamber onto the end of the dock because we couldn't go back through the trees that had webs in and at nite, we didn't go outside at all - there were spiders everywhere.

I love photographing webs, they are incredibly beautiful and intricate... more so with frost and raindrops, preferably with only little spiders in tho...

In the house, it's different. Like I say, if I can remove it... then I'm OK - but I can't remove this one.

I just had to go get the little fellas rugby kit out the dryer... it's gone back under the pipe, that's worse in some ways coz I don't know where it is, tho I think I can see some legs. Cold sweat - ugh.

I will do what you say tho and will try and photograph it - I don't know, when they move, they move so darn fast and I can't get out the garage quickly.

I do know I'm being ridiculous and probably if one ran across the floor this minute I am angry at myself enough to get rid of it right now.

I just wish the one in the garage was "gettable to" - then I would get it out. I think.

It's totally irrational.

Thanks all..

mis... you are a braver person than I - love you gal.

Foxfyre... this is my spider-catcher



It's about 3 feet long and that would be the closest I could get plus arm's length.

I will try and be more rational here.

Still ugh-ing tho.

Nah, not irrational at all. I begged my mom to let my brother and I see Hitchcock's movie The Birds when we were very young. After days of begging and temper tantrums she finally decided to take us and then when we were scared to death made us stay and see the whole thing to the end so we'd know that everything turned out alright.

To this day, about 45 years later I still have a phobia about Bodega Bay. I'm just fine with birds and every other symbol of fear in that movie but the town itself, gives me the heebee jeebees. I've tried forcing myself to get over it by driving by the town, determined to drive right through main street, but I couldn't talk myself into getting over to the right lane in time for the exit ramp and then kept going without looking back.

It's irrational but it's mine. Yours is spiders. The difference is my phobia doesn't crawl around my house with all its relatives.

I was thinking that looking at it as a photo op might get you in a mindset that would help you get close enough to smush it with camera in one hand and rolled up newspaper in the other.

I think that being in the open when it comes to critters does make a difference. I can pick up lizards and hang them from my ears when I am outside - when they open their mouths I touch my ears and they grab hold - my boys love it - it's odd I know - something I learned from my cousins growing up. But if one gets in the house for some reason I get the heebie jeebies and have a hard time getting them to put them out- there is no accounting for this.

Vacuum cleaner works real well. The type of spray made from pyretheum (or something like that) is safe for people and other warm blooded animals, but is death on spiders and insects.

Personally, spiders don't bother me, except for black widows. Them, I kill on sight, and as Osso mentions, there are lots of them in northern New Mexico.

Thanku....

just went out there again... it's still taking a nap right now... but will try and photograph it and see if that helps. oooooooooooh.

Gonna invest in some proper spray... raid is for ants and crawling insects... didn't have any effect on the monster 8 legged freak tho.

Have been out to the garage at least a dozen times tonite just checking.

Need to stop doing that I think.

Gosh... can't believe I am like this about it. At least talking about it I realise how irrational it is... so I guess that gets my nerve back up.


Yep Butrfly - weird how things affect us.... my love is insects - yet the little fella is absolutely petrified of bugs (as RH and JPB found out) - truly petrified. When I say to him "it's just a fly"..... I then kick myself - coz it's the same as saying "it's just a spider"

Thanks all for letting me talk about it - I do think it's helped a lot.




(Rog.... didn't you have a Princess Spider in the bath! EEEEEEuw. Sorry.)

um... has S seen this new pet?

HA - you must be joking girlie...... do you think he would stay in the house..... uh huh. No - keeping this one quiet - he doesn't go out into the garage much so best "keep mom" on that one.





<its still napping>

Whatever you do, don't share my suggestion with him...

Ha....... really laughing............. he'd rather let the house burn down than call "the firefighter"!!!!!

Love ya x

By the way -- you should name her Penelope. We have a Penelope as well. She (or one of her offspring) builds a Giant web outside our kitchen window every fall. Gorgeous creature! We watch her from the kitchen table (with the window closed).







She'd be squished quickly if she ever ventured into the house!

Izzie, i can't help you practically with this particular spider, but what helps me (i was / am freaked out by spiders too) is knowing. When I see one, I like to ID it, and learn all there is about it...and eventually the critter becomes rather amazing, if not loveable. Then you take some sense of ownership in the spider...it's 'my' cool spider...just shifting boundaries from repulsion a little closer to awe, even if both persist.

being the key statement....spiders are amazing...from a distance.

Yep, I love the spiders that hang out in the eaves outside my apartment balcony. Their web spinning helps control the mosquito population, they're almost better than fly paper.