Spider Night

~ beetleypete

Tonight was Friday night. But in this house, it turned into ‘Spider Night’.

It has been a nice day, warm and sunny. Windows had been open, so too the kitchen door leading out to the garden. We live in a country village, surrounded by fields, farms, and a nature reserve all within sight from the end of the street. We should expect outdoor things to occasionally intrude inside our home.

Relaxing on the sofa after dinner, we were watching TV when my wife shouted and moved so quickly, I thought she had been stung by a wasp. But no. She had seen a spider run from the corner of the room behind her, scuttling under the large wooden unit that the TV sits on.

She described it as a ‘big one, the black kind’. We get quite a lot of spiders in the house. Most have small round bodies, and spindly legs. In the shed or garage outside, I have often seen the larger black ones she referred to, but they are rare inside. If in range, they are always killed, usually just by an instinctive reaction to stamp on them, or hit them with something without even thinking about it.

We are not kind to spiders, I confess.

However, this was the most athletic of spiders, running fast ennough to set a new 100 metres Olympic record. It was not going to be caught. And by hiding under a unit too heavy to comfortably move, it had guaranteed it would not be disturbed until it chose to reappear.

For my wife, that was the end of her relaxing evening. She sould not rest, fearful it would suddenly come running out again. Even worse, that it might navigate the room unseen, and secrete itself in the bedroom, ready to drop onto her face as she slept, of hide under the duvet before she slid under it to sleep.

I am not that fond of spiders, but she has a morbid fear of them.

A cursory examination behind the TV did not reveal the arachnid. It was probably busy nesting underneath somewhere, or looking for something to pounce on and eat. Resorting to illuminating the gap below the unit with a torch didn’t help, as there was no sign of it. That led her to conclude that it could now be anywhere in the house, which left her edgy and panciky about where it could be.

It is now 11:30 pm, and it still hasn’t shown up. I am going to bed soon, but I suspect she will be sitting up all night on the sofa, with the lights on.

No point telling her that it is much more scared of us, than we should be of it.

63 thoughts on “Spider Night”

  1. Lol I love spiders, Spider Man originates from them. 😉 I really have to of them in my room, only in summert time.I had not believed it before, but they are really catching every fly. The longest fly lifetime was two days. 🙂

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  2. Ugh, creepy spider. That’s the end of my happy day too. I kind of had a disaster too. I will write a post on it so that you can see what I am saying. 😭😭😭 I hope Julie is okay.

    Stay Safe ❤✌😊

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  3. Pingback: The Spider | toritto

  4. I don’t blame your wife at all! Those sorts of spiders (the big ones that dash across the floor) are terrifying! I don’t have a spider phobia as such, but those sort are horrible!!!!!!!! xxx

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  7. Spiders do not generally bug me too much. I have heard more and more people ‘rescue’ them and set them free rather than killing them. When we lived in Florida, I had the unfortunate visit from huntsmen spiders (google if unfamiliar) and they were frightening. Where we live we often see what I call ‘mountain spiders’ — large specimens suited for mountain life. Not a fan inside, but they can have the outside.

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    1. Huntsmen and Mountain are two types we don’t have here, fortunately. Not much chance of any spiders being rescued here, as they would surely walk straight back inside. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. Julie thinks she managed to hoover it up today. She said it was ‘bunched up’ near the hearth of the wood burner. No doubt it has a few relatives knocking around though, Ami. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  10. We get great big hairy rain spiders which come into our house during the spring and summer months, Pete. They are quite frightening to look at but are harmless. We usually try to catch them and through them over the neighbour’s wall. They usually come in pairs.I am not particularly scared of spiders but don’t want them taking up residence in my house.

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  12. We have a spider catcher (a gripper on a pole that humanely, safely catches them for removal) and one of our sons, who loves bugs, is the designated spider remover. We are getting some huge ones at the moment, bigger than your hand – perhaps the warm spring? 🌿

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  13. Spray the area with some sort of air freshener….they are sensitive to stuff like that and will move away….or so I am told……but they do eat a lot of other critters. good luck with the hunt….chuq

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  14. Phil is our spider-man, he has a special spider/bee catching glass and piece of card. I opened the bathroom door a couple of nights a go and a big black one was tanking across the floor, so fast! Phil managed to get the glass over it but sadly snapped three of it’s legs off in the process. He felt bad for at least 10 minutes!

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  15. I have conquered my fear of spiders, or at least thats what I tell myself, but it is Gosias job to catch and release if one happens to make it into the house, whilst I shiver internally 🙂
    Never show your fear to a spider, once they know you are scared they will hunt you down!

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  17. I confess, I’m willing to live and let live with the exception of black widows and brown recluses. And the babies are f the small house spiders are really cute 🕷😀

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    1. Luckily, we don’t have any species of spider like that here. But we do get a lot of other types inside the house, and they are usually killed so as to not upset my wife by their presence.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  18. I am not scared of spiders and I haven’t encountered one yet here since we moved in. I don’t like seeing cockroach though. They usually come up from the drain pipe of our bathroom.

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  20. Apparently I’m in the minority, but (except for mosquitos and flies) I don’t kill insects in the house, despite my wife’s protests. Rather, I try to catch them in a box or bucker and release them outside. My attitude is, if they’re not a danger to me, who am I to kill them?

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    1. I can see that, MM. My reaction to running spiders is normally instinct to kill them. The ones that just lurk in corners, I leave those alone. Wasps and flies I am happy to kill, right or wrong.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  24. Oh dear Pete. I confess that I laughed my socks off at this. My hubby is terrified of spiders too. Now can you imagine a blind woman trying to find and get rid of one out of the bathroom, with him sitting there in the nuddy waiting to get into the bath! Hmmm. Yes, funny!

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  26. I’m with Julie. One of the reasons I hate spiders is that, unlike most other creepie crawlies, they run towards me instead of running away. And they run faster than we can. I hope you shake the duvet well.

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