SPIDERS INDOORS

Emilie. Are you the kind of person who would tell someone with depression to just snap out of it? Hope your job doesn't involve dealing face to face with people.

Conkers have worked for me as they emit a strong smell that spiders do not like. I usually put one in the corner of each room.

I love spiders, all fluffy and as cute as buttons, however, l don't like continuously having to remove their webs (even if they are a thing of wonder) .
So : the best thing we can both do, is keep all our windows tight shut, so the little (and big) chaps can't come in.
An irrational fear is truly upsetting, all the more so, because you don't know why, so it's hard to deal with.
All the best for getting through autumn.

I live alone in a 200 year old ground floor flat. I have draught excluders on the outside doors. If I see a big spider I look to see which end is the front, then creep up to it slowly with a large coffee jar. Once I can see the spider through the bottom of the jar I quickly bring it down over the spider. In the morning I put a piece of card under it until the spider is on it, and once satisfied that it is the right place I upend the jar and card and the spider falls into the jar. Then I can take it outside and put it in a bush.
So far this year I have only had one medium spider and one big one, which has disappeared (2 nights ago). I live in terror of nightfall when I might see it again. Used to get about 15 or more most years before getting the draught excluder.

We live in an old house and have loads of spiders and their webs. When we first moved in I would catch them and put them outside but not any more as there are too many.... so I vacuum them with the long tube of a Dyson as it reaches everywhere.

yes, but!!!!

when you vacuum them up, they are still in the vacuum which has to be emptied at some time

and still waiting to hear if the towel was washed after catching a spider in it...

conkers!

I don't mind the little and medium sized ones but the big ones petrify me. My DH is quite happy to pick them up and put them outside. When he hears me calling his name in a certain way he knows that I've come across a spider which needs to be evicted. Peppermint oil here I come.

The large thick legged spiders make me so afraid I feel ill. I can cope with the smaller ones or very thin legged beasts but the big'uns make me jump across the room. I get the same effect if I see the top of a tomato so I guess it really is something visceral.

I wish spiders no harm as we don't have any poisonous species in the country. The DH and the DS will catch them for me and take them over the road to safety.

Lilyflower - I feel exactly the same. I absolutely dread September and once it gets dark I have to psyche myself up to even go out of the room in which we are sitting. Pathetic, really. I knew someone who had hypnotherapy to cure him of this phobia. It did work but only for a few weeks. As for the vacuum cleaner tube, I have done that myself but there is the horrible dread that the spider will come walking out of the tube when the the vacuum cleaner is switched off.

Poor little spiders, catch them in a spider catcher and put them outside.

We buy 'bug bombs' and set them off from time to time throughout the house, garage & attic. The only downside is that they do smell a bit even when you are allowed back into the house (you have to leave whilst they are doing their 'stuff') but that smell is gone within a day. We find them very effective.

My dd had a spider so big in her flat that she heard it walking! She was studying and had some polypockets lying around. She heard a tap-tapping sound and found a monster spider walking across one of them! She said she leapt over the back of the sofa like an Olympic high jumper.

She never did find it, and hoped it went down through a crack in the floorboards to the downstairs flat, where their dog might gobble it up. ?

I am glad I'm not alone in feeling ill and faint when I see a spider, especially the ones with black furry legs. I feel the blood rushing in my head and feel I'm going to pass out. I know arachnophobia is in the top 5 of phobias.

I can't bring myself to use a spider catcher in case it runs up my arm which would terrify me. I couldn't vacuum it up for the same reason that I would be afraid of emptying the vac.

When I was first married we moved into a rented house for a while and it was absolutely filthy. We should have complained but we were young and stupid, so we just set about cleaning it. There were black cobwebs draped everywhere like a horror film. It never occurred to me at the time about the makers of those webs, but in the autumn the house was completely infested with huge black spiders - in all the linen in the airing cupboard, in the curtains, in the bed, absolutely everywhere for weeks. One fell down into the washing up water while I was standing at the sink and only missed landing in my hair by about an inch. Quite honestly it really was a nightmare and made my phobia much worse obviously.

Nowadays I live on my own so have no one to help, and have to deal with whatever arrives.

Paradoxically I don't mind them in the garden.

youtu.be/8z3D5Jutw1Q

A few years ago I stayed with my son who then lived in Thailand. One night I went to my bedroom and there was the biggest spider I had ever seen. I texted son who came with a plastic box and a piece of paper and captured it for me despite hating spiders as much as I. ?. Later found out it was a huntsman spider who don’t build webs but CHASE their prey. They’d probably throw conkers at them too?

We had carpet moths once and I got rid of them using an economical spray from Amazon. I noticed that since using the spray ( I re- apply it annually as a precaution), we rarely have any spiders at all. I'd better not advertise the name but it costs £12.99 inc postage and is in a trigger bottle with a black and yellow label, 500ml and has 922 reviews.

We lived in Singapore when I was little and there is cine film of me tickling a tarantula out of its hole with a long piece of grass so I clearly wasn't scared of spiders as a child.
Now, anything bigger than a money spider brings me out in a cold sweat - I even pounced on the milkman once and begged him to come in and get rid of a spider that was sitting on the bottom step of my stairs. He did give me a funny look as I was still in my dressing gown!! (Couldn't get upstairs to get dressed!)

Sparklefizz I know exactly how you feel. I have a purely visceral response to the sight of a spider. My muscles jerk, my heart races and I feel nauseated. I have actually thought I might be sick when catching sight of a really big spider. I hate the beginning of autumn for obvious reasons. If there was something that definitely deterred the beasts, I would use it.

"Grow up, they're harmless, they're more afraid of you, they kill flies, blah de blah..." Makes no difference when people say these things, because it's a primitive fear that bypasses the rational mind. You go immediately into fight or flight - in my case, it is flight, whilst calling for my husband to rush in and remove it. I can't imagine how I will cope if I ever have to live alone. Getting therapy is possible but I am not convinced it would work and I don't know if I dare to do it, to be honest.

Who knows why some of us fear them? I didn't get it from my family. Mum was scared of rodents and moths, my sister was scared of worms. Maybe arachnophobia is related to the speed, the scuttle, the number of legs... or maybe it's the ancient fear of something dangerous. Our ancestors must have encountered venomous spiders, and maybe they passed the fear down to us. Or maybe it is an inexplicable phobia like the fear of the number three or of choking on peanut butter. Whatever it is, it isn't easy to get over it.

Just be aware, if you use conkers, that they are (I believe) poisonous to dogs.

I can totally relate to those with a great fear of spiders. I found one on the bedroom floor recently, perfectly still. I think it froze when I switched the light on. I jumped onto the bed, calling my husband as usual. Unfortunately the spider ran under the bed before he came upstairs. There is no way I could have gone to bed, knowing it was there, so my DH hauled all the storage boxes out and crawled under the bed with a torch to get it. He has no problem with picking them up and putting them outside.

If someone has to go to some trouble to catch the spider, I worry they'll just pretend they caught it.
It'll still be lurking!

I have a plastic cup at the ready with a bit of cardboard to catch them and chuck them outside. Also mason bees that regularly fall down my chimney. Fine with them. But mice make me screech. As for rats...Utterly phobic.

I hate spiders too. The conker trick does seem to work however.

No problem with spiders. But wood wasps? Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhh! ?

I think the reason to fear spiders is that they’re the devils horsemen! ? ? ? ? ?