Spider Attack

[Skanky Burns]

I was in bed looking up at the roof and saw a black spot. "Heh" thought I. "It looks like that black spot is moving". I quickly realised that the black spot was moving and as you probably guessed from the thread title, the black spot happened to be a spider. A big spider. On the roof and crawling towards a spot above my girlfriend's and my head.

Turning on my bedside light froze the spider and my now very awake girlfriend and I fled the room.

The spider, after I had calmed down a bit. I don't suppose anyone can recognise what type this spider is and if it is harmless/deadly? My house is in Sydney, Australia.

[Japher]

kill it

and it will then be harmless

[Skanky Burns]

With anGel having a phobia of spiders, it fell to me to kylle the spider. My weapons: a shoe, a rolled-up newspaper, a spread-out newspaper and an almost-empty bottle of anti-insect surface-spray (not recommended for indoor use). Thusly armed, I went into battle.

My first attack possibly got some of the spray onto the spider's leg. After watching the spider not being affected much by that, I went in for another go and managed to spray it decently. Its back legs looked as though they had gone numb and I thought it might drop at any time, so I put the newspaper under where it would fall so I could splat it. Unfortunately it recovered and fled to behind the curtain.

Rolled-up newspaper time. After a few false starts (including one of the kittens running into the room and sitting right below where the spider was hiding) I found where it was and gave it another good spray. It then fled up to the roof and hid in the corner.

Another photo, corner of room not shown. I couldn't get a decent photo of it here either, what with me wanting to keep my arm out of spider-attack range.

[rah]

My old boss related a tale of one christmas when it had been real cold all december. They had bought a real christmas tree and put it up in there living room to thaw.
Upon thawing hundreds of small spiders started exiting the tree to all parts of their living room. Needless to say they now put up a fake tree every year.

So one spider does not constitute a spider attack.

Be a man and kill the thing. It's your job and just one of the reasons that women put up with us.

[Skanky Burns]

Despite the fact that he was near-covered in anti-insect surface spray and being hunted by yours truely, our spider's top priority seemed to be building a web. As you do. With silksteel trailing out behind, he went back to the centre of the roof. Seeing my opportunity, I jumped onto the bed and let loose a large amount of spray, shaking the can so some of the poison actually came out instead of just air as seemed to have been the case previously. This finally worked and spider fell to the bed and was then knocked onto the floor for the coup de grace.

Victory!

[Skanky Burns]

I'm glad there weren't more than one of them, but you should have seen the size of this thing.

It is indeed harmless now though. After splatting it, I scooped it up, put in in a plastic bag and then squashed it several more times just to make sure. It is now in the bin outside and the house is now once again safe for sleeping.

All the same though, I think I'll stay up for a while yet.

[Pekka]

oh man that's disgusting. I have fear for spiders and snakes. I can't even sleep before I know for sure every spider is killed, and we don't even have spiders!

The biggest are the size of the tip of your pinky.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
...an almost-empty bottle of anti-insect surface-spray (not recommended for indoor use...

Make sure you open some windows and vent the room properly.

One of my co-workers found a large bug in the coffee creamer this morning. Eww! Glad I take mine black.

[Footie Mad]

Spiders are good for keeping other nasty bugs in check, so if I see a spider web by the window in the summer time I leave it so maybe I'll have one less irritating fly buzzing around inside the apartment. But considering the amount of poisonous spiders in Australia I would be very cautious if I was living there...

[OzzyKP]

Was it a radioactive spider?

[Skanky Burns]

I think it was either a huntsman or a black house spider. Both are poisonous but not deadly. Fortunately I didn't need to find that out the hard way. I'm leaning towards huntsman as the black house spiders' maximum size is only 15mm while the huntsman can be bigger.

[Nostromo]

You're so brave! I bet you two had the-noble-knight-saved-the-damsel-in-distress sex afterwards

[RGBVideo]

Guys, it's easy to point and laugh at Skanky since (a) you don't live in Australia (b) It's hard to find any furniture which would show the scale of those pics. There are a lot of both poisonous and large spiders down under, all nasty-looking.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider :

While frequently very large (in Laos, Heteropoda maxima males can attain a legspan of 25–30 cm, i.e., 9.33–11.25 inches), and quite a fearsome sight, they are not deadly to humans

Check this out for a close-up of a huntsman spider.

[Datajack Franit]

spiders

[Chemical Ollie]

I have a better solution