Yikes!

[Kaz]

Mick just put a very strange spider outside! It was black, with a meaty body and short meaty legs! It didn’t look like our usual spindly house spiders - wonder if it was a false widow????

I may not sleep well again tonight

[Kaz]

I just googled - which nearly gave me a heart attack as big photos came straight up! I thank it actually was!! Bloody hell, hope there isn’t a nest anywhere

[Suff]

Best to find it if you can. Mrs S was bitten by a false widow when she was taking ivy down from a building. It got her leg. She ignored it for a few days then was sent to hospital by the chemist. It took them a while to work out what it was and they treated her but she now has narrowing of the veins in that leg. It has been a decade of hassle as every time she got bitten by too many bugs (tropical climates), her leg would go black and she'd need antibiotics and cortisone injections.

It's settled now but the damage to the veins is done. Her leg constantly swells.

[Kaz]

Oh no, that's dreadful, poor Mrs S I will get Mick to have a good look round.

[JoM]

Hope there aren’t any more Kaz!

I have a small watering can for the houseplants and walked past it in the utility room last week when something caught my eye - it was the biggest spider I’ve ever seen outside of a zoo! Good thing Joe didn’t see it 6’1 and 22 and he still asks if I’d mind removing a spider from his room or bathroom, and always while he waits elsewhere
It went stomping across the patio when I put it outside.

Blimey Suff

[TheOstrich]

I haven't seen a spider that size down here in Dorset, but the ones we do have are the most persistent beggars out. If you stand still for more than two minutes, you'll be incorporated in a cobweb!

We had one the other day that overnight spun a huge web inside the car, from the side window to the sun visor to the steering wheel. I opened the car door, sat in the driver's seat - and found myself eyeball to eyeball with it!

[Kaz]

Ossie we must have a little one on B’s Yaris, as every time we go out in it there’s a new web on one of the wing mirrors I can’t find it though

Yikes Jo, you’re brave! I’m in Joe’s corner, hiding behind him!

[miasmum]

They must like Toyota's as Tim's Carolla used to have a spider that lived behind the wing mirror. It would come out and make a web, Tim would have to clear it to see properly then the next night it would come out again. We saw it once or twice and it even came all the way to the Lake District with us and back again

[TheOstrich]

Ah, the Wing Mirror Spider. Arachnidipus Persistantimus

We had a big black one some years ago, would quite happily sit on his web as we were bowling along. So I tested him at 70mph down the M6 one Saturday. He finally abandoned ship somewhere just north of Rugby if I remember correctly ....

[Kaz]

No sign of any more, thank goodness!

They must do, Shell

Ossie I cleared another web from that mirror today, bet you anything it will be back tomorrow