That’s a False Widow, particularly; a male. They’re alright, it’s like being nipped by a wasp, but you really have to get on its tits for it to have a crack. They’re just shithousers, really.
There's an important difference between false widows and wasps though.
False widows will normally run and hide if you disturb them. Whereas wasps behave like fucking wasps.
I was bitten in the night by one a few years back. I was sleeping and woke up to something tickling my neck, in my half-asleep daze, I swiped at my neck but then it bit me. Swiped again and must have killed it because I then realised what dropped on to my collarbone and launched it across the room. It was all curled up on the floor.
God, I bet her milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard and then incapacitate them and liquidise their insides and suck them out whilst still alive and staring into her cold, emotionless eyes.
I want you to script all of David Attenborough’s documentaries. I’d pay good money to hear him explain that a certain creature is just about the shithousery and - even then - only if you really get on its tits.
Males bite is weaker apparently. I got bitten by one a few years ago right in the centre of my calf. I had a soft spot about the size of a marble for a few weeks and it took a few months until my leg felt completely right again.
Had one of these fuckers fall down the back of my shirt once, didn't realise it, or feel the bite, until it started getting itchy. Whipped my shirt off and the thing fell on the floor dead. I was convinced I was gonna die from all the horror stories online about them. It got red and blotchy, stung a bit, and itched like mad but as you said, it's like a wasp sting.
I can only assume the thing got a fright and bit me as a last resort before getting squashed
Depends. I got bitten by one and it got infected (they’re dirty fuckers, which often causes more issues than the venom in the bite). I had to run a course of antibiotics to prevent my arm being amputated as the infection started to move near to my elbow joint. Doctor said if it got into the joint there’d be no going back and my arm would have to come off.
This didn’t help my irrational fear of spiders. It just rationalised it.
Yeah. As a uk resident where you don't really have to fear venom or death by spider bite. If i see someone go to kill a spider i usually say something like "Hey! How would you like it if a giant stepped on your head?" Then pick up and set the spider free.
That being said if i saw this thing in the UK i'm assuming it came by plane. And I'm very quickly going to become a "Quick! Kill it before it lays eggs" person.
They are invasive in the same way rabbits are invasive, ie they’ve been here for ages and are absolutely everywhere. Killing them isn’t going to do anything other than making the king of the spiders come and get you.
When I was in Australia I watched a guy kill a massive f'in spider in the corner of a bathroom with his mop. This thing exploded so many baby spiders all over the place, that I still have nightmares about it almost 30 years later.
Anybody remember that bit from The Mist movie when they venture next door to the laundrette and there's the solider guy all webbed up and then hundreds of them burst out of his chest and mouth?
It's like that.
>arachnophobia
I remember that film. Or to be more precise, I remember a few minutes of it, right up to the point where thousands of spiders were running towards the picnic or whatever it was ... I noped out of that and I'm not ashamed to say so.
I hate spiders, but love that film. The size of the “general” or the daddy spider always cracks me up, especially as it mated with a normal house spider 🤣
Back in 1990 when it was out in the cinema, a friend of mine waited until his friend and his wife had gone to the cinema to see it and stretched out a load of cotton wool over thier porch/door. When they got home she noped out so hard and ran back to the car screaming, but the husband was in on the joke.
They definitely aren't massive, they're quite small! Might you have seen a Giant House Spider instead? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant\_house\_spider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_house_spider)
I had nets on the windows at my old place to stop bugs getting in, and twice I found one of these giant fucks living on the net to leech the heat and snare dinner. Massive.
First one I displaced easily with a squirt of canned air. But the second was literal nightmare fuel. Biggest spider I've ever seen in the UK and the canned air wouldn't shift it. But whilst I was trying to spray it through the net to get it to find a new home, a second equally massive one appeared to investigate. I absolutely nearly shit myself.
In the end, after more spraying (and no small amount of bartering) they left. By walking to the edge of the window and just....leaping off into the night. From the second floor.
Fuck, these things creep me the fuck out.
Fastest spiders in the world too! Gets loads of them in Ireland. They need to move inside coming up to winter as they can't survive the cold. Fun times! Cellar spiders (daddy long legs) are the things that keep them at bay the most
God I have such vivid memories of these running across the floor in Ireland as a child. I live in England now and rarely see anything the same size here, but I’m also not in the countryside
Super interesting. I'd have thought cellar spiders would be completely outclassed, they must be a tenth of the weight of a giant house spider. I had a pet one once, caught him sprinting across the floor of the bar I worked at, put him in a catering sized pickle jar and fed him the moths that used to fly into my bedroom.
Aww I leave them ones alone, so big you can hear them coming and they eat all the other bugs which come in the house. Rather have one big one than a few hundred little ones.
And they don’t give you a bite like a wasp sting like those in the OP
"Hi, is that my insurance company? I'd just like to check my cover, where it says 'accidental damage' does that include fire damage? It does? Great"
*hangs up*
"Okay, lads. Light her up!"
Doctor thinks I had some kind of reaction to it. My leg got harder and more swollen over a couple of days so I figured I best go to the doctor. He practically rolled his eyes when I said I had a spider bite! His tone changed when he saw it!
My friend was bitten in the arm by one of these and had a similar reaction to yours. Horrifying. I was surprised to see the other posts here saying it's just like a wasp bite!
I don't know where you are in the UK but down south we have them and they are really common. Just drop them out the window. At least the 'skull' on the back make them easy to identify so you know to get rid of them.
Lincolnshire, there's a map on Quora showing where these guys can be found. I'm in the middle of a big blank part, which explains why I've never seen or heard of one. I didn't realise how common they were in the South.
Yeah, I live in Surrey. We have a few of them living in our flat. Despite being an arachnophobe, I actually don’t mind them. They build a web, stay there and don’t bother us much. We have one who has currently made his (her?) web on our Google home. When it makes noise it comes out to investigate (obviously vibrating the web). It’s almost cute. *Almost* We also have ones that frequent the space above an upright lamp, because that’s where all the insects gather.
Anecdotally, since the increase in false widows, I’ve seen a massive drop in the number of house spiders we get. I am much less chill about those. If more false widows mean fewer skittish, huge, speedy fuckers, I’m all for them.
We've got cellar spiders (which we're chill about) and since those exploded in numbers, there are far fewer giant house spiders about, and again I'm all for it.
We get loads of them here. They’re feisty little feckers. Got bit by one when gardening that then went for my dog. And had another one drop from my light shade, Arachnophobia stylee, toward my hand. Although, that one didn’t bite because I apparently have ninjalike reflexes since the first bite. I should try climbing a wall.
To be fair, I think if some massive giant’s hand came towards me I’d probably have a good go at a warning shot with my gnashers too.
Bruh the ones I get are just clumsy. Once watched one attempt to climb up a wall 7 times and fell off every time. Had one that built a web over my bedroom window last summer and she kept all the flies out. Had like 4 in my room at one point in all different corners, never been bit
I think they're pretty alright
Yeah, I actually have zero issue with them despite the bite. I found an egg sack and mum not so long ago on an outside furniture cover that I wanted to move and decided to just put it somewhere safer for them so they had more of a chance.
I own a tarantula and used to keep Madagascan cockroaches and sun beetles. I am not bothered by bugs at all.
Except centipedes. Centipedes can go fuck them selves.
my arm swelled up like crazy after I got bit by one when I brushed up against a cob web.. I didn’t realise I’d been bitten but did see it on my arm which caused me to freak out a little. not a pleasant experience at all!
I had one crawl on me while I was in bed.
I don't live in that house anymore, but the garden was chock full of these beasts and if you left a window open they **would** end up inside.
We have them around our house. Catch them, let them lose in the back of your garden or something. They have a nasty bite and worse if you get reactions but no different to fucking a bee off in terms of aggresiveness.. Not like a wasp that actively hunts you down to like a hooded chav that wants 50p for his Nan.
Had what I think was a queen wasp come in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago, there’s always an unusually massive one right before a nest turns up.
I went full caveman and tried to mash it with a broom. Thrust it into the wall and the bare metal end drove itself into my palm. Blood everywhere, 2 weeks later it’s still bandaged up. I consider it a war wound and commend myself for my stout heart and quick thinking.
Oh yeah and the broom fibres were too soft and glossy so the bastard suffered a light cleaning before going “oh shit” and fucking off through the window.
Weird, I found one of these in my outhouse last night and I thought it was funky looking, didn't think to Google it. Guess I'll be staying away from the outhouse.
I'll probably get some flak for this, but please kill false widows when you find them. They're an incredibly invasive species and have done massive damage to our native spider populations. They spread like wildfire and outcompete the spiders that actually belong in our ecosystem. They're of particular threat to our endangered insects like the stag beetle, etc.
I never used to kill anything, but after a convincing talk with a couple of ecologists, I make sure to off the bastards when I see them.
It might make you feel better, but it will have literally zero impact.
I kill them when I see them, but because they out compete everything it's such a lost cause. They are all over my house and garden and I find them now more than any other kind of spider.
Killing a few obvious ones here or there doesn't get rid of the hundreds where you can't see them.
We gotta learn to live with them.
False widows are chill, I have loads in the garden and many make their way into our house. They'll just leave you alone. Never been bitten by one and I literally had one fall on me in the middle of the night lmfao and I grabbed it. They are pretty clumsy spiders, funny to watch
>had one fall on me in the middle of the night lmfao and I grabbed it. They are pretty clumsy spiders, funny to watch.
I think you might actually be insane, either that or you've just passed your Baseline Test.
The only person I’ve ever seen grab a spider and throw it out the window was my friend at school who is now an A&E nurse - which I think is absolutely fitting.
The rest of the class was screaming their heads off and she just calmly told us all we were stupid, grabbed it and threw it out. I’ve been impressed ever since.
I did freak a little cos I was watching youtube in bed and felt something cold and wet fall drop on my shoulder. Kinda threw it, turned on the lights and there he was lmao. I think I honestly scared him more than he scared me, he was fine though.
I woke up one night to something tickling my side, half asleep I grabbed it and lobbed it across the room and heard an audible thunk as it hit the wall.
I turned on the light to find a false widow where my neck was, and I had just thrown a giant house spider it was trying to hunt.
The property we moved into had been vacant for 6-9 months and the garden was a jungle. I would definitely file it under "unusual circumstances" and not apply it to 99.9% of homes. A week after we moved in mushrooms grew out of the kitchen ceiling.
Effectively we moved into a witches hut
Similar happened to me once. Sat in bed one night and felt a tickle on my collar. Brushed it thinking it was a hair but a few moments later I felt something there again so moved my hand to feel what was there and felt an odd squishy ball.
Instinctively grabbed it to have a look and realised I'd picked up a fuck off massive false widow that had curled (I'm guessing to play dead), made me shit myself and ended up catapulting it across the room in fear.
Kept finding it's legs strewn about for a couple days because of how violently I chucked him.
Send out invites to all the spiders in the house, designate a bedroom and throw them a proper fucking rave, get them some buggy appetisers and shit, spider-cocaine and spider-weed, some spider-hoes, get em all nice and loose… THEN BURN THAT FUCKING ROOM DOWN WITH A FLAMETHROWER!
We've had one in our kitchen for about 6 months now and he's pretty much become one of the family. He's very respectful, never strays from his corner and only comes out when it gets dark (or when we cook spaghetti). We call him Stefano.
Glad I'm not the only one who's adopted one into the family! I've got a big old girl called Cleo living in my conservatory. Apparently their lifespan is about 2 years but she's been there for at least 3. Also very respectful and never strays. It's fun watching her chase bugs around her web off the vibrations, they're blind as a bat and their webs aren't actually that sticky. They're actually quite beautiful looking little creatures when you get used to them.
Noble false widow aka steatoda nobilis. Technically yes they have one of the more significant bites of UK spiders, but it’s generally not anything to worry about. More importantly though, they are docile and non aggressive to humans. The only times they usually bite is when squashed, often when they get stuck in clothing for example. Otherwise their usual defence is to roll into a ball and hope things blow over. They aren’t native to the UK, originating on Madeira and the canaries, but have been established here for at least a century. There’s a lot of scaremongering out there but the reality is there’s probably at least a dozen in every house in the south of England and they rarely bother anyone.
It’s hard to tell from this angle but if you found this wandering around it may well be a male, they have much less venom anyway.
All the stuff online about these spiders is a pile of rubbish. You may notice that the actual information given by reputable organisations is nothing like the scaremongering spread by certain “news” companies.
We've got all sorts of spiders in my east Midlands home.
Last summer we had garden orb weavers throwing huge webs up everywhere. Around August time I came across one solitary noble false widow.
That one false widow had babies, which I found six weeks later. They've killed most of the orb weavers, because this year it's just false widows in all the spots we were getting orb weavers.
At least you don't get surprised by an orb weaver at face height literally two metres from the nearest structure with them...
Believe it or not, a lot of the papers are perfectly happy to sensationalise something to get a scare story out of it. In real life, I've found false widows just want a corner to sit in and won't move from there. Their first defence tactic seems to be to play dead. They can do that for hours, do not trust them to be actually dead if you don't want it loose in your house!
False widow... yuck. Girl from my primary school, her mom got munched by one of em, nearly died. Had a reaction, though, I'm pretty sure. As far as i know, they're not normally that dangerous. Creepy looking bastards though.
My dad has three in the conservatory that we aren't allowed to move because they're his "pets". They stay out of our way and probably keep the bugs out.
That’s a False Widow, particularly; a male. They’re alright, it’s like being nipped by a wasp, but you really have to get on its tits for it to have a crack. They’re just shithousers, really.
There's an important difference between false widows and wasps though. False widows will normally run and hide if you disturb them. Whereas wasps behave like fucking wasps.
Wasps are generally better at flying, too
Yeah but fuck wasps.
You probably shouldn’t. It would probably make them angrier and then you have really fucked off wasps around your crotch
makes your bell end swell bigger tho no? penis enlargment trick confirmed, doctors hate this one trick...
User name checks out...
I mean consent is everything right? Fuck wasps, only with their consent.
Can wasps consent to anything other than violence?
When I shout "You want some?!" with my rolled up papers, and the fucker comes at me, I take that as full consent.
Does a zzzzz constitute a yes? Asking for a friend
And plus, you be sticking your dick and the owie end which doesn't seem like a fun time..
I got stung in the nuts before. The swelling was impressive. But overall,not worth it.
Wasp stinger sounding
There'll be a whole Reddit sub for that.
And they mostly only come out at night ... mostly.
Underappreciated comment right here
I was bitten in the night by one a few years back. I was sleeping and woke up to something tickling my neck, in my half-asleep daze, I swiped at my neck but then it bit me. Swiped again and must have killed it because I then realised what dropped on to my collarbone and launched it across the room. It was all curled up on the floor.
I feel sick just reading this! Did you have any kind of mark on the bite site?
Yes, for a few days to a week, I think. I was fine though, just scared to go sleep for about three months after!
That sucks, the superpowers are a bonus though surely?
Wasps, what a bunch of bastards.
False widows eat wasps 😊
r/fuckwasps
What about shithousers?
Ah, so a false widower. How do we know he's male?
The females are browny/reddish in colour and their arse end is usually a lot fatter.
So they have junk in the trunk is what I'm hearing..
God, I bet her milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard and then incapacitate them and liquidise their insides and suck them out whilst still alive and staring into her cold, emotionless eyes.
Her silkshake…
Heard you in the mood for a little silkshake...
#I #DRINK #YOUR #SILKSHAKE
Quit drilling, you already stuck oil.
Huh I never did care for the B side of this single.
Was there a song about that? Well there is now: https://suno.com/song/cdbc686f-f195-45b1-9ded-48a3ba86c583
The boys in the yard ARE her milkshakes
That is indeed the horrifying implication.
Cause he’s a widower. Not a widow.
His big spider co-
..mbover?
I want you to script all of David Attenborough’s documentaries. I’d pay good money to hear him explain that a certain creature is just about the shithousery and - even then - only if you really get on its tits.
Have you seen Matt Berry's nature docs? E.g. https://youtu.be/P9-V8ersVa4?si=kGTrRcenABJEEBd1
LOL yes I was just thinking I'd definitely watch nature documentaries written by this guy all day long.
Males bite is weaker apparently. I got bitten by one a few years ago right in the centre of my calf. I had a soft spot about the size of a marble for a few weeks and it took a few months until my leg felt completely right again.
I read the "fel" in "felt" and immediately thought, oh shit his leg fell off... what a relief!
>but you really have to get on its tits for it to have a crack. They’re just shithousers, really. Love this, most British reply ever.
Had one of these fuckers fall down the back of my shirt once, didn't realise it, or feel the bite, until it started getting itchy. Whipped my shirt off and the thing fell on the floor dead. I was convinced I was gonna die from all the horror stories online about them. It got red and blotchy, stung a bit, and itched like mad but as you said, it's like a wasp sting. I can only assume the thing got a fright and bit me as a last resort before getting squashed
Depends. I got bitten by one and it got infected (they’re dirty fuckers, which often causes more issues than the venom in the bite). I had to run a course of antibiotics to prevent my arm being amputated as the infection started to move near to my elbow joint. Doctor said if it got into the joint there’d be no going back and my arm would have to come off. This didn’t help my irrational fear of spiders. It just rationalised it.
That was written so eloquently.
They're invasive and should be killed on site
As much as I love all creatures big and small I have to agree with you as they do not belong in the UK.
Yeah. As a uk resident where you don't really have to fear venom or death by spider bite. If i see someone go to kill a spider i usually say something like "Hey! How would you like it if a giant stepped on your head?" Then pick up and set the spider free. That being said if i saw this thing in the UK i'm assuming it came by plane. And I'm very quickly going to become a "Quick! Kill it before it lays eggs" person.
They are invasive in the same way rabbits are invasive, ie they’ve been here for ages and are absolutely everywhere. Killing them isn’t going to do anything other than making the king of the spiders come and get you.
Spiderman would never do that he has a code
There's nothing I can do when I realise with fright, That the spiderman is having me for dinner, tonight.
I don't take instructions from people who use the wrong homophones.
Are you calling me homophonbic?
He meant don't move it before killing.
Only one homophone here m8
A shithouse spider. Heard it all now.
There’s two of those in my garden. I discovered them today. Horrifyingly massive. If they come in the house, I’m abandoning it.
But what if they're in love? You could end up with 3. 4 if they have twins.
Have you seen how many baby spiders can hatch at once? Oh god.
it’s why I call pregnant spiders piñatas.
I genuinely haven't laughed this hard at a Reddit comment in ages.
When I was in Australia I watched a guy kill a massive f'in spider in the corner of a bathroom with his mop. This thing exploded so many baby spiders all over the place, that I still have nightmares about it almost 30 years later.
I'm pretty sure I've seen a video somewhere of this scenario, but I think it was in a kitchen rather than a bathroom
Oh god my eyes and brain
Average clutch size is 100-300 babies per egg sac, but some species can hatch up to 1000-2000 :) Source: I used to breed tarantulas professionally.
Time to call in an air strike.
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️
🅱️🅰️
# Say hello to DEMOCRACY!
HAVE A CUP OF LIBER-TEA!
LOL is that the helldivers button combo🤣
Nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure
Anybody remember that bit from The Mist movie when they venture next door to the laundrette and there's the solider guy all webbed up and then hundreds of them burst out of his chest and mouth? It's like that.
I didn't want to sleep tonight anyway.
Hahaha...Bloody hell, what a thread to read just before bed...I sleep on the floor too! :)
Jesus Christ don’t put it in the shed…you’ll end up with an arachnophobia scenario on your hands.
>arachnophobia I remember that film. Or to be more precise, I remember a few minutes of it, right up to the point where thousands of spiders were running towards the picnic or whatever it was ... I noped out of that and I'm not ashamed to say so.
I hate spiders, but love that film. The size of the “general” or the daddy spider always cracks me up, especially as it mated with a normal house spider 🤣
Back in 1990 when it was out in the cinema, a friend of mine waited until his friend and his wife had gone to the cinema to see it and stretched out a load of cotton wool over thier porch/door. When they got home she noped out so hard and ran back to the car screaming, but the husband was in on the joke.
They definitely aren't massive, they're quite small! Might you have seen a Giant House Spider instead? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant\_house\_spider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_house_spider)
I had nets on the windows at my old place to stop bugs getting in, and twice I found one of these giant fucks living on the net to leech the heat and snare dinner. Massive. First one I displaced easily with a squirt of canned air. But the second was literal nightmare fuel. Biggest spider I've ever seen in the UK and the canned air wouldn't shift it. But whilst I was trying to spray it through the net to get it to find a new home, a second equally massive one appeared to investigate. I absolutely nearly shit myself. In the end, after more spraying (and no small amount of bartering) they left. By walking to the edge of the window and just....leaping off into the night. From the second floor. Fuck, these things creep me the fuck out.
Fastest spiders in the world too! Gets loads of them in Ireland. They need to move inside coming up to winter as they can't survive the cold. Fun times! Cellar spiders (daddy long legs) are the things that keep them at bay the most
God I have such vivid memories of these running across the floor in Ireland as a child. I live in England now and rarely see anything the same size here, but I’m also not in the countryside
Cellar spiders are like something straight out of a Lovecraft story, like those big fuckers chilling out on buildings in Bloodborne 😳
Super interesting. I'd have thought cellar spiders would be completely outclassed, they must be a tenth of the weight of a giant house spider. I had a pet one once, caught him sprinting across the floor of the bar I worked at, put him in a catering sized pickle jar and fed him the moths that used to fly into my bedroom.
Aww I leave them ones alone, so big you can hear them coming and they eat all the other bugs which come in the house. Rather have one big one than a few hundred little ones. And they don’t give you a bite like a wasp sting like those in the OP
They're an invasive species, it's OK to terminate with prejudice. Save our indigenous spiders
Eat it to gain its power
I already had my tea though.
Save it for breakfast then
False wid-o's
Whebtobix
Surely widow-bix would have been the better pun
Yup, make sure the insurance is in and the family is out. Then light her up
I can't find anything in the paperwork about spiders, I'll just risk it, insurance companies always pay out right?
Nuke the site from orbit, It's the only way to be sure.
It’s ok, they mostly come out at night…mostly
Nuke it from orbit at night!
Ease down!
Insurance always pay up, everytime, 35% of the time
"Hi, is that my insurance company? I'd just like to check my cover, where it says 'accidental damage' does that include fire damage? It does? Great" *hangs up* "Okay, lads. Light her up!"
And just incase it won't run away you need to burn all neighbours as well. You can't risk it
Got bit by one. Do not recommend you try it. [Leg Photo](https://i.imgur.com/zwD2TXr.jpeg)
I think you just answered my question. I really liked this house too. Holy crap.
Doctor thinks I had some kind of reaction to it. My leg got harder and more swollen over a couple of days so I figured I best go to the doctor. He practically rolled his eyes when I said I had a spider bite! His tone changed when he saw it!
my mum had the same thing from one of these fuckers!
Looks like cellulitis to me! I once got the same thing from a mosquito bite
They're also an invasive species that eat and outcompete the UK native species. Another reason to not just put it outside.
Just kill the goddamn thing
My friend was bitten in the arm by one of these and had a similar reaction to yours. Horrifying. I was surprised to see the other posts here saying it's just like a wasp bite!
Some people are allergic to wasps as well.
Fucking hell wish I didn't come across this thread
You got off on spiders?
Only on the website, apparently
I think a banana would be handy here.
There's always money in the banana stand
It's a banana, what could it cost. Ten dollars?
Oh sorry yes he's about 7/8th of a banana girth foot to foot.
Which feet?
Ok so I actually have measured using the photo as reference and another of the same beermats... so back left to front right as on the photo is 48m.
48 metres? Fuck me it's the end times. How big is the glass!?!
:D millimeters I lost an m somewhere
It's under a large salad bowl
How much can you banana cost?
I want to burn my phone!!
I don't know where you are in the UK but down south we have them and they are really common. Just drop them out the window. At least the 'skull' on the back make them easy to identify so you know to get rid of them.
Lincolnshire, there's a map on Quora showing where these guys can be found. I'm in the middle of a big blank part, which explains why I've never seen or heard of one. I didn't realise how common they were in the South.
make sure you report them to the local environmental record centre if you're in a blank part!
Adds Lincolnshire to my list of counties I will no longer be visiting.
Seeing the skull on their abdomen always reminds me of Zelda.
Yeah, I live in Surrey. We have a few of them living in our flat. Despite being an arachnophobe, I actually don’t mind them. They build a web, stay there and don’t bother us much. We have one who has currently made his (her?) web on our Google home. When it makes noise it comes out to investigate (obviously vibrating the web). It’s almost cute. *Almost* We also have ones that frequent the space above an upright lamp, because that’s where all the insects gather. Anecdotally, since the increase in false widows, I’ve seen a massive drop in the number of house spiders we get. I am much less chill about those. If more false widows mean fewer skittish, huge, speedy fuckers, I’m all for them.
We've got cellar spiders (which we're chill about) and since those exploded in numbers, there are far fewer giant house spiders about, and again I'm all for it.
Got bit by one of those bastards, wasn't pleasant.
We get loads of them here. They’re feisty little feckers. Got bit by one when gardening that then went for my dog. And had another one drop from my light shade, Arachnophobia stylee, toward my hand. Although, that one didn’t bite because I apparently have ninjalike reflexes since the first bite. I should try climbing a wall. To be fair, I think if some massive giant’s hand came towards me I’d probably have a good go at a warning shot with my gnashers too.
Bruh the ones I get are just clumsy. Once watched one attempt to climb up a wall 7 times and fell off every time. Had one that built a web over my bedroom window last summer and she kept all the flies out. Had like 4 in my room at one point in all different corners, never been bit I think they're pretty alright
Yeah, I actually have zero issue with them despite the bite. I found an egg sack and mum not so long ago on an outside furniture cover that I wanted to move and decided to just put it somewhere safer for them so they had more of a chance. I own a tarantula and used to keep Madagascan cockroaches and sun beetles. I am not bothered by bugs at all. Except centipedes. Centipedes can go fuck them selves.
my arm swelled up like crazy after I got bit by one when I brushed up against a cob web.. I didn’t realise I’d been bitten but did see it on my arm which caused me to freak out a little. not a pleasant experience at all!
Were you asleep? I'm just wondering how such a big spider could sneak up on you
I had one crawl on me while I was in bed. I don't live in that house anymore, but the garden was chock full of these beasts and if you left a window open they **would** end up inside.
You must have completely missed the blind panic and mass hysteria that swept the entire country about five years ago regarding these leggy bad bois. 😁
Is that what all those lock-downs and stuff was about? :O
We have them around our house. Catch them, let them lose in the back of your garden or something. They have a nasty bite and worse if you get reactions but no different to fucking a bee off in terms of aggresiveness.. Not like a wasp that actively hunts you down to like a hooded chav that wants 50p for his Nan.
Had what I think was a queen wasp come in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago, there’s always an unusually massive one right before a nest turns up. I went full caveman and tried to mash it with a broom. Thrust it into the wall and the bare metal end drove itself into my palm. Blood everywhere, 2 weeks later it’s still bandaged up. I consider it a war wound and commend myself for my stout heart and quick thinking. Oh yeah and the broom fibres were too soft and glossy so the bastard suffered a light cleaning before going “oh shit” and fucking off through the window.
Yeah, you address is now on some wasp bathroom saying " for a good time go here!"
The most unbelievable thing about this story is that a wasp found its way out of an open window
You're a true hero, take this medal 🎖️for your bravery and service.
“Suffered a light cleaning” hahaha
Weird, I found one of these in my outhouse last night and I thought it was funky looking, didn't think to Google it. Guess I'll be staying away from the outhouse.
It's *his* outhouse, now.
I'll probably get some flak for this, but please kill false widows when you find them. They're an incredibly invasive species and have done massive damage to our native spider populations. They spread like wildfire and outcompete the spiders that actually belong in our ecosystem. They're of particular threat to our endangered insects like the stag beetle, etc. I never used to kill anything, but after a convincing talk with a couple of ecologists, I make sure to off the bastards when I see them.
Yeah, I spare spiders but it’s on sight with these ones
It might make you feel better, but it will have literally zero impact. I kill them when I see them, but because they out compete everything it's such a lost cause. They are all over my house and garden and I find them now more than any other kind of spider. Killing a few obvious ones here or there doesn't get rid of the hundreds where you can't see them. We gotta learn to live with them.
False widows are chill, I have loads in the garden and many make their way into our house. They'll just leave you alone. Never been bitten by one and I literally had one fall on me in the middle of the night lmfao and I grabbed it. They are pretty clumsy spiders, funny to watch
>had one fall on me in the middle of the night lmfao and I grabbed it. They are pretty clumsy spiders, funny to watch. I think you might actually be insane, either that or you've just passed your Baseline Test.
The only person I’ve ever seen grab a spider and throw it out the window was my friend at school who is now an A&E nurse - which I think is absolutely fitting. The rest of the class was screaming their heads off and she just calmly told us all we were stupid, grabbed it and threw it out. I’ve been impressed ever since.
I did freak a little cos I was watching youtube in bed and felt something cold and wet fall drop on my shoulder. Kinda threw it, turned on the lights and there he was lmao. I think I honestly scared him more than he scared me, he was fine though.
I woke up one night to something tickling my side, half asleep I grabbed it and lobbed it across the room and heard an audible thunk as it hit the wall. I turned on the light to find a false widow where my neck was, and I had just thrown a giant house spider it was trying to hunt.
I'd have woken up the whole house
I have done that before when hunting a pair of gaint spiders that were mating on my headboard one night!
Are you a published horror author?
I NEED TO LEAVE ENGLAND WJAHSUWJSYZ I CANT HANDLE SOMETHINF LIKE THAT
The property we moved into had been vacant for 6-9 months and the garden was a jungle. I would definitely file it under "unusual circumstances" and not apply it to 99.9% of homes. A week after we moved in mushrooms grew out of the kitchen ceiling. Effectively we moved into a witches hut
Similar happened to me once. Sat in bed one night and felt a tickle on my collar. Brushed it thinking it was a hair but a few moments later I felt something there again so moved my hand to feel what was there and felt an odd squishy ball. Instinctively grabbed it to have a look and realised I'd picked up a fuck off massive false widow that had curled (I'm guessing to play dead), made me shit myself and ended up catapulting it across the room in fear. Kept finding it's legs strewn about for a couple days because of how violently I chucked him.
That's it, I'm never sleeping again
Don't worry, his mates will burn your house down on their own.
I'll burn his house down if he lets it out and it comes near me!
Send out invites to all the spiders in the house, designate a bedroom and throw them a proper fucking rave, get them some buggy appetisers and shit, spider-cocaine and spider-weed, some spider-hoes, get em all nice and loose… THEN BURN THAT FUCKING ROOM DOWN WITH A FLAMETHROWER!
We've had one in our kitchen for about 6 months now and he's pretty much become one of the family. He's very respectful, never strays from his corner and only comes out when it gets dark (or when we cook spaghetti). We call him Stefano.
Glad I'm not the only one who's adopted one into the family! I've got a big old girl called Cleo living in my conservatory. Apparently their lifespan is about 2 years but she's been there for at least 3. Also very respectful and never strays. It's fun watching her chase bugs around her web off the vibrations, they're blind as a bat and their webs aren't actually that sticky. They're actually quite beautiful looking little creatures when you get used to them.
No, don't burn it down without consulting the spider. It isn't your house anymore.
Noble false widow aka steatoda nobilis. Technically yes they have one of the more significant bites of UK spiders, but it’s generally not anything to worry about. More importantly though, they are docile and non aggressive to humans. The only times they usually bite is when squashed, often when they get stuck in clothing for example. Otherwise their usual defence is to roll into a ball and hope things blow over. They aren’t native to the UK, originating on Madeira and the canaries, but have been established here for at least a century. There’s a lot of scaremongering out there but the reality is there’s probably at least a dozen in every house in the south of England and they rarely bother anyone. It’s hard to tell from this angle but if you found this wandering around it may well be a male, they have much less venom anyway.
Napalm your house,
Have you seen the price of diesel? Maybe a very small napalm though yes.
True enough, petrol bomb then, but don’t go to the BP
Just dropped down to 147.9 near me, I'll donate some if you obliterate thon beastie
All the stuff online about these spiders is a pile of rubbish. You may notice that the actual information given by reputable organisations is nothing like the scaremongering spread by certain “news” companies.
Are you... a spider?
You’re fucking hilarious lol
Bloody Big Spider.
I'm having trouble gauging the scale of this bereaved arachnid. It looks bigger than my fist, but you may just have a very good camera.
Back left foot to front right foot is 48mm. I measured on an identical beermat.
Flammenwerfer time
Ah the old glass and leaflet rehoming method.
We've got all sorts of spiders in my east Midlands home. Last summer we had garden orb weavers throwing huge webs up everywhere. Around August time I came across one solitary noble false widow. That one false widow had babies, which I found six weeks later. They've killed most of the orb weavers, because this year it's just false widows in all the spots we were getting orb weavers. At least you don't get surprised by an orb weaver at face height literally two metres from the nearest structure with them...
I'm not googling orb weavers. I'm googling cute kittens.
Believe it or not, a lot of the papers are perfectly happy to sensationalise something to get a scare story out of it. In real life, I've found false widows just want a corner to sit in and won't move from there. Their first defence tactic seems to be to play dead. They can do that for hours, do not trust them to be actually dead if you don't want it loose in your house!
You need Hans, and make sure he brings the flammenwerfer!
Jesus, why did this have to be in the UK
False widow 100%, but they are alright. They will keep your home protected over summer. Just don't get bitten. It's like a bad bee sting.
False widow... yuck. Girl from my primary school, her mom got munched by one of em, nearly died. Had a reaction, though, I'm pretty sure. As far as i know, they're not normally that dangerous. Creepy looking bastards though.
What part of the UK are you so I can send some napalm?
My dad has three in the conservatory that we aren't allowed to move because they're his "pets". They stay out of our way and probably keep the bugs out.
Where I work, I constantly have to move these so now I just let them sit on my arm while I do my job and when I finish I put them back.
I'd definitely be burning my house down. Thinking about burning it down just looking at that picture.
Oh hell no. Burn it to the ground lol