wolf spiders!

[Pinky]

Spiders in the house are ok, as long as it's not in my room. I don't mind them in my sister's or parent's room

. If I find them in my room they are either chicken or fish food.

 

[annep]

I am really thinking I should not have read this thread right before bed...

 

[kmerkley01]

Quote:
They're trying to get in the house because the weather is getting colder. I used to find them swarming all over the steps outside my front door this time of year just looking for an opportunity to scramble in. Now that I have chickens at my door all the time, the spiders are gone but I have chicken poop all over my front steps. So take your pick!

I'd take the chicken poop.

Me Too!!!!

 

[kmerkley01]

My parents used to have a hot tub that sat under some pine trees. You would be sitting there in the evening, relaxing and enjoying the peace and quiet, when SPLASH.....something would fall out of the trees into the hot tub. MANY times it was one, or more!, of the Wolf Spiders.

I'd take chicken poop all over the porch instead of the spiders! Unfortunately, they do wait at all the doors, waiting for a way in. And the chickens don't go in the front yard, or at least close enough to the front door, to eliminate the spiders.

The Wolf spiders are the only ones that I absolutely cannot deal with. The others get moved out into the garden or at least moved to a spot where people won't walk directly into their webs.

 

[frostbite]

Bantam Tarantulas!!

That's a good one. You ought to earn some points for that!

I don't mind the spiders, so much. We had a bumble bee fall into bed with us one night. Just looking for a warm comfy place to sleep I guess. We got out of bed, turned on the lights, found him in the covers and turned him loose.

Yellow jackets are worse, but here's a safe non toxic solution for the hornets. Fill a super soaker water gun with water with a teaspoon of dish soap. It kills them nearly as fast as poisons, and doesn't leave toxic residue for your pets. Probably would work for wolf spiders too, but who would really want to kill those little bantam spiders?

We hunt hornets with our "bee gun" every May, each jacket that comes out is a fertile queen, so each one represents a whole nest of those nasty buggers if we let them live another month or two. They're a lot less scary when I can sneak up on them with a trusty weapon!

Of course, every insect or arachnid you kill is one that the poor hungry chickens can't eat....

 

[OvertheHenHouse]

Quote:
Where I live, wolf spiders and funnel web spiders are two different things. Wolf spiders are huge and really look like bantam tarantulas, but in cream and brown (Sonoran Silkies, what a great description!). These spiders create huge (and I mean HUGE) 2 dimensional webs. Funnel web spiders appear similar to wolf spiders, but they create a 3D funnel web. The difference I saw - a funnel web spider will protect its web but won't come out. A wolf spider will happily leave its web and land, say, on an unsuspecting chicken lover's back and scare the YouKnowWhat out of her. Those are the differences, as I see them, between wolf and funnel web spiders. And given my experience, I'll take a funnel web spider any day!

 

[Imp]

The wolf spiders That I saw in that house were dark, not as hairy as tarantulas, but were hairy. And had a leg span as large as my hand. More like this:

The first time I saw one I was sitting down reading. I kept seeing , out of the corner of my eye, something dark. I must have been very engrossed in the book cause I didn't look for several minutes. Finally I looked over and it was sitting on my shoulder.

After the screaming stopped I had to climb down off the ceiling.

I'm much better about spiders than I used to be. I'm OK with small ones, ones in webs, and if they are outside. Inside not so much, It's instant death if I see them before the cats.

Imp

 

[OvertheHenHouse]

Quote:
Oh, golly, Imp - remind me not to move to Seattle! I'm less unnerved when the spiders are lighter colored - really unnerved when they're dark like your picture. Guess my background with black widows predisposes me that way. But I did end up with a wolf spider on my back - and I guess I was fortunate I wasn't the one who saw it...

 

[bobbi-j]

Quote:
Eww! Eww! I would

then I would

. Either that or just up and die of a heart-attack on the spot. Just looking at the pictures raised the hair on the back of my neck and gave me the willies! Eww!

 

[gpwelding1]

turn a guinny loose in your house,problem solved.
but seriously,a couple of guinnys running loose around your yard will eliminate the spider population!