I live in Australia. We have some of the biggest, ugliest, most venomous and scariest spiders in the world. Do not fear, I am not putting photographs of them here. :) But I did want to mention that I have found a great solution to something many Australians have experienced and tend to fear quite a bit.. spiders climbing into your shoes.
This has happened to me a few times. There seemed to be no solution to it. There never seemed to be any easy way of putting shoes somewhere that spiders can’t get into them. I tend to bang my shoes on the ground so that if there’s any spiders inside they would fall out.
Long time readers of the blog know that I am a major fan of IKEA. The last time I was there I saw these shoe cabinets that you attach to the wall and I thought that was an excellent idea. I couldn’t find a price on them and I thought they would be hugely expensive but today I was at their website and I thought to look for them. I nearly fell over when I saw how cheap they were, only $79! I also found that they have this gorgeous shoe cabinet which will fit in my hallway perfectly. I just have to double check to make sure my shoes will fit. I have huge feet for a woman. :)
Why am I suddenly worried about this? Eeek it is too scary to link to it, but last week a woman here had a Funnelweb spider in her *towel* which bit her. Funnelwebs are big, black, ugly, and VERY poisonous. Don’t do an image search, your skin will crawl for hours. I had been told they were only to be found within a 20km radius of Sydney, but the local hospital here treats several cases of funnel web bite each year. Wonderful! We have them here too. So now I think I need to get me a shoe cabinet.
And believe me, I am carefully checking my towel like my life depends on it every morning. I’ve held myself back from going into a major vacuuming and cleaning everything to make sure there’s no evil creatures fit, but only barely. The urge is growing. If I vanish for a couple of days you’ll know the urge took over.
Ew. We have poisonous spiders here, but in established parts of the city they’re easy to avoid. I figure that if I haven’t seen any in the house at all, I shouldn’t need to check my shoes. We don’t hear much about bites, so it’s not a concern.
However, after hearing (while covering my eyes) a news story about a certain legless reptile being in the toilet, I cannot sit down to do my business without checking. So much for those late night visits in the dark. I’m awake for hours now after turning the light on to go.
Scares the life out of me!!
Not as much as my nan though. She almost nurdered me one year because I got her a rubber spider for her birthday.
My mum also told me that many years ago there was a news story about some banana spiders being found 40miles from their house. Aparently my nan did not leave the house for a week!
In England our spiders dont bite . In fact when I stayed in USA I thought people were joking with me about spiders that bite .
But we do have one of those Ikea cabinets … its great …. but , its now full of shoes and all our ” other shoes ” stand on the floor in front of it , waiting for the spiders . maybe buy two cabinets ?
I love spiders.
Spiders terrify me – especially seeing that we’ve a fair few funnelwebs out here near the Blue Mountains. Yipes.
*shudder* and *squee*
The most wonderful gorgeous things in the world stuck with the most terrifying nightmare inducing image. You cruel cruel woman.
Shoes….. ahhhh bliss. happy place. Shit. What is that in the corner over there? Is that something crawling on my leg? OMG!!!! I have to take a shower! I guess I will drip dry, or take the vacuum and a can of Mortien in the bathroom with me.
Now I will be feeling things creeping all over me all day!
At least you didn’t mention nits. Great. Now my head is itchy…..
We have to worry more about tick bites than spiders around here for the most part. But I can certainly understand how you’d want to have a cabinet for your shoes especially after finding spiders in them on more than one occasion. Yikes. I love those cabinets by Ikea! Both of them are pretty neat, depending on where you are using them.
Here in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, we’ve had black widow spiders appearing in grapes from our local supermarket. Last year one of my dear friends got bit by a recluse spider and ended up in the hospital for three days. It’s a real serious issue. We had a few non poisonous in our home this spring we have a spraying policy now. They come quarterly and I’m never stopping the exterminator especially after this story and the comments above. Wow..I’ll be shaking my towels..
Dorothy from grammology
call your gram
http://grammology.com
Did you know that the daddy-longlegs is one of the most venomous spiders in the world? Fortunately for us, its fangs are so tiny they can’t penetrate human skin. I love spiders, as long as they stay outside where they belong, I leave them alone and they leave me alone. L on the other hand is terrified and I’ve had to remove “huge” spiders many times from the bathroom or kitchen for him. Most of these are probably only about 3mm across, but occasionally there’s a huntsman that needs to be taken back outside. Never had any in my clothes or shoes.
Do you ever get used to having spiders so rampant in your area?
Great, because I really wanted to start checking my shoes before putting them on every time.
Kirsten – we have types of spiders which like to crawl into things, that’s one reason we have to check.
The good news I have for you is – do you have a septic tank? If not, you don’t have to worry about legless lizards or even lizards with legs in your toilet! ;) The creatures climb into the septic tank and then up through the pipes.
Forest – I get how your Nan feels, cos I have been freaking out for over a week since reading the story of the spider.
MsCatCalls – Tourists who arrive here often think we are joking too.. but we’re serious, there’s a lot of dangerous creatures here. If you know about them you know how to avoid them for the most part – shaking out your clothes and shoes to make sure nothing crawled in, that kind of thing. I really want one of these shoe cupboards now. ;)
Cerebralmum – As do I, when they stay outside and eat the insects which are trying to eat my plants. I have a very good spider friend outside who is keeping an eye on my tomato plants for me. But there is a line that can be crossed and that line is the inside of the house. Or climbing into my shoes. ;)
Alynda – I believe that the funnelweb is the most scary looking spider. The way it rears up on its back legs.. I’d completely freak out if there was one in the house. Totally. I’d need valium! ;)
Kelley – I know people who work in a pharmacy and the moment nits are mentioned you see them go all stiff because when a customer mentions it they have that same urge to itch but they are trained not to do it! ;) And yes, now I am itching too..
Teeni – IKEA is heaven to me. It is a temporal vortex where I can get lost for hours. ;) There’s just so much to look at. Ticks are not friendly, I don’t know too much about them but apparently dogs get a lot of them here. I should find out more.
Dorothy – I didn’t like grapes much before but now I’m certainly not going near them. :) Once every 6 months we spray the entrances with surface spray. I get a reaction to it, it is quite strong. The spiders seem to get quite drunk on it. They can’t walk straight.
River – Yes, I did know that. I like a daddy long legs. I tolerate them within the house happily. but what if they evolve? Scary thought right there! ;(
Karen – Yeah you just develop some odd habits. I check out the ceilings regularly because when I was growing up we had raked ceilings and a lot of huntsmen spiders who like to be up high. I do the clothes shaking and the shoe shaking and we never hang clothes on the line here. I’ve learnt a fair bit about webs and what kind of web = what kind of spider. But I still do a scream when I see one inside the house.
Emily – it is wise to be prepared. Let me tell you from personal experience that putting your foot into a shoe where there IS a spider is an experience to be avoided at all costs. But it depends where you live – you might not have creatures that do that around your place. ;)
Thanks for the comments all. :)
Cheers,
Snoskred
Here in Oregon in the USA, we dont have to worry, only the rare “black-widow” is dangerous to humans, the other hundreds of spiders are harmless. I’m getting worried now, seeing signs of climate change, and unfamiliar species of all kinds of bugs moving in. I saw a huge funnel web spider in my shoe today, american funnel web spiders are nonpoisionous, but also are much smaller than the poisionous funnel web spiders found in australia. that was not an american funnel web spider. It was fat, solid light brown, and as large as my thumb.