Our house is truly more spider than house. Spiders totally creep me out and I hate them with a passion. But my fear of them has lessened because I've had to confront them on a daily basis for the last three years. Most of my spider nightmares have now happened - like one ran across the keyboard while I was typing in the dark, a big black one was on my pillow right as I was laying down, and huge ones have dropped in front of my face many a time. I usually just matter-of-factly kill them now, unless they're really big, and then they are Paul's responsibility.
Like this one. I find the dead bodies of these red things all over the place; I rarely see one alive. Which is good, because they make me cry. I don't know if this picture is doing it justice, but they are HUGE. Once I tried to be brave and kill one of them, but the pop it made was so loud and forceful in my wad of toilet paper that I screamed loudly and longly and freaked out all the kids. So when Isabel nonchalantly informed me the other day that she had trapped a spider under a cup, and it turned out to be this one, I ordered everyone to stay far away and called Paul at work, begging him to come home and take care of it. He wouldn't. When he came home from work we had a spider photo session and then I begged him to take care of it. He wouldn't. I don't know if he just forgot about it, or if he's secretly scared of it too, but that spider was under the cup for three days. And yesterday, I found the cup overturned (probably by Oliver) and now that spider is roaming our house freely once again. Damn you, Paul.
I know I'm going to get a lot of comments about why I don't just call the exterminator. Here are the reasons. I am extremely afraid of the gallons of dead spiders that will rain down upon all areas of our house. Ike says they crawl out to the middle of the room to die. And seeing all of them and having to vacuum all of them up might lead to my mental breakdown. The other reason is I have heard that they eat mosquitos, another mortal enemy of mine. Mosquitos love me, but I've noticed that I never get bitten in our yard. Ever. Even after dark. My sister-in-law lives a block and a half away, and they always bite me in her yard. It's weird. So I don't want to upset any delicate ecosystem we have going on here, if it keeps the mosquitos away. But is this spider really the lesser of two evils?? Not sure about that.
15 comments:
Didn't Oliver say he ate the spider? Problem solved then.
I wasn't askairt. I just never got around to it. When I was at Dick's I saw they had this bug vacuum that you just aim and suck. Maybe I'll get you one of those. I think that would solve the problem. Just call me the problem-fixer.
One more objection, your Honor. I would have to see you matter-of-factly kill a spider to believe that claim.
Gross. I've never heard that spiders eat mosqitos, but I have heard that spiders crawl into your mouth while you are asleep. Exterminate.
One time I needed to syphon out the water in my clogged bathtub, so I went and got a hose out of the garage. My first suck got me a mouthful of stuff, so I spat into the sink, and there was an enormous spider. We both appreciated each other.
For some reason the spider pic isn't coming up. I'm actually terrified of spiders so it's probably a good thing. When Steve was going to school I also called him begging him to come home to kill this ginormous (is that a word) spider that was above our bed. I finally got the courage to spray at it and watch it take it's last breath. I don't like killing them with shoes since I feel like they might hop around and bite my hand. Anyway...creepy.
Oh man! This blog is going to give me nightmares! I HATE spiders - they are my worst enemies. What you need is a snake. We have gardner snakes in our yard and they eat the spiders. I don't know about the mosquitos... But those snakes only come out once in a while - I see them while I mow the yard and stuff - they aren't at all scary! I can't believe the spider popped. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Living in a log house presents a problem with bugs and spiders, they think that it's just one big tree to live in. We learned very quickly to spray long and often to rid us of this problem. It doesn;t solve all your spider woe's but it helps a great deal. Before we started doing so my Meg kept getting bit by spiders in her sleep. (Naughty Spiders!!)One time it was so bad that we had to take her in to the doctor and get an antibiotic because she had an infection and her bites were starting to turn hard and black. (not good..yikes!) Needless to say.. We spray often. You can always wear mosquito repellent in your back yard.
We live by the Gardners. Maybe we can convince them to get a snake.
I think spiders create unnatural fears. They do indeed eat mosquitos and other notious insects. I think the spider killer chemicals are way worse than the spider. I remember at Lake Powell - by the end of the week everyone liked the cute industrious spiders spinning their webs to catch all the insects. The only ones at Lake Powell that creeped me out were the really big ones with the big bums. When we'd flip them off the house boat into the water they'd actually swim back to the house boat. We had to get our super squirt guns to keep them out in the water till they finally drowned. They were amazing
and kind of creepy.
You can buy spray at Home Depot that works pretty good. It is supposed to kill them and not harm your kids or you. You also spray it around the perimeter of the house. Do it! No one should have to call their husband home from work to kill a spider.
Oh shudder shudder! I hate spiders! In our last house the people before us exterminate the house and we never saw a single bug for years. it was weird. what you should do is wait until you are going on a trip then do it right before you leave. the raining of spiders can happen while you are gone. or just do the outdoor spider barrier. I kind of have this thing about exterminating too, but mine is that I'm afraid I'll have bug spray in my food, and everything I touch will have bug spray on it etc. i want to see a picture of the spider, fix it for me! Oh yeah a few years ago i got some sort of spider bite on my hip. I think one crawled up my pant leg and bit me all the way up the gave me a final chomp at the end because I had a line of tiny bites leading to this big one. It was bad, it got really infected and huge - about the size of a quarter. I had to go to the doctor and everything. Well, everything means he said, yup probably a spider bite. Told me never to use neopsporin because it's of the devil (so to speak, he said because of allergies to it its worse than the infection so to use polysporin, weird). Anyway. it took about two months to heal. yuck.
Is it a learned fear? Cause Mia wasn't scared of them AT ALL until lately. Hate em.
Hate 'em too ... AND mosquitos!
next blog please.
I liked this blog better without the picture of the creepy spider!
I'm intrigued about why one back leg is so much shorter than the other. There's a story there, I'm sure.
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