My spider hatred is well-documented on this blog. I honestly tried to not pass this phobia onto Annabel. Partly because I don’t want her to be afraid of anything, but mostly because I need someone to handle the spiders when Mike isn’t around. I have failed with Annabel, but there’s still hope for James. You all can tell me spiders are harmless (LIES), or make fun of my phobia all you want, but at least it’s a normal phobia and not, say, a fear of cotton.
Anyway, last night I joked to Mike, “Hey, Annie’s signs are working, I haven’t seen a spider in the house since they went up.” A couple hours later, Mike came over to where I was sitting on the couch. “Come with me, I have to show you something.” He walked me to our back door, where he was watching Rigby do her night-time doggy thing. “Look at that,” he pointed into the distance. My eyes searched around and then they locked on the biggest spider I have ever. seen.
Okay it wasn’t as big as the above spider, but seriously, it was enormous, and its web was even bigger. Its red, quarter-sized body will haunt my dreams. It is some kind of miracle that I didn’t scream bloody murder and wake up Annabel.
I looked at Mike, ready to get angry at him for making me look at a spider, when I realized that he was a bit freaked out. “That’s probably one of the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen, and I lived in Australia.”
Being rational, I strangle-shrieked, “You have to kill it! Kill it with fire!”
Normally Mike rolls his eyes at this sort of demand, but for once he agreed with me. While he went off to find his weapons, Rigby and I hopped up on the coffee table, because that felt like a logical thing to do. Also, I was holding the baby, and I want to tell you that I was protecting him but I’m pretty sure he was protecting me.
As Mike walked past me to do battle with the spider, he said, “If I’m not back in a minute, come help me.” Which was hilarious because if he wasn’t back in a minute, I was going to throw the children on my back and run.
Rigby, James, and I stood on the table and waited…and waited…and then I noticed a lemony-fresh scent wafting in from the back door. “Wow,” I thought, “Bug spray has really upped its game in the fragrance department.” A moment later, Mike came back in and he did not look victorious.
“It better be dead. Is it dead? Tell me it’s dead.”
“Well, if by dead you mean alive, and at the top of its web, pissed, then yes.”
“WHAT WHY! Is it some kind of bionic super-spider that can withstand that much bug spray? Oh my god, we have to move!”
“Oh…well, we didn’t have any bug spray. I shot at it with Pledge. The bright side is that the spider now smells lemony-fresh and its web is free of dust.”
I could see on his face that he was expecting me to laugh, like, “Oh, hahaha, you are so witty, what with your jokes about alive spiders that smell like cleaning fluid!” But no. All I could think about was the extremely large spider was now also extremely pissed, and it knows where we live. Then Mike, realizing that if he didn’t fix things quickly he would likely have to be up all night on Spider Watch (that’s a real job), said, “Don’t worry Heather, I’m sure that it’s dying a slow death right now.”
He’s obviously confused, because I am the one dying a slow death knowing that spider is still in my yard.
Lilian says:
Hairspray!! Works every time. Their legs get frozen and they can’t run, so they are at your mercy!! Next time, try it!!
Sue says:
I agree with the hair spray, and Windex works great, too, and you’re not spraying a bunch of nasty chemicals. I spray Windex on any ants or knats, and it stops them in their tracks!!!
Kristi says:
Mike’s response about the spider smelling lemony fresh and having a dust free web is hilarious. I, too, am not a fan of large arachnids. I found one in my daughter’s dollhouse and had to restrain myself from screaming because my daughter was standing there. I grabbed a can of hairspray and sprayed the heck out of it, way longer than I probably needed to but I didn’t want it getting away and hiding in the other toys. The hairspray definitely worked. Total life saver! Then I had to pick it up. Gag. I got several layers of paper towels so I wouldn’t have to feel its carcass.
Sara Mc. says:
When I was younger, my siblings and I would shoot wasps with Liquid Gold furniture polish. My mom LOVED the greasy spots on the walls, but there was no way we were getting close for a chance to get stung. Recently, a spider was in the house, and I shot it with Febreeze. Haha.
AnneMarie says:
Sorry your husband is an amateur. Hairspray slowly freezes the spider in place. Otherwise, windex or some other chemical (Clorox, Comet) slowly poisons them. Did he want the spider to be clean or dead
My son was a spider killer when he was 2-7. Now at 9 he’s broken- he insists on putting spiders outside. And really? The bugs are why I would never go to Australia!
Maris says:
I hate spiders too but snakes MORE). Lucky here in NYC, there aren’t any crazy scary ones. My husband did buy a $3 tennis racket thing to kill flies. It electrocutes them. It’s painless for the spider and the racket is large enough that you can stand back to do it. It instant zaps them. You see a little yellow spark and smoke and that they’re dead! Good luck!
Tami says:
I find what ever I can to destroy the nasty spiders because if it isn’t dead I have a fear of them coming back and crawling in my bed. I never have tried hairspray before My fear is they wouldn’t die. Boy do I hate spiders!!!
Terri says:
Yes, hair spray! They get all sticky and can’t run as fast then you can squish them! Does Annie have any foamy soap for the bath tub? That works too… foam soap em then splat! We used to live next to an open field and had wolf spiders as guests quite often. I HATE spiders!
Amy says:
We went out on a friend’s boat a couple of weekends ago in Chicago. My son and I hadn’t been on a smallish sail boat before. We didn’t realize we would share the boat with dozens and dozens of spiders. I was trying really hard not to flip out because I knew it would make my son react even more (his hatred of spiders rivals mine), but it was very, very hard!! I believe I earned extra mom credit for putting on the brave face. Our friend was babbling about “spiders on boats aren’t aggressive” and “these spiders need your help to make them bite, so don’t smack them when they get on you”. Blah, blah, blah. I kept stomping and killing what I could get to. After we were back on shore, our friend suggested that maybe he should have vacuumed up the spiders before we left. You think??!! At any rate, now I have the serious heebie jeebies. Your post is spot on.
Casey says:
Amy that is that stuff horror movies are made of! A boat full of spiders!? I think I would have jumped overboard.
Casey says:
Just seriously… yikes… I have the heebie jeebies just thinking about your experience. <<>>
Karen says:
I think I would’ve gone overboard and taken my chances with the sharks.
Michelle H says:
Yeah, I’m with you. Big big fear of them. I spray the ones outside my porch too in fear they will come in.
Kaboom works wonders too
Jenn says:
There has to be a way to prevent them from getting in the house though right?!? You should see some of the golf ball sized suckers I’ve been killing!
Erin says:
Golf ball sized spiders? I threw up a little when I read your comment. Where/why/how?????
Jenn says:
They seem to be everywhere in my apartment building. I’ve gotten rid of at least 1 a week in the seven weeks that I’ve lived here and the hallway on the floor I’m on is sometimes an obstacle course with spiders hanging everywhere! I live in a decent area so I don’t get it!
PattyB says:
I am going to start carrying hair spray in my car with me. I was driving alone on Saturday night when a GINORMOUS white spider crawled across the INSIDE of my windshield. I screamed like a 6 year old school girl, and then stopped at a gas station where I tried to kill it with my shoe, but the damn thing crawled deep into the crevice where the windshield meets the dashboard. I then had the brilliant idea to slap at it with a pen and it lurched forward where I smacked it with my shoe (apparently screaming the entire time). I never did find the carcass, although I did have a leg leftover on the dash. BLECH! I got out of the car to find something to wipe the shoe prints off, and there were two men at the gas pumps staring at me. I stated that I had a gigantic spider in my car which both of these asshats found hysterical. MEN!
Shirley-Anne says:
I literally just patted down all my clothing to make sure there weren’t any spiders on me. I feel your pain.
Recently my friends on Facebook have taken to posting pictures of giant spiders in their house (Yay for spider season?). I mark those as “inappropriate” and hide them from my feed I wish there was an option to mark them as “EW! THAT IS SO GROSS AND NOW I WON’T SLEEP TONIGHT, THANKS A LOT!”
Heather says:
Oh man, that is grounds for unfriending!!
Lee Cockrum says:
I have told my friends that they risk being unfriended when they post spider photos on FB!!!
Donna P says:
I won’t kill an animal or an insect unless it threatens physical harm. Yes, they can be huge and hairy and scary looking, but you’re bigger than it is. It is a life after all. Sorry, I just don’t like posts about killing things.
Emily E says:
Where we live, spiders are inevitable. In fact, I was bitten by a brown recluse this summer (which was no fun, but I’m fine and all I have to show for it is a little scar on my upper arm.) Anyway- I like to think of it this way- I read somewhere that there are 20,000 (!!!) varieties of spiders in the world but only 60 of them are even capable of biting humans. And only 4 of those are poisonous. So your odds are actually really good.
Jana Frerichs says:
That is one of the upsides of living in Minnesota. Only little spiders and even that is rare. I want to hear more about Mike living in Australia!
Kim says:
In Florida we have gigantic spiders. Like the size of your palm when they’re all spread out–wood spiders and banana spiders that live mostly near the woods. Eeesh. I am PETRIFIED of them and share your phobia. I spray them with wasp spray… it shoots 20 feet so you don’t have to get close… and is designed to get through an exoskeleton. Works in a second.
Nanette says:
I recently killed a GIANT spider when Brent was out of town, but as I do when that happens, I left the carcass for him to clean up. I also wanted him to see how huge it was, and he was indeed impressed/freaked out. He said the carcass looked like a soft-shell crab!
Paula says:
I am deathly afraid of spiders. In fact…I’m checking around my immediate vicinity as I type this. I want Wyatt (the Jack Russell/Dox mix dog) to turn on spiders like he does squinties, squirrels, and snakes. I want him to bark and attack and shake the shit out of them until they are limp and useless but the little bastard won’t listen.
Hairspray is my weapon of choice. I buy Aquanet just for spiders. It freezes fast and creates a hardened shell around their bodies. Then I throw something to knock their frozen bodies from the web then cover them with a paper or napkin until my spouse can dispose of their dead carcasses.
REK981 says:
Ortho Home Pest Control spray. We use it once every 6 months. I take my girl and the dogs to my in laws for the day so hubby can spray the entire perimeter of my house including everyday doorway and window frame on the outside of the house. I hardly ever get them in the house now thanks to that. As soon as it dries it won’t harm pets so he does the back first that way when I get home the yard is safe. That and the girl and dogs aren’t going to be rubbing up on the house or licking the grass anyway. My dogs won’t go after spiders or crickets but flies and moths are fair game for catching.
Michelle says:
Mike lived in Australia? When?
AmyG says:
I seriously can’t help giggling/laughing at the two of you! I hope you got the spider!
Erin says:
Since we moved to Denver a year ago, I’ve had to really get my spider fears under control. I used to kill them indiscriminately but because my husband is all about live and let live (pshaw!), I’ve started to learn which ones I should kill and which ones are OK to stay (outside my house, that is). The big ones can actually stay, since they eat the little ones who are more likely to be poisonous. That said, a quarter sized Orb Weaver lived on my porch for an entire summer and it was basically my proudest moment for letting him do so. I let him stay but still shot him the raised eye brow every time I left the house.
Annalisa says:
This is why we’re pretty much dead set on living in condos the rest of our lives. No yard=no critters. We have two cats, but neither one is useful in the bug killing department.
Our boy cat once befriended a gecko that invaded our house. I was like “be a predator! Kill it!”, but unless it’s a red dot, he’s not interested in killing.
My husband is more the trap and release kind of guy, which can get daunting.
Sunny says:
I’m a little sick to my stomach now, and I’ve come a long when when it comes to my fears. Once again, thank you for *NOT* posting pictures of the real deal. Seriously can’t handle that sort of thing.
On the other hand, I’m glad I’m not alone in my horrible fear of these things.
amy says:
Spiders have always been regarded as GOOD to me Must have something to do with reading “Charlotte’s Web”or something. Where I live they are welcomed, none with poison, and they eat the spring time mosquito’s like mad
Shelly says:
Although I’m sorry you had such a GIANT spider scare & hope the arachnid attack has abated, this post is hysterical. I love reading about interactions between you & Mike, you seem like such an adorable & funny couple!
Greis says:
I, too, am not a spider person…but I’m an even BIGGER not a cock roach the size of my head person!!