It's bloody started!

[Andrew*]

May 7, 2008 12:21:34 GMT @camdenpirate said:

May 7, 2008 12:07:28 GMT Rad said:

I don't care about spiders (hate wasps and daddy long-legs) but Jetsetwilly's story would be enough to give anyone the fear.

Could you give me the general gist, but without the scary bits, because I'm so tempted to click on the spoiler?

Basically just covered in a spidery mass.

Not eaten alive though, which is where it could have gone.

[coxy1979]

May 7, 2008 9:16:03 GMT Robbing the Dead said:

That's terrible!

I don't actually mind spiders in general, it's more that if I see one I get worried there are more and at night they are going to crawl on me when I'm asleep.

What I hate the most are mosquitos. You know when you're lying in bed and they suddenly buzz round your ear.

May 7, 2008 9:06:51 GMT SBaholic said:

A bird flew into my room once, through the "blocked" up chimney whilst I was revising for my A levels. Never been fond of them since.

My parents owned a caravan at Clacton-on-sea and we used to go there most weekends when I was a kid. One weekend, when we arrived, shortly after opening the door a sparrow came flying out. Turns out it had flown in before we left last time and had been in there all week. It had shat everywhere.

Was it like that episode of How Clean Is Your House, where the woman let the budgies fly around all day, and her sofa and widescreen telly were a whiter shade of pale.

I don't have many amusing stories or anecdotes, and I've never been stung, so

Daddy Long legs = Like
Spiders - don't bother me
Wasps - the work of Satan. At least if bees sting you they die.

EDIT: Actually I went to Weston Super Mare one summer and the place was swarming with ladybirds that BIT YOU. It was like a 70s disaster movie with Michael Caine - every twenty minutes the next wave of attackers came over the horizon.

It was so bad, the outdoor lido attendants were scooping hundreds of the things outside the pool. Wasn't the most pleasant day trip.

[Deleted]

May 7, 2008 12:45:03 GMT coxy1979 said:

May 7, 2008 9:16:03 GMT Robbing the Dead said:

That's terrible!

I don't actually mind spiders in general, it's more that if I see one I get worried there are more and at night they are going to crawl on me when I'm asleep.

What I hate the most are mosquitos. You know when you're lying in bed and they suddenly buzz round your ear.



My parents owned a caravan at Clacton-on-sea and we used to go there most weekends when I was a kid. One weekend, when we arrived, shortly after opening the door a sparrow came flying out. Turns out it had flown in before we left last time and had been in there all week. It had shat everywhere.

Was it like that episode of How Clean Is Your House, where the woman let the budgies fly around all day, and her sofa and widescreen telly were a whiter shade of pale.

I don't have many amusing stories or anecdotes, and I've never been stung, so

Daddy Long legs = Like
Spiders - don't bother me
Wasps - the work of Satan. At least if bees sting you they die.

EDIT: Actually I went to Weston Super Mare one summer and the place was swarming with ladybirds that BIT YOU. It was like a 70s disaster movie with Michael Caine - every twenty minutes the next wave of attackers came over the horizon.

It was so bad, the outdoor lido attendants were scooping hundreds of the things outside the pool. Wasn't the most pleasant day trip.

Swarms! Do you remember a few years back the swarms of flying ants?

[al]

May 7, 2008 12:45:03 GMT coxy1979 said:

Spiders - don't bother me
Wasps - the work of Satan. At least if bees sting you they die.

I concur. Spiders don't bother me, but wasps are just demonic. I went to the toilet once, washed my hands afterwards then went to dry them - and got stung. The fucking whore-wasp was waiting in the towel to attack!

I'm actually surprised at just how many people have a genuine fear of spiders, and not just in a "I don't like them" kind of way. I wonder why it's such a common fear?

Show me a stag beetle, mind you, and I'll run til my lungs give out. They scare the absolute bejesus out of me.

[David Hunter]

May 7, 2008 10:49:27 GMT fused said:

My worst wasp sting was when one stung me on my neck, but this wasn't in summer, it was in autumn when they were all dying out.

Was your next door neighbour a ginger doctor who liked to dress as a gorilla, who had to do an emergency tracheostomy, using a biro, on your kitchen table?
Or does that only happen in 'Neighbours'?

[Robbing the Dead]

Well one possible reason for arachnophobia being common is to that it's evolutionary, i.e. humans evolved in the prescience of venomous spiders, so a fear of spiders was beneficial.

Generally any fear is connected with avoidance of death / harm / illness.

[somethingbiblical]

I had a spider that was honest to god the size of a tarantula in diameter, but it was a household spider so it was thinner, in my room (on the wall just above my bed) and me and my mum are both terrified and had to hoover it up cause her girlfriend (who lets them live, the freak) wasn't there. To be fair, it was too big even for her to have done something with. It stayed alive in the hoover and we had to carry the hoover halfway down the street to let it out. I get massive ones in my room cause it's ike the attic and although I beg them to seal up the wee door that we never use cause we've never needed to get in there, that I leads into the bit just under the roof tiles, they won't.

It looked like this but its legs were probably just slightly less than an inch longer than that.

I've not seen a spider in here in about 8 months but I know they're here somewhere, probably lurking under the piles of everything I have lying on the floor. The problem just now is the moths, they are EVERYWHERE. They're the thickest insects I have ever seen and are very easy to kill, but we've got mothsquish marks on several of the walls cause I just whack them. I have seen some spider webs on the ceiling recently, or the beginnings of some, which worries me, but I've not yet caught a spider and they always appear overnight so who knows what they're doing while I sleep.

My spider horror story though is once I saw one run under my wardrobe, so there was nothing I could do about it but later I was lying in my bed and I was lying on my side using my hand to prop up my head while I watched TV, and I felt something tickle my hand, and I pulled my hand away from my hair and there was a spider crawling on it, and I just screamed and sort of flicked my hand so it was propelled across the room and went under my desk. I've killed a fair few since but I get the feeling that little bastard's still alive somewhere.

I can't really find a similar picture of the one that was in my hair, but think this, with 3/4 the size of there legs and a much fatter body

babychaos.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/bathspidersm.jpg

[Rad]

A wasp was waiting for me in the doorway today. I slammed it to death in the doorfame. At least I hope.

[Robbing the Dead]

I went out earlier and was viciously assaulted by a small fruit fly. It landed on my contact lens and stuck to it.

[[james]]

May 7, 2008 16:20:22 GMT Rad said:

A wasp was waiting for me in the doorway today. I slammed it to death in the doorfame. At least I hope.

I hope you treat Jehovah's Witnesses more kindly.

[Ugly Netty]

May 6, 2008 23:41:42 GMT David said:

And where have all the bees gone?

They're all in our garden and nesting in our walls. So that's that mystery solved.

[xenomaniac]

What a bunch of pussies.

[pauliepoos]

May 7, 2008 14:31:45 GMT David Hunter said:

May 7, 2008 10:49:27 GMT fused said:

My worst wasp sting was when one stung me on my neck, but this wasn't in summer, it was in autumn when they were all dying out.

Was your next door neighbour a ginger doctor who liked to dress as a gorilla, who had to do an emergency tracheostomy, using a biro, on your kitchen table?
Or does that only happen in 'Neighbours'?

That happened to my old next door neighbour, Verity. She was out brushing her driveway (as you do) and got stung by a wasp and had a severe allergic reaction and just about managed to scream and get her wedding ring off before her fingers swelled up (swole up?) she couldn't breath. Her husband, Roger, did something and called an ambulance and she survived.

After the ambulance left I finished brushing her driveway, and the bitch never said thank you.

[[james]]

You should've hidden a hornet's nest in her house. That'll teach the ungrateful old sow.

[The Moog]

A few years back, in the Moog household, I had been enjoying a relaxing shower.

Just as I stepped out of the shower, I felt something move on my back. I instinctively brushed my hand over my back, and a bastard HUGE spider fell to the shower floor. Blimey, I thought, but I didn't freak out, for the spider was now in the shower cubicle and about to suffer swift justice via the shower hose.

Then suddenly, I felt something AGAIN on my back, I brushed my arm across it and another bastard huge spider fell to the shower floor, this, naturally, bothered me, and then, at that moment, whilst naked and vulnerable, I looked above me..

To see, not only was there a spiders nest in the top of the shower, but the sons-a-bitches had hatched and were pouring out of the nest and dropping down on webs towards me. You know that scene in Arachnophobia, when Jeff Daniels goes back into the house to face hundreds of spiders? Kinda like that. Except in my shower.

I didn't have time to count how many, all I knew was there were lots and they were dropping onto me. At this point, I'm glad to say, I didn't run screaming out of the room in some frantic breakdown, but instead I reached for anything I could use as a weapon, which just so happened to be my my mums can of industrial strength hair spray, and unleashed a healthy blast upwards. The spiders were stuck solid, which enabled me to a) get a towel on and b) to DESTROY them all with some heavy toilet literature.

Since this moment. I've been weary of those arachnids, and always make sure there is a can of hairspray in the bathroom.

The other time, i was in my bedroom, sleeping, when around 2am, something woke me up. What woke me up was the sound of some rolled up posters moving across my bedroom floor. I originally thought it was a rat or a mouse, cos no way could anything else lift those posters, let alone move them.

So I grabbed a metal ruler and headed over to the poster, whipped them back to reveal a spider bigger than my fucking hand. I hit the floor with that ruler so hard I put multiple dents in the tiling. I didn't sleep well for weeks.

[Feral]

I'm never going to be able to shower again now Moog, you bastard!

Not without carrying a can of hairspray anyway...

[dirtypop]

My spider horror story is that when I was a kid in my old house I had a bunk bed and just by it was a vent to the outside which my mum covered with some fabric to keep out any creepy crawlies. I was only about 7 and foolishly believed that this would keep the bastards out.

One night I woke up to find this MASSIVE spider dropping on the pillow right by my face and then run down under the covers. Naturally I freaked out and went and got my mum who searched under the duvet and assured me the spider had gone. I must have been a very naive child and I took my mums word for this and went back to sleep. The next morning I woke up to find the fucker sitting there, under my duvet at the bottom of the bed. The thought that it probably crawled on my legs under the duvet in the night still haunts me.

[thelovelykate]

May 7, 2008 9:06:51 GMT SBaholic said:

A bird flew into my room once, through the "blocked" up chimney whilst I was revising for my A levels. Never been fond of them since.

Last night a cat got in through my bedroom skylight while I was asleep. Heard something banging about so turned on my phone (I don't have a bedside lamp) and saw the demonic yellow eyes of the cat staring back at me. Promptly screamed like the massive girl that I am until my boyfriend chased it away.

[SBaholic]

May 7, 2008 12:45:03 GMT coxy1979 said:

EDIT: Actually I went to Weston Super Mare one summer and the place was swarming with ladybirds that BIT YOU.

I had that one year in Maplethorpe in Lincolnshire on a Brownie pack holiday. They didn't bite, but they were absolutely everywhere - in every grain of sand on the beach and along every wall. Bizarre!

Is there any truth in the myth that you swallow eight spiders a night? If anyone would it would be me, I sleep with my mouth wide open and look lovingly unattractive so says the boyf.

[Devil In Your Car]

I don't mind spiders, really. I usually try to get rid of them, then get distracted or bored and remember about it a couple of hours later. Seeing a big spider in a clean white bath is proper-full-on-Hitchcock-scary, though.

Anyway, get theeselves to Lakeland:
www.lakeland.co.uk/productimage.aspx/!20455

[somethingbiblical]

May 8, 2008 6:48:01 GMT SBaholic said:

May 7, 2008 12:45:03 GMT coxy1979 said:

EDIT: Actually I went to Weston Super Mare one summer and the place was swarming with ladybirds that BIT YOU.

I had that one year in Maplethorpe in Lincolnshire on a Brownie pack holiday. They didn't bite, but they were absolutely everywhere - in every grain of sand on the beach and along every wall. Bizarre!

Is there any truth in the myth that you swallow eight spiders a night? If anyone would it would be me, I sleep with my mouth wide open and look lovingly unattractive so says the boyf.

I think it's 8 a year, or even a lifetime, but you'd be swarming with them if it was 8 a night!

[Deleted]

It's Spring/Summer time for crying out loud, and can I find someone with an unwanted kitten?!? Can I bollocks! The pesky rehoming centres want to speak to the home owner to make sure that it's ok, you'd think me just taking one of the little spider destroyers off their hands would be enough. I must say this though- pet insurance, very reasonable and I've found the most amazing cat bed in the world, it's a red washing machine style thing.

[georgie]

I fear the day I move house, I think there is still a huge dead wasp down a gap between my Kylie Showgirl poster and the wall where I killed it with Oust and forced it down the gap.

Also. Maybugs. *touches wood* I haven't seen one in a while but if we are talking scary insects - they are bad

[Merce]

Moogs story has just made my blood run cold, that's truly horrific !

I was held hostage by a gargantuan spider the other week. It was actually on the sloping roof in my hallway outside the front door of my flat - I got a step outside and then actually reversed back in because I couldn't walk underneath it.

It had got to the stage where I was texting friends about winching up food parcels through my window if someone didn't come round and get rid of it when I heard voices in the hallway. Upon muting the TV the sentence 'it's more scared of you than you are of it' alerted me to the fact that I was not the only one in fear of the lurking hallway monster !

I went out to find my neighbour with two guys swatting the thing off the roof and eventually jumping on it with a great deal of screaming and running away.

It's bashed and bloody (it was so huge there did actually appear to be guts !) carcass now sits on the stairs and I'm hoping it acts as a warning to any other smart arse arachnids that consider entering our block of flats.

I do, however, have a Spider Hoover which would normally take care of these things - it's the best birthday present I've ever had and only failed me last weekend because this creature of Satan was too big ! I urge you all to invest in one though.

www.lakeland.co.uk/product.aspx/!20455

Edit: Sorry Devil In Your Car, just realised you'd already posted about the Arachnaphobics Best Friend, ha ha.

[Steven]

May 8, 2008 15:44:20 GMT Merce said:

I do, however, have a Spider Hoover which would normally take care of these things - it's the best birthday present I've ever had and only failed me last weekend because this creature of Satan was too big ! I urge you all to invest in one though.

I had a similar situation to that last year (the year before? I can't remember) - my old house was covered in ivy, which attracted spiders, and was also incredibly stuffy, so you had to leave the window open a lot of the time. Then my bastard flatmates both went on holiday at the same time as a giant spider the size of my hand appeared in the bathroom.

I am a bit of a big girl when it comes to spiders, but have got better recently and unless the spider is v. v. big I can usually trap it in a pint glass and humanely deposit it outside. This fucker, however, WAS CLEARLY NOT GOING TO FIT IN A PINT GLASS. I shut it in there and ran downstairs (thankfully we also had a downstairs loo at the time) and showered at the gym for about three days. In the end, I had to bribe a friend from work to come to my house and help me get rid of it on the promise that I would cook dinner for her afterwards. We ended up sucking the little bastard into the hoover, and she said she could actually feel it as it went down the inside of the hose.

To this day I still can't change the bag in the hoover in case it's lurking there waiting to get revenge.

Also, one when I was in primary school, a bee lurked in my pocket, waiting for me to put my hand in there so it could sting me. Although I should be grateful it didn't sting any of the other areas it was probably quite close to, to be honest.