The subject of this post is going to be familiar to you Aussies, and Meeks, look away now.
Some weeks ago I did a post about spiders (ok, I’ve done a few but this one in particular) that ended in a conversation with Bluey about Huntsmen spiders and their love of letter boxes. Yesterday I was unlucky enough to find a small one on my mail and I grabbed my camera to fulfil the promise of sharing the horror with her.
Yes, this is a small Huntsman, only about as big as the palm of my hand, there is no way I am getting this close with a camera to a big one. The photo in that case would be less pleasant, taken after I flipped the mail out of the box with a long stick and stomped on everything. Yeah, never post me anything breakable, ok….
Huntsmen are very long-legged spiders and that makes them look scarily big, but as you can see they are also very flat. I expect that this is some sort of special evolutionary trait to assist their unnoticed entry into houses via the collected mail.
C’mon, take me inside….
I admit that I did the girly “eeeek!” because he ran at me as soon as I lifted the mail so I immediately dropped the flyer straight back into the letterbox and slammed the lid.
I suddenly realized I had a blog post just sitting there if I pulled him back out so I went in, got my camera, took a breath and reached in.
Those awful beady eyes….. ick….
He politely stood still while I took a few shots then the Man drove up the driveway, temporarily distracting me. When I turned back the spider was gone.
Bugger. That just means he is still out there looking for a nice warm, dry house. I’m sure he will be back in residence in a few days but this time I have the photo so next time he may well just get the boot…
Buried words and Bushwa. 
Yep, we’ve had similar sized one…..in our kitchen this week 😦 a wee bit of rain seems to be driving them all in so we’re breaking out the Mortein and preparing for spider war!
We aren’t having rain, quite the opposite, the weather is gorgeous! Perhaps they are all on holiday, seeking out new places, meeting new people, scaring the crap out of them…. 😉
Horrible !
Correct! 😀
Oh no! Those Hunstmans look to be something I’d squish at arms length, rather then just stepping on. Wouldn’t want to chance it latching on to my shoe! The other day a large black and fuzzy spider went scampering across the floor and he is now history. He really should have thought twice before coming in the house. 😉
I can’t squish them when they are walking around but if I suspect there is one in the mail the whole lot gets dropped on the lawn and I do my special Die Spider Die dance and stomp on every square centimeter of them. If they are in need of squashing in other situations it is usually the sharp edge of the broom that gets them!
Spiders should have worked out by now that coming inside our houses means a death sentence, shouldn’t they!? 🙂
“Spiders should have worked out by now that coming inside our houses means a death sentence, shouldn’t they!?”
Yep. They’ve probably ate too many bugs that it did something to their minuscule brains 😉
I suspect they just like making us jump! 😉
I wonder, have you seen this video on YouTube 😀
That was hilarious!! I love the Scaredies but I have never heard that song before. Thank you for that! 😀
Although Great White sharks are the reason you will never read a post about me surfing. Ever.
I got a good laugh out of it! But mind you none of this has deterred me from the dream of visiting Australia one day. 🙂
Glad to hear it 🙂
Euck. After we moved back into the Old house I grew up in. I asked um why there were so many spiders now, I couldn’t remember seeing them as a kid. She got to them first was her reply. And thats what I do now. Sorry spider, bugs and scorpion…. Squishy time for you. Aren’t these spiders actually harmless to humans coz they can’t pierce our skin, or am I mistaken for another one?
They do bite and apparently it does hurt but is not dangerous. I am not sure how much it really hurts though, seeing something that big bite you would probably make you jump around and shout even if it had only licked you gently 😉
Spiders are all killed when they come inside our house. I give them a five minute warning, get out or get squished, but if they don’t take my suggestion, well, then it is splat for them….
I can’t squish scorpions though, I find them very cute. We don’t get them inside too often but they love the woodpile which is why I never get wood in the dark without gloves on! Number 2 is a bug lover so anything with less than eight legs gets carefully carried to safety by him.
I looked. 😦
Feel a little squirmy but I’ve had huntsman in my letterbox too so I :
a) don’t empty my letterbox often and
b) do the snatch and throw technique whenever I do.
The S&T requires multiple bending to pick up said mail but is preferable to hugging a huntsman without knowing it.
When I was looking up the benefits of lemon oil, I read one article that said to rub lemon oil around doors and windows because apparently spiders don’t like the smell. I think I might just start with my letterbox. I’ll let you know if the aversion therapy works.
Hmmm, if the lemon thing works on spiders I may have to plant dozens of them around the house like a citrusy spider repelling wall.
I agree with the S&T technique. If there is only one letter it gets flipped on the pick up so I can check but the local paper *shudder* that gets stomped without question.
lmao – Me too! I wonder if the companies who pay to have that stuff put into our letterboxes know what we do with it!
I confess that I get multiple local papers every week and never read a word. They are good for lighting the fire and the Man uses them for unmentionable things in the shed. I wonder what proportion of them actually get read or if everyone uses them for the same purposes as us?
I use old bank statements to start fires so my papers go straight into the big yellow bin! My guess is that we’re not alone. And /that/ means the businesses paying advertising money to those publications aren’t getting much back for their dollar. Such a shame…
We have a wood fire so I always put confidential letters in the copper that holds my kindling. I get to chuck them in when the fire is going well because I am lazy and mainly light it with firelighters! 😉
I always find the waste of paper a shame, but you know what is driving me crazy at the moment? Those stupid coffee pods that go in the home coffee machines. One pod for every cup? What a ridiculous waster of resources! Grrrrr…. What is wrong with people!!!!
I’ve seen those coffee pods advertised but I’ve never used them. I think we’ve gone past the ‘throw away’ society to a world where convenience is king. Why are manufacturers allowed to get away with these blatant and obviously wasteful products????
We have never used them either and just seeing them in the shops makes me grind my teeth. I’m with you, I thought consumers were a little more aware these days and would not want things like that but they still make their way onto the shelves….
There’s still a lot of people who think that saving energy/the planet, is a load of hooey. 😦
The planet runs in cycles (snowball earth) and that just because we like it how it is now temperature-wise doesn’t mean it will stay that way, the planet wasn’t designed just for us! Nevertheless, wasting resources and creating ridiculous amounts of pollution just because we are so lazy we have to get everything in single serves is just wrong!
We are horribly wasteful because we ‘can’. I keep thinking of that old saying – no such thing as a free lunch. I wonder how future generations will think of us. 😦
I expect they will wonder why we were so selfish 😦
I can’t understand why people are so wasteful. I put our recycling bin out last night for the first time in eight weeks. It was full for the first time in years. We try to use as little packaging as possible and out rubbish bin rarely goes out full (unless I forget it for a week, oops!) I hate seeing the same ones packed to the overflowing out on the street each week.
We live in a terribly consumer-centric society, don’t we?
I try to buy as little packaging as possible and yet it still mounts up. The worst thing is that so much of the packaging is non recyclable. Surely it wouldn’t be that hard to come up with alternatives.
Agreed! Or those packets within packets within packets. They drive me crazy! The first time I saw packets with individually wrapped Mentos on the shelf in the lolly aisle I was furious! 😦
Yes! I hate them too.
Boy, you are tough on spiders unless they are providing you with photo opportunities 😉 Unless they’re poisonous, I like them, for the least, their entertainment value as the G.O. hates them (with reason as he seems to attract bites – spider karma?) and mumbles complaints when I leave them be in the house, or catch and re-home. I have also been known though to do the girly ”eeeek!” followed by some swearing when caught unwares.
I would be like you and leave them alone if they were torturing the Man!
Re-homing is for everything with less than eight legs in our house 🙂
Yet another comment from the G.O… forget the camera, stomp on the b&st&rd… 😉
😀