How real men deal with spiders in Australia(doubt Austria so many large ones)

[Tinkerer]

So, Dave probably has to deal with this sort of thing.

Upon seeing this, it might be interesting to build an electronic spider repeller of some sort?

[AlfBaz]

The big ones (usually huntsman) are harmless. When I lived by myself I shared my flat with one for a couple of months when he must of eventually got sick of the solder fumes and left. At any rate they don't eat much

[GeoffS]

It's fun when you're driving in traffic and a large huntsman crawls across your windscreen - on the inside!
It could have been worse - it could have been a snake...

[apelly]

It's fun when you're driving in traffic and a large huntsman crawls across your windscreen - on the inside!
It could have been worse - it could have been a snake...

Had one walk up my arm in the car once.

Frontal cortex: "It's ok. Nothing will happen if you just leave it there. Just pull over nice and carefully and let it out the door"
Brain stem: "panic Panic PANIC PANIC panicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanic"

Frontal cortex won. She was a closely fought argument though!

[notsob]

Same experience as apelly, only it was my leg and I was wearing shorts

[digsys]

or

[lemmegraphdat]

I think I'm pretty much turning into mush. I just don't kill creatures like I used too. Everything is just kind of cute now.

[notsob]

Back in the manual window winder days, I've never seen anyone try to close a window so quickly, when at a set of lights, a hot green stream came out of a cattle truck into the drivers window and all over his head and shoulder.

[staxquad]

So, Dave probably has to deal with this sort of thing.

Upon seeing this, it might be interesting to build an electronic spider repeller of some sort?

he would have been dead meat if that was a Sydney funnel web spider

Dave probably checks his shoes every morning before putting his feet in (maybe that's why we see him so often without shoes, he's afraid to look)

[GK]

I think I'm pretty much turning into mush. I just don't kill creatures like I used too. Everything is just kind of cute now.

Yes. A while back on a field trip for work I gently stroked the abdomen of a large female Red back. Now everyone thinks I'm weird.

[Vgkid]

I like spiders and other large insects myself. I once had a black widow(female) crawl up my hand/ arm, I blew her off.

[PedroDaGr8]

It's fun when you're driving in traffic and a large huntsman crawls across your windscreen - on the inside!
It could have been worse - it could have been a snake...

Had one walk up my arm in the car once.

Frontal cortex: "It's ok. Nothing will happen if you just leave it there. Just pull over nice and carefully and let it out the door"
Brain stem: "panic Panic PANIC PANIC panicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanicpanic"

Frontal cortex won. She was a closely fought argument though!

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[manticore00]

he would have been dead meat if that was a Sydney funnel web spider

Dave probable checks his shoes every morning before putting his feet in (maybe that's why we see his so often without shoes, he's afraid to look)

I visited Australia when I was a teenager and the whole time I was there I was paranoid that I'd come across a funnel web spider. Living in Arizona I'm used to scorpions and black widows but the killer critters in Oz scare the heck out of me.

[free_electron]

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Thats a mimic octopus, compleately harmless..
these are the ones you gotta watch out for :



if you get bitten by that thing you got 15 minutes to live and there is no antidote …
its poison is 10.000 times stronger than cyanide and this tiny animal carries enough of it to be able to kill 25 adult humans …
it is one of the most poisonous, if not the most poisonous, of all water dwelling creatures. its competitor is possibly the banded seasnake in terms of poisonousness ( didi i write that right )

[PedroDaGr8]

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Thats a mimic octopus, compleately harmless..
these are the ones you gotta watch out for :



if you get bitten by that thing you got 15 minutes to live and there is no antidote …
its poison is 10.000 times stronger than cyanide and this tiny animal carries enough of it to be able to kill 25 adult humans …
it is one of the most poisonous, if not the most poisonous, of all water dwelling creatures. its competitor is possibly the banded seasnake in terms of poisonousness ( didi i write that right )

The point was the nope nope nope nope. Not that the octopus was poisonous.

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[Rerouter]

I let them continue on, or walk them out on a bit of paper if they sneak in, huntsmen are great spiders to have around, they really keep the fly and mozzie population down, and unless you really corner them they are passive.

Now for any new visitors, if you park a car under a tree, clean the gutters, or they will happily live in the boot or bonnet gutters leaf litter even in full sun, you will drive off and a few minutes after the engine heats up they will scamper to the door seam over the windscreen in order to cool down,

now being the paranoid person you are you now have a fairly harmless spider waiting in the door seam that will either fall or try and run in when you open the door, and like the poster before you have a hard time telling your brain its harmless.


Funnel webs do very much scare me, though i dont check my shoes, as i never leave them outside. the golden rule (at-least for Sydney) if its big but skinny your OK, its is big and very fat its a problem,

[SeanB]

All I had was a Black Mamba, a little one that came out of the garden. Gently picked it up with a broom and a spade ( it was really cheesed off then) and took it to the far end and let it go in a crack in the wall so it could go annoy the rats in the street. Just did not want it near the doors we use, so far away was fine. One of the 3 really deadly snakes here, but there is an antivenom available , and it takes long enough that you can get to hospital.

[TerraHertz]

It's fun when you're driving in traffic and a large huntsman crawls across your windscreen - on the inside!
It could have been worse - it could have been a snake...

Or in my case, in my 20s, the Huntsman walked across the inside of my motorcycle helmet visor. While I was riding.
Definitely the fastest 'pull out of traffic, stop, remove helmet' time I ever managed. The worst part was the chinstrap - the buckle didn't work well with panicked fumbling gloved hands.

They don't bother me inside the house. I generally either leave them be, or rescue and put them on a tree outside using the plastic container and sheet of paper technique.
But a couple of inches from my face, inside a helmet, is too close.

[EEVblog]

This little guy used to live in my old lab:

[GeoffS]

Funnel webs do very much scare me, though i dont check my shoes, as i never leave them outside. the golden rule (at-least for Sydney) if its big but skinny your OK, its is big and very fat its a problem,

My rule of thumb is if it's got 8 legs then it's a problem. 

[digsys]

The worst I had is - we had 2 huge trees in the back-yard, and every night they'd spin a humongous web between the trees.
One 1 occasion I ventured out at night, and suddenly froze when I remembered about the web. There app 1" from my face
was a humongous spider .... I chopped down one of the trees !! Fixed

[Maxlor]

They don't bother me inside the house. I generally either leave them be, or rescue and put them on a tree outside using the plastic container and sheet of paper technique.

I had a spider once that lived in hard to reach corner under my bed. I left it there for a month, figuring it would be helpful if it took care of a couple of insects for me. Then one day I examined it a bit more closely and noticed all the things it left behind, droppings, insect shells... gross. It had to go at that point

[G7PSK]

How do real men deal with spiders, A size 12 boot works every time.

[digsys]

You're lucky. I didn't remember. After that I would walk around at night with my arm held up in front of my face.  Did it have a giant almost spherical abdomen? Very light brown/grey? Maybe 2cm diameter? Although I wanted to say the size of a golf ball, but it only seemed that big. We had at least a dozen of them but only two would spin a web on the path through the backyard I used to visit next door.   

I like it how you instantly turn into a jedi 20th dan karate master when you do walk into one :-)  On occasion, I'd even chop off a branch
with my hand and practice ninja warrior swordsmanship. Bruce Lee would have been proud ... then probably laughed :-)

[Tinkerer]

I was once driving down the highway at 80mph(high speed limit area) when a very large jumping spider crawled across my windshield on the inside. This thing is not quite as big as the huntsman but is still about 3/4-1inch in leg span. It then disappeared into a crack along the side and I never saw it again. Thankgod I stayed calm because at 80mph that wouldnt have been a small accident.
Funny thing is that I am not afraid of turantulas.

On the topic of those spiders building webs at night, we have those around here. Leg span being 1-2inches, fat bodies as well. They put up huge webs at night and take them down for the day. They only just moved into this area a few years ago for whatever reason. I have almost run into a web a couple times, but they seem quick enough to crawl out of the way when something moves close.