Spiders… BIG ones

Our large spider count is up to three, and that is the live ones we’ve encountered.  The count would be five if I were to include the dead ones we’ve found!  I have never liked spiders.  They skeeve me out—give me the willies.  But I knew there were tarantulas here.  They like to hide in dark places and since no one was living in our house for six months, I have been expecting to see them.

On Saturday, one of the guys working on our home doing some repairs found a live tarantula on the front “porch” area.  Up to this point we had seen 2 dead ones, but not one alive, so we had to take a picture before Wilfred killed it.  He sprayed it to death with crawling bug spray.  I made a mental note.  We think he had been in the rolled up area rug that was out there.  Rob had moved it earlier that morning.

That night, our friend and co-worker Amy was hanging out at our house and out of the corner of my eye I say something skitter across the floor.  I chalked it up to the fan blowing a dust bunny across the floor, but fifteen minutes later this spider was on the wall above Amy’s head.

 

By the time Rob was done killing it our living room looked like this

Rob hit it with a broom and stunned it, it fell in the couch, then thinking it was dead he tried to sweep it up and it crawled under the coffee table.  We thought it went under the couch, so he turned the couch over, but didn’t find it.  Then he turned over the coffee table, still no spider.  Mind you, this spider was about 3 to 4 inches and FAST!  When he took the drawers out of the table it was crammed into a corner behind the drawers.  Rob later looked it up and found out it was a Cane Spider.  Apparently they are harmless and eat cockroaches, but it was freaky!

Today, I was organizing, cleaning and unpacking stuff into the main bathroom.  The water was off in there when we first moved in so we hadn’t used it much yet.  I was being cautious knowing that tarantulas like dark places so I wasn’t completely surprised when I opened the cabinet under the sink and saw a tarantula skittering about under there.  This one wasn’t as big as the one on Saturday, but it was still a big, hairy spider!  Rob wasn’t here so I ran into the kitchen and got the bug spray and told Caline, our house helper.  I sprayed it but it skittered out onto the floor and Caline smashed it with a metal dust pan she came in with.  Made another mental note.

Next tarantula I see, I run for the metal dust pan and bug spray.  Maybe I can kill the next one all by myself.

~Becky