Paula_lou

ok so stupidly I watched Austrlias most dangerous places last night and its now safe to say Im sh%$?@g myself!!!!
How common is it to see a mega big scary looking spider?? really..truly? I know when we were out in Perth in 2006 we didnt see any...but I think we were lulled into a false sense of security with it being winter....mayb they prefer the sunshine

Oh and is it true you can get the perimeter of yr house and garage sprayed once a month or summit and it keeps them outta yr house?

Im such a girl arent I

philnorris

Depends, we had a red back living in the garage, spotted a few 'households spiders' in the house and that was it. I have never yet seen anything that I would class as scary.

I think I spotted more of the black cockroaches running about in the streets than anything else.

wannabauzzienurse

I've seen spiders here about as often as I did in the UK (not very!) not dangerous ones and as long as they're not in my bedroom I leave them alone

maisey

Been here six weeks and haven't seen any scarey ones same as UK really. Lots of ants, only seen about two flies so far too but I am sure the flies will come when weather hots up.

yummymummy77

ok well we have been here 2 weeks (Sydney) and I came home yesterday with toddler on my hip & 2 large bags of laundry to find a hunstman spider the size of my hand crawling up my front door!

I stupidly believed the whole ' you don't see many spiders in the city mallarky' I had night mares about it all night - even though it is supposedly 'my friend - as it will eat flies'!!

Definitely looking into having the house sprayed as I am a total baby when it comes to spiders!!

Helen

chrispy

I think in Perth we only have three nasty spiders, the white tail which is more common over East, the red back usually found outside and a window spider. None of these will kill you and i think the last fatality from a spider anywhere in Aus was many years ago. I think the biggest risk is the indirect accidenst caused by the appearence of a huntsman in the car or on the windscreen while you are driving! we had one run over the windscreen a couple of weeks ago, fortunately it was on the outside. We live on a bush block and see a few spiders in the house, you can get your house regularly sprayed to stop this. Over east they have the worst spider, the funnel web. We did have a scorpion in the house last year and if you are queasey about millipeds then that will be a problem.
To be honest, most arachnophobes cope perfectly well here so i wouldn't worry.

Rosscarbery

I would have classed myself as SERIOUSLY arachnophobic before I arrived, but I have got pretty laid back after a year (though my daughter made me jump a mile by screaming "spider" at the top of her voice the other day. I was expecting a huntsman and this itty bitty thing the size of a 5 cent piece went running over the counter. I still squashed it though.)

We saw a couple of huntsmen in our first few weeks (including one in DDs bedroom) which was kind of the best thing to have happened as we were no longer waiting for it to happen. Had my house sprayed the morning after and haven't seen anything except the odd little house spider since.

You have to be reasonably sensible. Don't leave shoes outside at night, probably best not to wander round in long grass barefoot and keep an eye out in the pool for funnel webs as apparantly they like to "play dead". I saw my first redback outside of Wildlife World the other week and I can't believe that I just walked past saying "oh look, there's a redback" rather than having a total panic attack. [grin]

Nu-Shooz

Depends where you live i guess, but i haven't seen many that i am scared of. But then again i have 2 cats that see to them

tartankoala

We've been in Sydney for 2 weeks as well and I've yet to see a spider....or a snake....or any animal of any type!

Mikeyc

It depends.

I am terrified of spiders, but the Huntsman I find the worse as they “jump”, they can’t kill you but scare the hell out of you.

It’s not as bad as you would think. When I lived in my parents place in Perth, they are in the suburbs and it’s got a big garden, suburbs are usually bushy, leafy etc and houses have lots of places to hide. So while living there, I did see quite a few and the odd huntsman did make it inside. But in saying that, it’s still not as bad as you think.

I now live in Sydney in the city centre and my place is 67 floors up, lol.... so I haven’t seen a single spider or snake living here!

In the 10 years on and off in Oz I have only ever seen 1 snake and that was when I was bush walking, and even then I only seen the end of it slide off into a bush.

It’s not at all as bad as people think and yes when you see it for the first time you jump and get scared, but you won’t see them daily! And I don’t think anyone has actually died from a spider bite in years!

About covering the parameter of your house, yes there are some – but one to stay away from is that plug thing – there is a thing you can plug into your socket and it sends a signal to keep away spiders etc, but I’ve found (the one we had in Perth) actually attracted them. Also remember most houses have fly screens on the windows and doors so you can usually leave them open without the worry of the creepy crawlers getting in.


Good luck.

Mikey


Oh and PS: From experience, whatever you do – DONT ever ever pull off those long bark type leafs that are on palm trees, .... scared the $hit out of me (it’s where the huntsman hide) lol

Bishop3912

In the 6 months we were in Oz we only saw general house spiders and had 3 huntsman incidents, one on the front of the windscreen whilst driving (not pleasant yuck) one that jumped on the car when we went to the dump, again outside and one dead in the shower cubicle. We bought spider spray in the supermarket and sprayed all window and door ways around outside of the house. We had a couple of scorpions inside the house (apparently these are quite harmless and only give a little nip) and several millipedes. Also sprayed my car to stop huntsman getting in there too. Once you see your first one you are not too bothered after that. Never once saw a red back and only one white tail which got my thong!!!!!