Edwards family

I am terrified of spiders. We visited 2 years ago but in the oz winter and didn't really see anything to worry about. I am sure it must be worse in the summer. Any scary experiences!!

Kim

DrWho

We've been in Sydney for almost a year and so far have seen 1 redback, 0 funnel webs, 1 snake (but that was on a road up the central coast), 1 huntsman (fvck they're big and he breached the house defence...!) and a bucket load of cockroaches... It was the roaches that got to me to start with but after a while you just get used to it... Keep a couple of cans of Mortein handy and you're on a roll... I think you just need to be aware... Keep the fly screens shut at all times, don't go poking your fingers into little cracks in the garden/garage, etc...

Dorothy

Sitting at work yesterday, I'm sort of leaning over my desk writing something and I heard something hit my desk. Look up and there's a spider not 2" from the corner of the paper I was writing on. It fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing hitting my head. Scaredy cat me walks ever so calmly to the next room and asked the guy I was working with if he could please come and kill it for me. He's almost as scared of spiders as I am, but seeing how it was a white tail he squished it for me. However, after he flicked the corpse off the desk there was still the outline of it's body in black contrasting the white table top. I got some chalk and drew an outline around it like you see the police do with bodies and left it for another of my colleagues who was due to use that room next. Hope he shares my sense of humour.

Pollyana

Love that bit - I shall do that with the roaches we get in here occasionally. Not as bad as the unit we had where they crawled up the shower outlet, that was disgusting. We have a couple of huntsmen and some geckos here and I think that keeps the roaches down.
mega ant problem though - and they are even microwave proof as I doscvoered one day after nuking something for 5 minutes only to find ants inside the microwave, still running around! I inspect it very carefully before use now.

Dorothy

Ew! Gross. Can honestly say that we don't have many bugs at all here. In this house I personally have only seen 1 huntsman (small one) on the outside of our patio door, 1 gecko, 1 white tail in the house and a whole mess of ants. I don't know if I am turning a blind eye or not, but have not seen a cockroach in the house at all. Maybe it's because I'm in Adelaide where it's drier. I know my husband has had cockroaches in his place in Perth, but he's only a block from the beach and his place was quite damp.

Pollyana

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1898869

And we were at least half an hour from the nearest excuse for a beach!

And to really scare you
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1661067

Nomore

Not seen many spiders, but loads of flies, ants, cockroaches in the house

RichP

Doesn't seem bad at all to be honest.

There's plenty of roaches, that's about it. It's heaven in comparison to Thailand.

diitbrown

Hi there,

I must have been the biggest aracnophbiast before comi to live here!!

I live in Perth and clean rental properties for a living. In my time I have come across the most scariest of things such as walking in one room and seeing this huntman on the wall - they are huge, can be as big as your hand, but are harmless, apparently.

I did a house not so long ago where the cockroaches where crawling out of all the cupboards in the kitchen!! As I was on the phone telling my boss I was refusing to clean this house.....one crawl out of a crack in the wall and flew at me!!!

I have seen loads of redback spiders but they are usually outside - although there was one in the bedroom once!

But you do learn to live with them.

Di XX

Australia_bound?

Which area of Aus are you heading to? Spiders are far more common in certain areas than others.

JoolsB

As a returning Aussie I always remember as a child being told to check under the loo seat and seat of my swing for spiders-I remember mum once opened the airing cupboard and found a funnelweb nestling amongst her towels

It's the slugs that get me though-remember them as much bigger than in UK-things that go squelch in the night urgh

Vim Fuego

I can't stand 'em either Kim but according to my (Aussie) wife I've developed a BIT of a tolerance over 2 years. She hates cane toads so we share pest control duty.

We've had bigguns in the house, in my boots (tip - put some rolled-up socks in the top of them), crawling across the drivers-side car wing mirror (THAT scared me witless), living in my jacket (tip - leave the jacket somewhere else ...).

They ARE big but most are not dangerous, so I'm told ... we did have redbacks in the garage when we moved in but they were soon evicted, now we have daddy-long-legs ... which is a good sign 'cos it means we don't have redbacks (they eat 'em apparently).

Happy days ...