Ceri

A tall glass works just as well too.
I don't understand the fuss about spiders myself, they are all around us, it's nature.. so it's bit pointless killing them. They keep the other pests down too.

Huntsmen if they are in the house I leave them be. At the moment we are getting a lot of Wolf spiders coming in. Which apparently is a bit unusual as a lot of web sites reckon that they rarely come into houses... ha ha ... they ought to take a look over at my joint!. I'm chucking them out left right and centre each night. Apparently Wolf spiders along with the white tip is another one which is under suspicion for skin necrosis. I just put a glass over them, put a card underneath the glass and chuck them outside... that's if my cat hasn't got to them first.
I found one spider one morning puked up by cat.. so it must have made him a wee bit sick.

About the only spider I kill are redbacks, just for the reason that their always in places where I'm likely to put my hands... ie the inside of the garage door.. any insect spray will kill them. Another tip... hairspray works too if you've run out of insect spray. Takes a bit longer but it does work... they get stuck, dry up and die.

MartinD

A few people we've met swear by keeping a cat - the constant creeping around low places keeps spider webs down, and cats seem to be able to play with, kill, and dispose (eat?) spiders without getting bitten.

Not sure if this is true or not - any other stories of moggy spider patrols out there?

Ceri

The Sydney Funnelweb does not kill cats and dogs.. it only kills Primates (us and monkeys). I'm not quite sure about the other species of spiders and if they make pets ill.. but my cats are still alive and they are always killing and eating spiders. One of them did puke up the Wolf spider though... mind you he eats anything and pukes it up... spiders, cockroaches .. you name it he eats it... he keeps the pests down all right.

jayr

Well spiders aren't all bad:


http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...783283014.html

MartinD

NO - I DO NOT want to be a test subject.

(mind you, how are they going to test if it helps you get a stiffy or not... maybe I do want to be a test subject after all!)

bundy

I can vouch for the white tip being responsible for skin necrosis. It bites you (which doesn't hurt that much, although you do feel it) and then a day later you get a white ring on your skin - mine was a little bigger than an old-style 50 pence piece. The next stage is great - your skin starts to ulcerate and keeps spreading until it reaches the edge of the white ring. Needless to say, that's the stage that hurts. But it heals and doesn't scar (except for being a slightly different texture). The weird thing is that, every now and then (about once a year) it itches like hell and the white ring comes back....

Wolf spiders and huntsmen are harmless, but the redbacks in the loo can give you a fright.

ButtonMoon

a recent report on ABC radio suggested that the white tail is now considered not responsible for the gangrenous bite...question is then, what is...?

mr mover

trouble is with cats , curiosity kills them ,my neighbour has lost 4 cats to eastern brown snakes, the last one was killed by a snake 9inches long..... MM

bondipom

Anyone into snake farming?

bundy

Well, the one that bit me was certainly a white tail, I saw it sinking its teeth in and if it wasn't that which caused my skin to fall apart, then what the hell was it???!!!

debsy

YEEEEUK!!! I am seriously reconsidering my move to Aus now!:scared: I HATE SPIDERS

bundy

It's really not that bad. I was living in the middle of nowhere so there were plenty of spiders about. With the exception of the one that bit me, they never gave me any bother (and the one that bit me did so because he got trapped by my watchstrap). We had lots of redbacks in the dunnies, but they kept themselves hidden. As did the funnelwebs....

No, really, it's not that bad! It's been menioned elsewhere, but hairspray certainly works if you don't have anything else (that or a shoe)

Jeztechs

Hey, this was weird

We invited expats Anthony and Zoe over at the weekend to our place on the Sunshine Coast. We got talking about how many Huntsman and snakes we have seen since being here. My wife pipes up that if you go in the bathroom now you will see one, the phone then rings and there is another bigger one by the phone, we all go for the spray and give it a good half a canister blast. Got back outside to finish our BBQ and bloody hell, the biggest one I have ever seen was sitting on our deck by the table, this one froze me to the spot and took a while to dispose of it (my wife deals with them). That was a sighting of 3 within ten minutes, more than we have seen put together since we have been in the house for the last year. Usually once dead, they shrivel up to nothing and look so small, that big one looked just as big after discovering its dead remains the next day….YUK.

Ceri

There's a debate about both spiders - the White tail and the Wolf spider ( there a few different species.. without checking I think there around 9 genera and 130 described species of wolf)

The white tip and the wolf have been linked in the past to necrosis
http://www.rochedalss.qld.edu.au/spider/wolf.htm

I have a book back home where one lady got bitten by one (she identified the spider as a Wolf, had it in a jar for weeks) the necrosis spread right up her arm.. can't stop it. She states that she wished she had been bitten by a redback or a funnel web, at least there’s an antivenin for those. There’s also another article where one man in desperation killed his family and turned the gun on himself after suffering with this flesh eating disease.

The only way to get rid of it when it eats into the flesh and below layers of soft tissue is by surgical removal of the dead tissues.

Necrosis means dead... dead skin can not heal back up of course. If the necrosis goes below the skin it affects the soft tissues and fat (which must be cut out by surgical removal).. kills it off. Any healthy skin/tissue which is touching the necrotic skin dies off too.. hence the spreading. If left it can go into the bone (which means amputation) .

Why I know all this is because I have first hand experience of it. I spent weeks in Hospital with necrosis. Two operations (one failed..The necrosis carried on spreading, so I had to have a second one) to scrape out the dead tissues also had one skin graft. I also spent months as an outpatient after the ops I was left with a great gaping hole which had be dressed each day in the healing process... It took me around a year to walk without a limp again as it had affected my nerves leading to my ankle. bl**dy painful I can tell you that. It has now healed up, but I have a big scar on my limb (looks like a shark bite ) and still suffer a bit of pain now and again lower down the limb (nerve damage)
The area itself where the necrosis was I have no feeling there. You could stick a pin into the scar and I would not feel it (again nerve damage) . Mine wasn't from a spider bite it was from a fishing accident but the principle of necrosis is the same. You can get it from spiders, earth, coral scrapes, shark bites, and fish, anything dirty that carries microscopic bacteria. Usually you will have a biopsy to discover which microbe it is which is killing the flesh, like the staph bacteria. They couldn't find which microbe I had. I didn't have staph or any of the obvious one that they will test for by biopsy (they take a piece of the dead skin to test it).

I did post up a few pictures of my injury here months ago on a similar thread to this.

As for the spider bites, it depends which reference material you read.. Some people think (that the spiders which are supposed to cause necrosis )that it's more likely after the spider has bitten, dirt has entered the wound causing the necrosis. Others think that the spiders carry the bacteria in their bite... so hence the different views by different sources.

Cheers

P.S if bitten by one of these spiders it does not mean you will get skin necrosis. It only affects a small minority of people. Most people do not get any probs with the bite. So I wouldn't worry too much about it

bondipom

An experimantal treatment for people with persistently festy wounds is using maggots (bred in a sterile environment) to eat the dead skin.

For certain types of wound it is a very effective and safe treatment as anaesthetics are not required. Imagine feeling them wriggling in your wound!!

:scared: