For sufferers of Arachnophobia, the next few weeks are going to be ugly. The Giant Spider Invasion is about to begin.
Eight Legged Freaks will be sneaking in windows, a whole Kingdom of Spiders will be lurking around doorways, a deadly Cargo of Tarantulas will be climbing out of your bath (OK, not likely, but that’s what happens when you let movie names take over).
The horrors of Spider Island have indeed already manifested themselves in our house. Recently we were invaded by monstrous Arachnids with leg spans seven centimetres across. Naturally I whapped them with the approved weapon — a rolled-up newspaper — but I’d have been fully justified in using a shotgun.
I gather, from the Internet, that these are brown funnel-web spiders (Latin name: Giganticus chernobylus). Fortunately though, while they’re described as “quick-moving,” the ones I belted had a notable weak point. If you show up when they’re scooting across the floor and you turn on a light, they screech to a sudden halt and appear to contemplate their options. Bad move.
The question, though, is what should be done. Leave spiders be, and your house ends up festooned in Webs. We rented a place on Hornby one year that was crawling with wolf spiders.
Any item of clothing you left lying around was immediately claimed as an ambush point by one of these nasties. The house was so full of them, the only solution would have been to nuke the site from orbit and start over from scratch.
Or, you could take the approach favoured by a zoo in England, which released into the wild hundreds of fen raft spiders — the largest species in that Sceptred Isle, and about the size of a small chihuahua.
The boffins responsible for this idiocy claimed they were trying to save an endangered species. In heaven’s name, why? I say wipe ’em out, and the spiders, too.
Now I can hear the tut-tutting from entomologists. Spiders are innocent creatures. They keep down the bug population and it’s only the occasional one that can actually kill you. Most bites just lead to a flesh wound. No big deal.
There’s an element of fatalism about this — defeatism, even — that I don’t buy into. We managed to wipe out smallpox. Why not spiders?
Still, until that glad day comes, there are supposedly some folk remedies worth trying. A few of them, like scattering horse chestnuts around your house, are definitely eye-of-newt stuff.
Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry held a contest to prove or disprove the chestnut theory. A class of 10-year-olds showed conclusively it doesn’t work. Spiders actually like walking on chestnuts.
Drenching doorsteps and windowsills with vinegar supposedly keeps the pests at bay, if you don’t mind your house smelling like a pickle jar. Peppermint oil and citrus peels are also said to fend them off.
And a highly motivated house cat (I know, a contradiction in terms) might be stirred to whack a few.
But really, the only thing that works is an outsized can of Raid. I dunno if you can still buy this product in Victoria. Is there another city council in Canada with such a penchant for cosseting pests? Hence the proliferation of bunnies, deer, geese, councillors in the pay of CUPE, etc.
My own corner of the Peninsula, Central Saanich, has resisted this nonsense so far. Though how much longer is in question. Hardware stores out here are now keeping pesticides and herbicides locked in glass cabinets. The infantilization of our species marches on.
However, if all else fails, there’s one sure-fire option that works every time — malt whisky. It won’t keep spiders away, but it will stiffen your nerve when they show up.
