Wolf spider infestation

“Johnboy how about an “Images of Canberra – Spider Week””

Can we have at least a week’s warning for this one so I can avoid this site for the duration. Ugh!

Yep I know red backs aren’t as dangerous as a lot of urban myths would state but I for one am not going to risk the pain of a bite on me or a potentially more lethal one on my doggies if I can solve it with some simple environmentally friendly pest control.

Mrs Facet was recently bitten by a Wolf Spider – it proved fatal for the spider.
Johnboy how about an “Images of Canberra – Spider Week”

http://www.bulkmsm.com/research/spider/Australia/page9.htm#wolf

niftydog said:

Funnelwebs in Canberra is a myth I reckon. Anyone ever seen one?
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Oh yes. Had one living in my yard. But the ones we get here are like those you find in the mountains and in Victoria, which are not the same as the kind you find around Sydney (saw plenty when I lived there). Ours are smaller and less aggressive, thankfully.

Wolf Spiders are cute and tame.

It is the Face Spiders that you have to be worried about. They live in your wardrobe though in the middle of the night they also live in mattresses.

Sorry, have to share this blog entry:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/spiders-are-scary-its-okay-to-be-afraid.html

Skidbladnir: You don’t have snakes, lizards and other insects when you rule the fauna of your backyard with fire and agony.

That’s the reason the dog won’t come to me.

With that many holes around your house, you should be very concerned, Padoof.

I well remember fearful whispers about the rural cottage that collapsed into a similar catacomb of spider homes, with the hapless trapped inhabitants – an elderly couple in their 80’s with three cats – consumed alive by vengeful Wolf spiders and other bloodthirsty insects.

Local authorities stepped in very rapidly to prevent details of the event reaching the ears of the outside world, and the ‘hush’ campaign was hugely successful.

Half a ton of DDT.

I’m actually a bit of a spider-friend, they’re tolerated around the house and huntsman are only relocated if they decide to get too friendly.

I understand where our spidey friends fit in with the web of garden life, but I am objecting to seeing the holes every few feet, in the lawn, in the garden beds, next to the driveway!

I’ve just counted the visible holes within a one metre radius from my car in the driveway, 7, the holes up to the size of a 5 cent piece. Making my skin crawl people! Will my yard be a catacomb of spider homes which will rock the foundations of my house? How many per square metre in the lawn is considered too many?

As my dear old Scottish mother says ‘you live in Australia, get used to it’, but surely there comes a point where the spider to grass ratio tips one way too much and should be dealt with? (remember the Newcastle house).

My ever loving better half doesn’t mind them in the slightest and says “whatever makes you happy dear” about eradicating them.

I’ve appreciated your comments and will sit on this for a bit longer, but I’m getting a bit too creeped out too last much longer.

redback spider bites are allegedly very painful but rare to die from them – only 14 deaths recorded in australia according to wiki.

Pure evil, AngryHenry… I love it!

I say leave them the hell alone; wolf spiders are pretty harmless, as are most of Canberra’s spiders who are venturous enough to head indoors (huntsman, white tale etc).

As for the others (Red Back, Black House) they may look scary, but most are slow and docile, quite common and very rarely a problem.

Funnelwebs in Canberra is a myth I reckon. Anyone ever seen one?

Seek counselling for your irrational fear of spiders (arachnophobia).
Note that nuking them from outer space was not an effective strategy in the movie and probably would not work in your backyard.

Let them be – they’re good for the balance of critters in the garden and pretty much harmless to people.

Skidbladnir – thanks so much for that link to the spider wasp! I saw one once dragging a huge huntsman into a crevice and was astounded, though I had no idea what it was. Absolutely fascinating.

Really – if the little woodland creatures that we share our yards with aren’t a real threat to us, we should be happy to peacefully co-exist with them.

Wolf Spiders are cool. It’s the other more nasty types you have to worry about.

Like the ones that come to you while you sleep and drink from the corners of your mouth and your tear ducts… Mwahahahahahaha.

Seriously though I found a few of them and wasn’t too worried. Then I found some redbacks in my gumboots, the pest control man is now on his way.

Don’t worry: the spiders, wasps, lizards and birds will sort them out.

I’m voting for either new resident to Canberra, a new gardener, or someone who has forgotten how much animal and insect life actually thrive in Canberra (the Bush Capital) gardens after a decade of drought.

Oh, and if you do commit to outdoor pest removal\fumigation, be prepared for
A) overabundance of species which would otherwise have been eaten (ants, moths, aphids, earwigs, centipedes, bugs and beetles)
B) New species of things to move in to the gap you’ll leave in the food web, either long-term infestations of small predators (wasps, other small insects) or suffer occasional migrations of larger ones (lizards, snakes, birds dstroying you garden, etc),

Or if you don’t want A or B;
C) Regularly paying the pest fumigators to drop by and do your entire house every couple of months until the day you realise its been futile, as you’ve suddenly removed the insectivorous predators from your garden, paving the way for everything so inclined to infest your house.

Ick ick ick, had to take both feet of the ground whilst reading the original post. Mother nature sucks and the sun is trying to kill us all!

Stay inside!

If you are that worried, boil up a jug of water, then pour said heated water into the hole.

When the hole is full of water, move on to the next.

You will have about 3 – 4 weeks free of them before new ones move in.

Having recently stuck my foot into a shoe with a spidey in it, I hope you find a solution…soon.

If you do let the wolf spiders stay, take heart in the fact that they keep your garden in balance, and themselves have predators who will move in only for as long as there’s a stable enough food supply.
(Spider wasps are friendly, don’t live in large numbers, and a sign of a healthy garden)

My basic maths of ‘if one spider has a hundred babies, and they have babies’

Are you assuming no spider gets eaten\dies?
Nature does not work that way.
Hungry spiders claim a territorial patch and will eat their competitors (as well as their children)…

Basically, if there’s a seeming abundance of predators, there’s enough biomass in your garden’s supporting food web to keep them happy
Leave them be, they might have a few weeks of seeming to be everywhere, but evntually they’ll fight for space and food, and their populations will eventually stabilise.
In the mean time they will just keep your other pests down.

If you get rid of the spiders, do you really want a population boom of those insect species that they were eating?

http://www.reptilepark.com.au/animalprofile.asp?pid=43&id=133

Don’t be too concerned.

Step 1: Purchase can of your favourite insecticide
Step 2: Direct a 2 second blast down each little hole
Step 3: Stop up holes with a small handfull of sand each
Step 4: Rinse and repeat as required

All the wet weather of late, has lead to conditions suitable for spiders to breed – hence the huge amount of spiders and baby spiders crawling around. They are everywhere!

I don’t know anything about wolf spiders specifically though.

If it keeps raining though, as it’s expected to, there’ll be more and more spiders, so you may want to call pest control people, or just diy.

Oh dear, I just googled Wolf Spider and broke into a cold sweat.

My garden has loads of little critters and spiders that don’t bother me. That said, one part of my garden went particularly savage during the rain, when the weeds grew to shoulder height. When I finally got around to cutting it all back, a spider as big and fury as these guys came out and chased me .. I swear he did. I was so terrifed that I killed him with my shovel.

Apparently, they’re not venomous and they eat the more destructive creatures in the garden so they shouldn’t be too much worry – that said 20 of them is a terrifying number. I’d stay out of the garden, unless wearing a space suit or call the spider equivilent of the ghost busters (and say good-bye to the garden for a season).

leave them be.

Global Warming