What are these huge spiders?

Hobos in our barn house!

Phew, big bug. I don't mind big spiders; I grow big jeweled spiders up here, and they are welcome. But then again I wouldn't want this one down the back of my neck.

I'm sure WA folks can give you a positive ID.

P.S., It helps to add a 25 cent piece for scale.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Phew, big bug. ..

P.S., It helps to add a 25 cent piece for scale.

It’s a hobo spider I think. lol Was kinda a joke kinda a “name that spider type of game”. Yes poisonous,  no not okay in the baby’s room or the sink or the shower the last three venues of their demise.

Do you relocate or whack-whack-whack?

I'm fairly terrirorial so I could go both ways, depending on the demeanour of the bug and the phase of the moon.(Edit: I exaggerate. If I can relocate, I will. Always.)

I do think about what they are eating --if they are making a good livng in my house, is this spider the least of my worries? What else is messin' around the joint?

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Do you relocate or whack-whack-whack?

I'm fairly terrirorial so I could go both ways, depending on the demeanour of the bug and the phase of the moon.

I do think about what they are eating --if they are making a good livng in my house, is this spider the least of my worries? What else is messin' around the joint?

Trust that Daddy long legs and Orb spiders are very welcome on the interior or our home, we like to reserve the rest of our interior to be spider free lol.

Especially to big fanged fast ones in the baby’s room. After doing more research I may have been misled on the poisonousness of the hobos. It’s hard to give them a second chance when they’re in the wrong spot… example in or near the bed. We’re all for relocating different creatures but when the wife says it needs the shoe. Shoe gon get it. Sorry gnarly spider you gotta go.

We do have some very productive spiders that aren’t too scary and gnarly though. Catching lots of flies and gnats on the front window. We like them! Orbs and Daddy long legs

We have brown recluse in the house and have for years...we both squish them now but I used to ignore unless they were in my immediate space.  There is a house spider with long legs that we do let stay as the word is they will reduce the recluse population somehow....most any other spider is welcome also.

When we lived in the cabin with pretty open air walls and a dirt floor I remember the first tarantula I saw inside was traumatic...I slapped a lid on it and waited for someone to come round to deal with it.  Those we relocate.

Black widows have never been in the house but we see them frequently some years in the sheds and undisturbed protected areas.  They are a case by case decision...their territory or ours?

We encouraged our oldest son as soon as he knew how, to write letters to his grandmas...we caught one before we sent it where he was explaining cheerfully how he had to check for bugs and snakes in his bed every night...he's a wonderful 48 years old now and not too traumatized  (the snake is a whole other story)

I agree though that the babies space should be sacred...no creepie crawlies!

I always leave spiders in the house...unless they are quite big and then relocate. I figure they're eating worse problems than themselves and if there wasn't a source of food, they wouldn't be there...

I believe and taught my son that the ONLY reason to kill something is if you know it's going to cause you harm or you are going to eat it.

Kyle Hayward wrote:I always leave spiders in the house...unless they are quite big and then relocate. I figure they're eating worse problems than themselves and if there wasn't a source of food, they wouldn't be there...

I believe and taught my son that the ONLY reason to kill something is if you know it's going to cause you harm or you are going to eat it.

I like that philosophy!
Then there are...
Slugs in the bathtub?
Ants?
Crickets?
I try to encourage toads in the house...
It gets complicated to relocate and sometimes it's the weather not a food source that causes them to come inside...Maybe another place to use the standby 'it depends'.

I have what I call franchised spiders. They are allowed a certain territory, their web, usually, and as long as they stay there, I won't often roust them. If they go walkies, they get bug-cupped outside. The exception is the little hunting jumping spiders, I let them stay unless they are in mom's room (they bother her, especially when they are on the ceiling.) I once watched one of them that was about 1/3 of an inch long take down, kill and eat a waterbug that was about 2 inches long. That would be like me hunting and killing a school bus. Impressive! They are allowed to wander.

Slugs in the bathtub? -  never have I ever...is your tub in the garden
Ants - can cause harm, eat your food, invade, etc... they go, but really if you eliminate the food source, they leave eventually.
crickets - cool!

Don't get me started on jumping spiders, I love watching them,  they're smart too and come in so many different colors...I had one that was an inch across guarding my mailbox for awhile, that's really big for a jumper...and I saw one that had shiny metallic green eyes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickadel/29300513137

Venomous anything is not welcome, in the house. Bitey/stingy things are case by case, but rarely left indoors. Wasps, hornets, mud-daubers on or in the house must go, but are welcome, in zone 2 and out. Snakes are case by case - I've lost count of how many we've killed in the henhouse, or where the ducks tend to lay, in the goat barn, and none are welcome in/ on the house, but (now that we don't have bunnies or guinea pigs in the house) are typically just relocated. We often host enormous wolf spiders and smaller spiders that keep to themselves.

I have a collection of (dead) scorpions. I'm fascinated by them, but don't really know as much about them as I'd like. But, they don't get to live, because stingy, they don't stay out of the way (they scuttle around on the floor, occasionally in our bed) posing a walking hazard, they often get aggressive with the dogs, while also intriguing the dogs, and they won't stay outside.

Any time we are going to have visitors, we do a sweep through all the areas they are likely to have a multi-leg encounter, and clear things up, and we'd keep a baby's room cleared, if that was an issue.

Carla Burke wrote:Venomous anything is not welcome, in the house. Bitey/stingy things are case by case, but rarely left indoors. Wasps, hornets, mud-daubers on or in the house …

In my area brown recluse, black widow and cougars are literally the only things to avoid everything else is non venomous/ gonna run Away.
The only snakes that live where I am are garter snakes and I love them so much I’ve made them
Several rock piles and I now have so many garter snakes 🐍 I imagine my pest populations have gone down. I had one big guy who had a mouse inside him!! A garter snake eating mice!

Our rule of thumb is if it’s outside leave it where it is…unless it will be harmed by our presence… which then we relocate. The largest garter snakes I’ve ever seen live on our property I don’t know how long they live but with so much to hide under and so much to eat they really thrive in the overgrown jungle that’s become our garden.

Pearl Sutton wrote:I have what I call franchised spiders. They are allowed a certain territory, their web, usually, and as long as they stay there, I won't often roust them. If they go walkies, they get bug-cupped outside.

The guy who owned the property who built the barn we live in served in the civil war… which ended in 1865 I believe … so if Buster was 15 in the civil war and came out here by 30 that’s 1880-1900 is the era we estimate this barn was built. So it’s like these spiders have been living in this barn over 120 years… well their kin and ancestors. So the ones in the lower 2 stories are giving total free range. We got so many bats in the lower two stories some people are afraid to come over at night 🤣😂

Love the bats they eat the dang mosquitoes! And flies!  I think your house should be the only realllly choosy area of what critters wander. The rest of the homestead is theirs too. They had grandma and granddads too. Who probably settled that area long before my family came. Respect the nature live with it!
My daughter was born in this barn. Like so many sheeps and calf’s and messiah’s before her🤣😂 thanks for writing in Pearl I love your stuff always great Input!

Kyle Hayward wrote:I always leave spiders in the house...unless they are quite big and then relocate. I figure they're eating worse problems than themselves and if there wasn't a source of food, they wouldn't be there...

I believe and taught my son that the ONLY reason to kill something is if you know it's going to cause you harm or you are going to eat it.

Great lessons for the next generation!
I would leave everything be but living where I live, I do share home to brown recluses and my 5 month old. When she’s old enough to avoid them I won’t be as concerned. I do love spiders though. Outside my living space they’re all allowed free range!

One of the formative texts of my youth was a little golden guide called "Spiders and Their Kin".
This solidified my love of spiders and I found out later talking to away scientist friend of mine it is still used to this day as an introduction to this very fascinating group of creatures.

William Bronson wrote:One of the formative texts of my youth was a little golden guide called "Spiders and Their Kin".
This solidified my love of spiders and I found out later talking to away scientist friend of mine it is still used to this day as an introduction to this very fascinating group of creatures.

I will get this book sounds like an educational gem to share with my daughter thank you William!

I called my little Nephew:

"The newspaper, quick!"

He responed: "Uncle, you are really living in the past, nowadays we are using mobile phones"

Now we got a broken mobile phone, a dead spider and a pi$$ed off Nephew....

Kyle Hayward wrote:Slugs in the bathtub? -  never have I ever...is your tub in the garden
Ants - can cause harm, eat your food, invade, etc... they go, but really if you eliminate the food source, they leave eventually.
crickets - cool!

Don't get me started on jumping spiders, I love watching them,  they're smart too and come in so many different colors...I had one that was an inch across guarding my mailbox for awhile, that's really big for a jumper...and I saw one that had shiny metallic green eyes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nickadel/29300513137

Have not figured out the slugs...they are sometimes elsewhere also but it seems like they are coming in along the water lines.  Weird because it is dry in the house and really nothing for them to feed on unless they make it to my house plants or maybe the compost bucket?  And odd because they are rarely a problem in the gardens.  

We love the jumping spiders too!
Crickets are fine...we did have a tree frog for awhile but evicted as it did not seem happy indoors.

I'm fine with crickets outside -- I love their chirping.  But they eat all sorts of cloth, including polyester, so they are escorted outdoors as soon as I locate them.

I have all the nope for them. I literally woke Hubby up last night to relocate a 2inch or so (long bodied cellar spider?) in the living room. We have a bargain, they stay in the basement and I don't scream like I've been stabbed and try to kill them. This one climbed the wall with the lights on and sat there where I could see it from across the room, I think it wanted to become a pet but we already have enough pets to care for. Now it gets to live outside because I was frankly in awe at its audacity and size.

I always see the old Garfield spider comics in my head. https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/1998/10/27

Cat Knight wrote:I have all the nope for them. I literally woke Hubby up last night to relocate a 2inch or so (long bodied cellar spider?) in the living room. We have a bargain, they stay in the basement and I don't scream like I've been stabbed and try to kill them. This one climbed the wall with the lights on and sat there where I could see it from across the room, I think it wanted to become a pet but we already have enough pets to care for. Now it gets to live outside because I was frankly in awe at its audacity and size.

I always see the old Garfield spider comics in my head. https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/1998/10/27

Perfect comic strip for your comment 😂🤣 well played.

Totally It Depends. What I'd had move indoors....

-- Recluse get smashed. Some are aggressive.
-- Black widows get smashed. They crawl in everywhere and make it unsafe to stick your hand in without poking with a stick first.
-- Black house spiders are actually adapted to indoor life and die if tossed out. They usually just run and hide.
-- Those longleggy spiders are so numerous they're a lost cause, but at least they don't do anything worse than hang webs in the corners. I think they mostly eat each other.
-- Wolf spiders will get rid of black widows for you. When I lived in the desert, I was constantly having wolf spiders (GREAT BIG ONES) and "wind scorpions" coming inside. Quickly noticed that if those got ignored, pretty soon I didn't have any more black widows. (Also discovered that wolf spiders hunt and kill wind scorpions.) So they got to live in the house. They don't seem to nest or build webs indoors.

Don't take the dangerous ones lightly. Some bites don't amount to much but others can produce a severe reaction. And just because the venom doesn't affect lab animals (as is the "current wisdom" with hobo spiders) doesn't mean much. I've had numerous dogs bitten by "Mojave Green" rattlesnakes without experiencing tissue necrosis. But I can direct you to you-can't-unsee-this photos of the severe damage done to a human arm from the bite of a much less dangerous species.