Look, going to Reddit for advice can be a truly risky affair. But if there’s one thing the good people of Australian Reddit know how to do, it’s give excellent advice on removing spiders. Thank God.
Redditor u/Laura_271 posted on the r/Australia page asking for help with a truly concerning pickle: a spider in her car.
She spotted the huntsman under her bonnet while she was driving to work, only to discover later that it was between “the door and the body frame on the outside of my car”.
“I get a co-worker to open the door, AND IT DISAPPEARS,” she wrote.
“The car has been at my workplace since like Wednesday and I’ve been relying on public transport since.”
This is simply so incredibly valid. I know huntsmen aren’t venomous but by jove, they’re scary.
Given summer is slowly making its way towards us, the threat of spideys is abounding. Luckily, Reddit has offered some genuinely helpful advice which yes, I will be packing away for later.
In one top rated comment, user u/petaurus_australia suggested the fresh-smelling solution of peppermint oil diluted in water and popped in a spray bottle.
“Car smells good, spiders avoid it like the plague,” they wrote.
That honestly sounds like a delectable car scent even without the added boon of dissuading spiders from making their home in your air vents.
Another user suggested parking the car in the hot sun with a “window cracked”.
“When it gets unpleasantly hot it will leave on its own accord.”
To which another user replied, “Do they prefer Hondas?” — a comment I have been laughing at for maybe 20 minutes.
Other people suggested using bug bombs, or trying to suck out and release the huntsman using a portable vacuum.
As if the thought of a permanent spider backseat driver isn’t bad enough, it turns out we can soon expect a slew of cockroaches thanks to La Niña. They’ll potentially be joined by an influx of spiders too. Delightful!
As well as the helpful advice on Reddit — including someone’s succinct suggestion of “burn the car down” — people were also sharing their cooked spider-in-car stories.
Thanks, I will literally never be driving again!
One user explained why it’s important to double check your sun visors if you’re conscious of a creepy crawly in the car.
Another shared this horrifying tale of a spider blowing out of their fan and crawling up their leg. I generally think I’m pretty okay about spiders, but this just gave me a full body itch.
There’s also this very specific scenario, which makes me grateful for people sharing their lived spider-in-car experiences but also makes me never want to enter another enclosed space.
Consider my excitement for summer absolutely waned.
Luckily while huntsmen may look scary, they’re nowhere near as dangerous as a number of other spideys.
They also have shit eyesight according to Macquarie Uni arachnologist Dr Lizzy Lowe. Maybe the car huntsmen just think they’re in a particularly weird type of bush?
“Huntsmen are super fast but they get confused, so if a huntsman is running towards you, it’s confused. They’re not aggressive spiders at all and they generally stay high up because that’s where they’re finding the food they want to eat,” she told WeatherZone.
It also turns out they actually eat cockroaches — so maybe this summer won’t be so bad after all.
I guess there’s worse things in the world than having a huntsman in the car. But thankfully there’s always peppermint oil as a backup.
