a tool for relocating spiders

I don't usually do advertisements in this blog, but I make an exception for a brilliant little invention called the bugcatcher. It was bought in a toyshop about 30 years ago and on many occasions since has enabled me to deal with spiders with confidence and fearlessness.

A bugcatcher is a simple trap that doesn't hurt the spider (but you do have to be careful of its fragile legs). Painless, relatively untraumatic for both the spider and the involved human(s), it facilitates the removal of an uninvited and unwanted spider guest from the house to the garden efficiently and without the worry of direct skin contact


Last night a dark hairy large-ish spider was noticed on a wall in our house. The Victorian Spiders Database identified it as a Brown House Spider, Steatoda grossa.

I wanted to leave it on the wall to do its own thing, but was out-voted by three anxious family members. I later learned that a bite from this spider gives you a headache, nausea and causes blistering. So I suppose their desire to relocate it did have a certain logic.

Here you see the spider starting to move into the bugcatcher.


Once it's in - you put the lid on and there's relief and pride in a job (nearly) well done.


The final step is to go outside, take off the lid and go to bed (if it's bedtime which it was). In the morning the bugcatcher is empty, and hopefully that spider has found a home somewhere else.


This post is dedicated to my cyberfriend Wendy, whose determination to garden enables her to overcome her fear of spiders and insects.