I'm not an arachnophobe but I do have to draw the line.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/why-arachnophobes-should-skip-australia

See the huntsman? We have about 4 or 5 about the house.
And the common black house spider? We have a big black one living on the bathroom window. Unfortunately it had 180 little baby spiders so my wife is going to move them all to the garden.
They don't generally bite and she's pretty good at moving them.
But her folks live next to the property that has THE highest concentration of Sydney Funnel Webs.
Their next door neighbour knocked the numbers down years ago using chickens.
The chickens are immune and just eat them.
But there are still plenty about in the corners.
Oh, and Red Backs and White Tail Spiders?
Plenty of both about and the White Tails leave a wound like the Brown Recluse that won't heal.
I accidentally brushed a Red Back when reaching behind the engine of an old VW Bug I had that had been sitting in a field.
Didn't bite me fortunately - I squashed it quick.
They try and breed under my bicycle seat in the garage as I ride it infrequently.
I'll admit the spiders are bad but the snakes are worse......that and the Box Jellyfish and the Blue Ringed Octopus.
Oh, and the sharks..........

P.S. Our spiders generally aren't that big and they can easily be avoided. We only kill Red Backs and White Tails as the rest are great fly and mosquito killers and we never see Funnel Webs where I live. The snakes, however, especially the Brown Snake, are considerably worse and easy to disturb when hunting. One summer hunting trip I saw an adolescent Brown Snake swim across a creek up stream from where I was dabbling my feet. I got out! They are really aggressive and a friend's dog was killed by one recently.

ooooooof, can feel a load of stompin coming on

Nah, we don't stomp on house spiders. They kill other bugs & keep the balance. You guys have midges & the like but you don't get the huge blow flys and little irritating bush flies which arrive every summer. Spiders are a good thing aside of funnel webs, red backs & white tails.

Not a spider fan.... squish squish squish...

I'm not a fly or mosquito fan so I cheer selected spiders on & save my own squishing for the flies & mozzies.

There is something inherently alien about Arachnids, I will continue to squish...

I leave them alone if they're outside. In the house they die. Snakes are another story entirely.

We have barn spiders (Araneus cavaticus) that get about the size of a quarter (1.25 to 1.5 inches across). They are death to miller moths. Fun to watch!! We let the babies stay in the house in the winter.

Black widders and brown recluses get smished. ALWAYS shake out your boots around here.

RJ

See, that's always been interesting for me. If I'm camping I shake out my boots but at home the spiders & bugs in general don't normally get in them.

Funny that you should say that, RJ. Payton and the wife came up for Hunters elk hunt last fall. In the way home they stopped in Kremling for gas. While the wife was filling up, Payton screamed and jumped out of the car. There was a black widow building a web in the car. It got squished. There was a guy in Boulder last year that died from a black widow bite in the foot. It bit him 19 Times and he didn't see a doctor for several days.

19 times??!!
Did he let it bite him a few times, have a rest and then let it bite him a few more?
I'm not going to say he deserved to die but he would have to have got through the qualifying rounds of the Darwin Award for that.

Quote from: HunterbugI'm not an arachnophobe

As my grandmother used to say, HB: "You'll got to hell for lying as soon as you will for stealing." :)

Paul
 
 PS - Didn't see a spider of note in the 13 days we were in Oz.
 
 Paul

Paul, I don't mind the spiders it's snakes that I don't like.

QuoteI don't mind the spiders
 

 Again I quote my grandmother... :)
 
 I HATE spiders. I USUALLY kill them whenever I see them, with the exception of tarantulas and Argiope sp. especially A. aurantia.
 
 In my very young days, my extended family lived in parts of Oklahoma and Texas where "indoor plumbing" wasn't the norm. While using "the facilities", one of my cousins was bitten on the scrotum by a black widow (Latrodectus sp). It didn't have a long-term effect on him. In fact, later in life he fathered three children. He also had a very HIGH tolerance for spiders. While we were inseparable when we were kids, when it came to spiders and snakes, we were polar opposites. He tolerated a spider web in the face when walking through the woods but would run like a track star when he saw a snake. I on the other hand could go "zero to 60 in 2 seconds" in reverse if I walked into a spider web in the woods, but would stop to catch the snake that had my cousin almost to the next county.
 
 As you know from first-hand observation, I have no compunction about handling wild snakes. :)
 
 Paul