Advice on Spiders Please : Do Not read if they bother you

[Ben551]

*** IF YOU ARE SCARED OF SPIDERS I ADVISE AGAINST READING THIS THREAD***

Dear all,

I have a bit of an issue that I would like some advice on please.

My wife and I are still new at this and, although we seem to be handling all manner of problems as they come up, there is one that has us a bit stumped.  Our place is set against the New Zealand bush and contains all manner of insects, including spiders.  Unlike our Australian cousins across the ocean, we are lucky in NZ and don't have very many poisonous spiders (the few that are poisonous are very rare and hardly seen). We also don't have snakes in NZ, or any major preditors, so hey... it could be worse right?

The problem is, when we do get spiders they are... a little bit bigger than people are used to. 

After getting some horrified reactions, we added a warning to our listing in the best way we could think of, added it to our guest book, and started telling people at check-in of the dangers of leaving the windows open.  But honestly, people are STILL surprised when they find a spider and seem to approach it with genuine terror!  Each time this happens, we feel a bit guilty.  I don't want guests to feel horrified, but... I can't change it.  It's hot here right now and people want to leave windows open.  When they do that, spiders come in... simple as that. 

I know we're not responsible for the insects of New Zealand... and there is no point laying awake a night worring if guests are going to find any... but I just wonder if we should be doing something else?

Here is the warning we have on our listing, which we also include in our guest book:

◉ Trees, bees, birds and more! ◉
Please note that the cottage is located in the forest and is surrounded by trees, nature and natural wildlife. There are flowers, birds, bees and insects in the forest. This can mean a small amount of pollen or insects may enter the cottage during your stay. This is very rare, however it can happen if windows are left open for long periods. If finding a spider would bother you, or if you are severly allergic to pollen or bees, we recommend you reconsider your stay with us. Although we are meticulous and thorough, we cannot promise the space will be entirely free of these things. Living in New Zealand is both wild and beautiful so we accept these small things as part of the wonderful life we have.

How does that sound?  I thought it sounded ok.  The problem is that I don't know if this is a warning is suitably proportionate to the "size" of the spiders I'm talking about here.  I also don't think there is any way to illustrate this without sharing a picture.... I hate to do it, but I'm going to post a link to one that our guests caught and photographed... we caught another this morning about 2/3 the size of this one, but still very large.  I dunno, they just seem to get fat and healthy in our bush... Bundle the cat likes to eat them (weirdo). These certainly aren't the biggest NZ has either, they can be dinner plate or toilet seat sized up in Auckland, so frankly I'd take Wellington spiders any day...

Link to picture of our average spider invader:

https://spiderid.com/picture/52075/

Feel free to not follow the above link and just give me general advice based on whatever size of insect you imagine would bother you.  Bear in mind, most of our guests are not New Zealanders, they are British, European, American, Chinese.... etc.  Actually, I've lost track of the countries...

~ Ben

[Ange2]

@Sarah977   There's no denying that many insects , bugs, spiders, are exquisitely elegant, beautiful. Your scorpion looks like its wearing a couture headdress.

[Ben551]

@Sarah977  Wow!  That is some creature!

[Sarah977]

@Ben551 I keep a dead one in a jar to show guests so they don't have a screaming fit if they happen to see one. There's tons in my shed, but I seldom see them in the house.

[Ben551]

@Sarah977  we get these in our shed:

https://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/mf_image_16x9/public/weta.png?itok=uYQ-mJ9...

I call the biggest one "Jim" and he quite likes eating little bits of peanut butter.  He is blind, but uses his feelers to see... moves slowly and kinda... feelers his way across my wood cutting table.  They always stay where there is wood or wood dust etc.  No chance of finding these in our guest cottage by accident.

[Sarah977]

@Ben551  Wow, that's pretty prehistoric looking. Looks grasshopperish. Right now the first of the "stupid bugs" have appeared in the past week. Like giant scarabs, black, they fly around, buzzing loudly, bang into everything, eventually knocking themselves onto their back, a position they can't upright themselves from, flail their legs around until they die and the ants move in to carry them away. Quite pitiful, really. 

[Jo13]

@Sarah977 we have those!

My small domestic cat turns into an excitable, wild catbeast at the mere sight of one.

[Kelly149]

@Ben0

2 things 

I’d avoid some of the qualifiers: Small amount, very rare...

and. Tell the guest what they Should do if they encounter a mammoth: 

shoo it away, run screaming, smash it with a fly swatter, call you....

whatever would be appropriate, tell them to do it and set the stage that leaving or complaining are not choices

[Ben551]

@Kelly149  oooh good point about the what to do.  We should offer to come deal with it if they need us to.

[Susan151]

@Ben551 . The spiders are harmless, but that bee thing? That is well worth keeping in your listing. If bees can get into a space without much effort, I can't possibly book that place. The Epi-Pen will buy me about 15 minutes to get to the hospital, but who wants to visit a local hospital while traveling?

[Ben551]

@Susan151  yeah I agree.  We have a rampant pollen delivery system in Wellington with the wind, plus a lot of wild bees, so these are things that people will encounter just walking down the street in our city.  There is a whole "urban beekeeping" movement too, which has really increased the number of little yellow flying pollenators...

The bees and pollen don't come in on their own though to our place, only if people leave windows open.  I assume people who are deathly illergic come prepared when they visit a forest ridden country though?  Or do I need to emphasise that New Zealand isn't for them?

[Sarah977]

@Ben551  I think there's only so much hand-holding and warning you can do- anyone who is deathly allergic to anything and doesn't travel with an Epipen (or a vial of epinephrin (sp?) and a syringe, which is the cheaper way to go) has a death wish or likes tempting fate. Aren't there bees and wasps almost everywhere? 

I do keep Benedryl on hand and show guests where it is (in the fridge). If they get stung by something, that will either do the trick, or hopefully buy enough time to get to a hospital if they have a bad reaction.

[Rachel0]

@Ben551  I'm not at all keen on spiders but sort of got used to big ones when I lived in Tanzania for a while, years ago.  Here, they like to come indoors in September/October, looking to mate apparently, and at the same time of year the horse chestnuts fall off their trees in the park.  So, we gather the chestnuts up and place a few by each door and window and because the spiders don't like the  smell they tend to keep away.  

[Ben551]

Wow @Rachel0 i never knew that about Chestnuts! How cool! I will look into this 🙂

PS: wait, no, yes I did. In the UK we call them conkers. I forgot they were called horse chestnuts. I don’t think there are many of that type of tree in NZ, but I’ll do some digging.

[Betty124]

Got it.   Horse chestnuts.   

I  wonder if I can find any of those here  in the Denver area.   

I'll look it up.

Thank you!

Betty

[Cathie19]

Well @Ben551, you won’t like me! Like @Sarah977, the tropics here in the Top End, leaves us with no shortage of insects, including spiders. But annually, my buildings are all pest control sprayed for cockroaches, spiders and ants. Spiders and ants may last six months or longer... we can’t stop cockroaches flying in, but they don’t last long if entering the dwellings. Yes, it is safe.....

But we do allow the gardens and outer areas to run wild within the natural eco environment. Hence  spiders 🕷,  ants 🐜 , mosquitos🦟, 🦎 geckos, green tree frogs 🐸  are in abundance... Then the grasshoppers that can be HUGE, or beetles etc all have their seasonal cycles.