I am so very terrified of funnel web spiders,I found one once inside my laundry,that was many years ago but it still haunts me today. I had a young child in the house at the time.She was still asleep in a room nearby when I opened the laundry door to find on the floor not far from me a massive funnelweb spider! It was disturbed by my intrusion and so raised itself up on its back legs,its big body lent backward with its sharp long fangs pointing upward just waiting to strike at anything nearing it.It obviously knew I was there and I was a threat.The danger of such a poisonous creature being so close by put me in shock, just looking down toward it caused my heart to speed up and thump hard.I was terrified,I reached out for the nearby straw-brooms handle,lifted the broom up high above it and smashed downward as hard as I could onto its massive black body... once,twice,3,4,5,6,7,8,and more.
It died at my first hard swipe,but my heart was pounding so hard from fear that I couldn't stop until I saw it finally pulverised.
My young daughter's pet rabbit cage,with her pet bunny ,named Kramer sat a few inches behind the dead spiders squashed body.
The bunny was alive and unaware of my trauma although it had born witness to my terror. At that moment so many questions crossed my mind, how did such a deadly spider get into my home?
The afternoon before this happened I had carried the cage inside from the backyard,the cage had handles on both sides. It was mid summer in New South Wales Australia and I was concerned for the bunnys health being outside in such horrid heatwave conditions,so I decided to bring it inside.
What I did not know was the spider was either in the cage,or under the cage. I will never know which one it was,but I can not think of any other way it could have got in.Funnelweb spiders can't climb steps,and there was a step outside.
I have never forgotten that day,my youngest child could have been bitten if she had of gone into the laundry to check on her pet,but I thank God that it was me who opened the laundry that morning. Funnelwebs are indeed a very deadly creature, I still have PTSD due to that experience of several decades ago.
