[planet_rocker]

Originally Posted by anku94

What makes this worse is that I'm a guy, I'm supposed to 'man up', and not run like maniacs and scream when I see a cockroach.

i do not feel ashamed to scream and run when i come across a "Flying Cockroach" - i can tackle the ones that crawl.

Usually spiders and me are not best of friends and it is me who always leaves the spot in a jiffy

[Travelbug]

Hi All,

We all know and have seen rodents cutting wires,Ants colonisation inside car etc, But recently I've been continuously bugged by presence of spiders in the car. I started noticing this 3-4 months back and at that point of time they used to be around ORVM and Door hinges(most of the time exterior) only. But off late there has been 4-5 instances wherein I've found them on the dashboard or front seats. I recently had a near miss because of this. I was crossing busy junction and suddenly a spider came in front of my face hanging from the sun visor. Now although I'm not scared of spiders or insects but then if suddenly something comes in front of your face then it's different thing. I somehow resisted instant braking to avoid a pile up but then still it was difficult to put car to halt in the middle of busy junction (read Silk Board,BLR).

This made me think that now it's not a problem which can be ignored, hence I thought of checking with all of you if someone has faced the similar problem and how to make sure that spiders are not crawling inside the car. I live in Bangalore and in an apartment with covered parking with ample sunlight in the parking.

To give you a better view of the situation, below are the things that I've already noticed and taken care of:
1) I never drive or park my car with roll down windows.(due to some other reason).
2) I personally clean Exterior and interior (Read vaccuming) every week.
3) Under hood is cleaned almost every fortnight.
4) Daily car cleaning by casual cleaner at apartment.
5) No one is allowed to eat, smoke inside the car.
6) Never park my car under the trees or near shrubs.
7) Don't want to use any Bug spray inside the car for obvious reasons.
8) These spiders are regular breed found inside homes.

Also note that my car (Swift Zxi) is now 5 year old but still is in top condition in terms of performance and cleanness.

I will appreciate if someone can suggest me an idea to come out of this situation as I've to daily commute 60 plus kms and I don't want to be in a panic braking situation again keeping in mind that I have my 4 year old and 1 year old children travelling with me on weekends.

Thanks in Advance.

Regards,
TravelBug

P.S Moderators please move the thread if this is not the right forum.

[Auswechseln]

We used to this spider problem at our ancestral home in Trivandrum. My dad used to pour soap water (mixed with surf or any such detergents) and pour it on these spiders, saying it will kill them.

I don't remember whether it worked, but you can try to have a bottle of soapy water handy with you in the car.

[Biraj]

Take your car to a good detailer. Get the interiors thoroughly dry-cleaned (something like Germiclean at 3M). Get the engine-bay degreased and dressed as well. Hopefully, it will take care of the spider issue.

[ad3952n]

Adding further to what @Biraj said, Please check if in case the carpeting of the car has shrunk from any of the corners which provides access to the rodents in the car. Secondly, as a precaution you can try naphthalene balls. You may just place these balls under the seats, on the glass holders and on the floor mats overnight and close the cars. To be frank, 2 brownish medium size mouses have been killed by me with help of these naphthalene balls in January this year inside my Paa's Esteem.

Thanks.

[VSRK]

If it is one-off kind, you can ignore this and relax, nothing to worry. However, if it is continuously coming even after eliminating the current ones, need to think about it. Source could be usually ceiling of parking space (home/office), things we carry from home to car etc.

[SmartCat]

Since you have been noticing spiders on the exterior of the car before this incident happened, buy a Swift car cover and use it daily!

[Blue_V]

I have read about spiders jumping pretty long distances, one species located in India. I wish I never come across that one. Whenever I find a big one, I use generous amounts of HIT spray. With regards to huge insects I have successfully killed them with air gun or WD40 (works fast). Too much paap being accumulated here.

[Gannu_1]

Originally Posted by Blue_V

I have read about spiders jumping pretty long distances, one species located in India.

Yep, the huntsman spider (the one posted in the first post of this thread) can jump a good distance. I have seen the adult female jump with an egg sac of her babies beneath her abdomen. Scary sight it was! Looks like this:


(Image for reference)

She jumped from the back of a door to the floor, the white sac broke and some hundreds of tiny ones (must be 2-3 mm in size) wandered to different corners of the room. We were checking out this home as a prospective tenant (location - Thrissur) and this happened while the owner was walking us to the different areas. We stayed here for a few months and came across at least a dozen of these.

[supremeBaleno]

This colorful kind is what I keep spotting nowadays at our home in Kerala. Not sure of the name or whether it is harmful.


BTW, anyone with Chiroptophobia here ? Fear of bats. Couple weeks back spotted this guy - he had made the decayed top of an arecanut tree his home, without knowing which I pushed the tree to the ground as it was obstructing the kids from playing cricket.


His other side view BTW is creepy.

[Blue_V]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

Yep, the huntsman spider (the one posted in the first post of this thread) can jump a good distance. I have seen the adult female jump with an egg sac of her babies beneath her abdomen. Scary sight it was! Looks like this:

She jumped from the back of a door to the floor, the white sac broke and some hundreds of tiny ones (must be 2-3 mm in size) wandered to different corners of the room. We were checking out this home as a prospective tenant (location - Thrissur) and this happened while the owner was walking us to the different areas. We stayed here for a few months and came across at least a dozen of these.

The horror of that !! I would have run away screaming.