[LRM]

Re your comments Venger. As you know I am a new member but I presume that as you are titled Commander of the Wild Empireyou are a senior member or something, and seem to be knowledgeable about spiders. Therefore I am shocked that you bring political correctness into a discussion on wildlife. It is a great shame that we can not even talk about spiders without someone implying it is racist to comment on the origin of said spider.

I did not mention immigration. I made perfectly legitimate and scientific remarks about the dangers that any introduced species can do to native species and to crops. (I mentioned odd British spider as a short way of saying not as poisonous as more exotic introduced species and most British ones tend to prefer outdoors).

As for that new chestnut, climate change, is an excuse for everything. I don’t know what your weather has been like, but down here for several years, the summers have been cold and wet and early this year winter temperatures went down to -10 or more. So it is not unreasonable to suggest that a species from a warmer climate might prefer to set up home in centrally heated houses, where as there are no natural predators their numbers can get out of control.

As I pointed out these spiders are inside the house and therefore not being predated on by birds, etc. They are not eating flies as they are in dark places. Also before spraying with insecticide, I removed the Daddy Long Leg spiders to a safe place first and the House Spiders had already been reduced to corpses.

I have suffered many adverse comments for not killing things unnecessarily. But, there are times when things get out of control, and are destroyed in the interests of humans eg fleas, mice, rats, rabbits, cockroaches, vine weevils, greenfly and of course flies and wasps, therefore, I see no difference in destroying an infestation of spiders with potentially painful bites inside my house, than I would destroying an infestation of fleas on the cat and carpet.