My garden is infested with false widow

[pinklady76]

Hi and thankyou for taking the time to look at my post. Well, this is the 1st year Ive had false widow spiders in my garden. Im a keen gardener, well I was until this year. I have at least over 20 false widow spiders in my garden. I only relized I had this type of spider through my 9 year old daughter who loves playing with bugs. Shes been feeding them for weeks with the woodlice. I have altogether 4 girls and they range from 9 to 1 years old and Im extremely concerned for the well being. Back to the story, my daughter has been feeding them for a few weeks, I finally went out to watch her feeding spiders, when I relized what she was feeding. We have tried cutting bck bushes etc and its still not getting rid of them. Today and came across 2 in the house. 1 looked very young and it was in the kitchen. The other one was small but not that small and we found it in the bathroom.
Im scared of my children of playing in the garden, I wont even do my weeds. Now they are coming into our house, what can we do? No one on our street has them as at the moment so why have we got them. Could it be that I have lots of butterflies in my garden due to growing brussel sprouts, the cabbage butterflies them. Please tell me ar let me know on a way ofm detering them or getting rid for good!

[Geoff F]

Are you absolutely certain that they are Steatoda nobilis? Do you have any photos?

If this is a correct ID, they do like being near houses and people but I have never heard of such numbers being in a close area.

[wildherbalian85]

Originally Posted by Geoff F

Are you absolutely certain that they are Steatoda nobilis? Do you have any photos?

If this is a correct ID, they do like being near houses and people but I have never heard of such numbers being in a close area.

This hardly a large number.... 20 in a garden?? Our conservatory was home to at least 7 and during the summer months there would often be more. The outside window frames housed yet more of them, then there would be the garden fencing and the shed and the plants etc etc etc

With regards to the inside of conservatory i speak past tense because it was recently "deep cleaned".

Oh and then we have the Steatoda Grossa ----- seemingly this spider is less often spotted these days and the increasingly more common Steatoda Nobilis is.

Our garden and conservatory are not an isolated case.... steatoda nobilis is extreamly common at any time of year in the city i live but at this time of year (i.e. summer/ autumn) its even more common.

[evilgrayson]

Incidentally, false widows are not black widows. British spiders can't do much more than give you a bit of a nip, and even then most won't - the false widow is one of the more dangerous British spiders, but given that no-one's died of a spider bite in the UK, it's not actually *that* dangerous.

They don't appear to be aggressive, and they're generally either not interested in you or scared of you. More details at:

The truth about false widow spiders - Natural History Museum

[No.9 Spider]

As Geoff F has said, are you certain of your i.d. on these as I am not familiar with them being found in gardens on bushes, they are usually found inside. Do you have any photo's you can post?



No.9 Spider

[wildherbalian85]

Originally Posted by No.9 Spider

As Geoff F has said, are you certain of your i.d. on these as I am not familiar with them being found in gardens on bushes, they are usually found inside. Do you have any photo's you can post?



No.9 Spider

On one plant yesterday which i believe was of the parsley family i counted 6 Steatoda Nobilis in there webs.... these spider where only young spiderlings and as they grow they will probably end up eating each other and moving to better foundations to weave webs.

Most down here will be found outside and yes they do like plants, bushes and tree's... as well as fences, railings, windowsills, indoors, sheds, even had them weave webs on my old cycle bike Down here from April through to late October they can be found outside with ease.

Our climate down here is perfect for them.

[wildherbalian85]

I popped out into garden today and tried to photograph some webs on the plants... not easy in sunlight and the spiders where very shy... i did managed to briefly entice on out of its web but it soon shot back in.

In this photo there are actually 4 webs but they are not too clear...



this next one is probably the best...

[Entorien_Scriber]

If they are False Widows I wouldn't worry too much. They're very peaceful spiders, I think I've had more common Garden Spiders react aggressively to me than s. nobilis, I have one in the corner of my kitchen window keeping the flies at bay.

I understand your concern for your children, I have a cat who is like a child to me and at first I was worried what would happen if he was bitten. I looked up 'False Widow' on Google, sifted through the overdone news reports and came to the conclusion that they were fairly harmless, although the bite can be unpleasent it's far from deadly.

As for if they're found indoors or outdoors, I've had both! I found a beautiful, fat female while working in the garden, and the tiny ones have a habit of lurking around my books, even making webs on my spider guidebooks! Really, I can't move a bit of furniture without seeing a little nobilis run off across the floor! Because I'm right on the South Coast, Poole to be precise, they turn up everywhere so I've just gotten used to them.