Flag of Australia.
I was in a brand new hotel in Australia. Opened that week. What could go wrong? A huge black tulip was on the wash basin. How nice of them. Australia has things we don't have in the UK and Europe and the USA. Black swans. As I walked into the bathroom I realised the black tulip head had no stalk. It was not a tulip head. It moved. It was a spider! A huge spider. Ten times the size of the most menacing British spider. The size of a baby's fist. I screamed!
My husband came running - to tell me off for making such a noise late at night. Then he saw it. He ran back into the bedroom. I followed.
"What are you going to do?" I demanded.
Answer
"Phone reception," he replied.
Story
I was puzzled. "You mean they are less scared than you are, than we are? Because they are local and used to spiders that big? What can they do?"
"Bring a fly spray."
"It's not a fly. It's a spider."
He spoke on the phone. I cowered in the corner, wrapped in a towel, more worried about the spider than my dress, or rather lack of it.
He put down the phone and told me, "They are coming up to look at it."
"I hope they do more than look at it. It may be a photo opportunity, but I'd rather they removed it. And put down some repellent to stop it coming back. I hope it doesn't have friends and family."
We waited a long time. Presumably they were gathering a team, an army. Plus an army's worth of equipment and weapons, fires extinguishers, buckets, spades, rifles.
I was cold and wanted to shower and dress and go out for dinner. "Where are they. Call them and tell them to hurry."
He rang back. "She's on her way. She was dealing with a customer and forgot."
"Lovely. We could have sat here petrified all night, missing dinner. I expect she thinks it's unimportant. She'll just shrug. Aussies, sought people, outback types. She'll just shrug. It may be nothing to them, but it's terrifying to us." I felt much better, knowing some six foot Australian with nerves of steel was going to deal with the situation.
The receptionist was unflappable. Until she saw it. She screamed! She backed out of the shower room.
That's really reassuring. The receptionist at the hotel is more scared of the resident spider than we are.
I retreated further, as far as the window. I looked out. Too far up to jump. If I opened the window, they could throw it out.
If we threw it out, alive, it would probably try to get back to its home, in our shower room. It would either climb up the drainpipe, or be civilised, and scurry past reception and up the stairs.
I heard general gasping and discussion going on it the shower room. Sheltering behind two people, I asked, "What are you doing."
Safety in numbers. Two heads are better than one. Two of them, with two heads, four arms and four legs, against a much smaller spider.
They had chased it into the white bath. Tried to wash it down the plug hole. It has curled into a ball and played dead. They showered hot water onto it. They drew back to discus how to pick up the dead spider. But it started moving and running about trying to escape.
Eventually the receptionist went off for weapons and reinforcements. She came back with two tall male Australians and assorted buckets and brooms. Plus the news that it was a Huntsman spider.
What's that? What does it hunt? Apart from tourists visiting the area!
It's just a type of big spider, native to the area. That didn't help much. Enables us to talk about it. We could see it was a big spider. Considerably bigger than a British money spider, supposed to be lucky and bring you money. A money spider is very small. Maybe that's why the value of the pound has declined.
Eventually the three men, watched by two women, managed to remove the spider. I don't know where it went.
But I did a very thorough check of the shower room before entering the shower-bath. I had the quickest shower in Western Australia. The reason for the speed of the shower was that we wanted to have dinner.
I wanted to go out to dinner. We checked on the hotel restaurant first. Fortunately, they were not serving dinner, at that time, or at all. New hotel.
I was pleased to leave the premises. We had considered staying another night, brand new hotel. However, the experience had unnerved us. Not only were we afraid what other insect life or unexpected surprised might appear. We no longer felt warmly towards the bedroom's bathroom. The staff were now avoiding us. We were trouble makers. If they spoke there was a risk that we might make trouble, or reveal to other guests that we had had a spider.
We did not see any more spiders. Maybe the God of tourism shared our view. Once was enough.
Tip
In Australia, keep your bath robe on at all times, in case you are forced to make a hasty retreat.
According to Wikipedia, you get Huntsman spiders in the USA in Texas and Florida and Hawaii plus many other parts of the world including China, Japan, India and the Philippines. If you feel like it's watching you, that might be because it has eight eyes.
The bad news is that Huntsman spiders cling on to you and bite. The good news is they don't make webs and they eat cockroaches.
Given that they bite, I'll dispense with the cardboard under the glass method of catching them. I think something bigger is needed, and more distant, like an industrial size vacuum cleaner. No wonder big hotel have big vacuum cleaners.
Videos on YouTube show real people catching real spiders (in their homes).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3f99HhlpTo
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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