Spiders Spiders Everywhere

About a week ago I was hanging our wet laundry in the bathroom and found a tiny little green baby spider dangling from the door jamb. I grabbed its tiny little silk thread and washed his tiny little carcass down the sink (without screaming, aren't you proud of me?)

That night before going to bed, I went in to brush my teeth and saw the little green baby spider dangling from the light fixture above the mirror. "Hey little guy, I thought I flushed you already!"

(Cue creepy music...camera pans up...)

They. Were. Everywhere. At least 50 tiny little green spiders were crawling all over the ceiling, the walls, the shower curtain rod and the door jam. (Here's where I started screaming)

Now, I'd like to share with all of you why I started screaming. (I'm not a total nut case.) My fear of spiders has decreased over the last few years in all but one case:

The Bathroom Spider (araneus lavatorius). The Bathroom Spider crawls on walls and ceilings and builds webs in corners behind the toilet and sink. Here, in his natural habitat, he he is benign. The danger of The Bathroom Spider occurs when he transforms into Shower Spider (araneus kohlerus) where he lurks in the folds of the shower curtain, climbs along the curtain rod or sits on the top of the shower head. The Shower Spider's many eyes now have the ability to watch its unsuspecting victim lather, rinse and repeat. The only known method of defending oneself from The Shower Spider is to fling water at the spider in an attempt to sweep it from its perch. Only a skilled spider hunter can manage the treacherous Avoidance Dance without slipping on the porcelain surface this predator uses as its hunting ground.

Matt took his time getting to the bathroom while I literally ran around in a circle trying to decide what to do. (With my common sense jumping out of our tiny little bathroom window, leaving the bathroom hadn't even crossed my mind.) After glancing at the ceiling and delivering the most nonchalant, "Oh yeah, that's pretty gross" I've ever heard, he calmly instructed me to go get the vacuum so we could suck the little guys up. And here ends our spider drama for the month of August...Or so we thought.

Since that night, I have walked through seven invisible spider webs in our house. I've caught, smashed or flushed 17 little green baby spiders in various rooms around our home. And three just this afternoon.