‘This is why we check our shoes’: The horrifying pictures of spiders in footwear.....

MAIL ONLINE ^ | 11 December 2014 | Heather Mcnab for Daily Mail Australia

[Morgana]

FULL TITLE: ‘This is why we check our shoes’: The horrifying pictures of spiders in footwear, children’s trampolines and car seats that are turning U.S. travellers off Australia

Emerging from shoes, lying undetected in toilets, waiting patiently in cars and on walls, native wildlife has earned Australia the tag of a country brimming with deadly creatures.

In many cases, this reputation is well-earned, with countless cases of bites, stings, and close encounters with the nation's creepiest of crawlies.

Images of the poisonous and many-legged creatures have started to pack a frightful punch overseas, with many US citizens expressing their fear of travelling to Australia because of what they might find hidden in their shoes.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

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[lee martell]

Don’t look at the spider bites, especially not the recluse. Just...don’t.

[heartwood]

I like spiders. It runs in the family. Four generations putting them outside rather than squishing them.

[Kackikat]

My friends in AZ have to check boots, shoes, and everything else. There was a scorpion in the shower when I visited a long time ago....so we have some places that are scary. Rattlesnakes under the car, they live in the desert.

[txhurl]

Do Not Look At The Pics.

[txhurl]

I did look at the pics and REALLY wish I hadn’t.

[a fool in paradise]

I live literally in the forest and I keep my work shoes in my truck and wear flip flops TO my truck. I can see what’s in my flip flops :)

Ya think?!!

[mowowie]

I used to work in a bowling alley as a teen and would spray the shoes down.
Nowadays you couldn’t pay me to put a pair on..

[txhurl]

They had it coming. Keeping their flops outside on the tile deck next to the un-used BBQ. Ain’t nobody in TX does any of that :)

[GladesGuru]

“Just one reasons I left Australia - nasty critters were everywhere. Never ever poke a small brown round ball in your house. Never.”

What rolls its self into a small round ball?

[Clint N. Suhks]

YIKES!

[mass55th]

Them’s what nightmares be made of!!

[a fool in paradise]

I remember a school teacher stepping on a spider on the floor once and many baby spiders rushing out of it.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Can you imagine the bill to keep all your little spider kids in Air Jordan Blacks?

[glasseye]

Some good advise there, wish I had heeded it.

Eeeee

[naturalman1975]

lying undetected in toilets

There was a red-back on the toilet seat
When I was there last night,
I didn't see him in the dark,
But boy! I felt his bite!
I jumped high up into the air,
And when I hit the ground,
That crafty red-back spider
Wasn't nowhere to be found.

There was a red-back on the toilet seat
When I was there last night,
I didn't see him in the dark,
But boy! I felt his bite!
And now I'm 'ere in hospital,
A sad and sorry plight,
And I curse the red-back spider
On the toilet seat last night.

I rushed in to the missus,
Told her just where I'd been bit,
She grabbed the cut-throat razor blade,
And I nearly took a fit.
I said "Just forget what's on your mind,
And call a doctor please,
'Cause I've got a feeling that your cure
Is worse than the disease."

There was a red-back on the toilet seat
When I was there last night,
I didn't see him in the dark,
But boy! I felt his bite!
And now I'm 'ere in hospital,
A sad and sorry plight,
And I curse the red-back spider
On the toilet seat last night.

I can't lay down, I can't sit up,
And I don't know what to do,
And all the nurses think it's funny,
But that's not my point of view.
I tell you it's embarrassing,
(And that's to say the least)
That I'm too sick to eat a bite,
While that spider had a feast!

There was a red-back on the toilet seat
When I was there last night,
I didn't see him in the dark,
But boy! I felt his bite!
And now I'm 'ere in hospital,
A sad and sorry plight,
And I curse the red-back spider
On the toilet seat last night.

And when I get back home again,
I tell you what I'll do,
I'll make that red-back suffer
For the pain I'm going through.
I've had so many needles
That I'm looking like a sieve,
And I promise you that spider
Hasn't very long to live!

There was a red-back on the toilet seat
When I was there last night,
I didn't see him in the dark,
But boy! I felt his bite!
And now I'm 'ere in hospital,
A sad and sorry plight,
And I curse the red-back spider
On the toilet seat last night.

[txhurl]

If the title were amended to include [EXTREMELY GRAPHIC WARNING] there would be complaints the warning wasn’t strong enough! Worse that pics of the Krokodyl drug outbreak in Russia and elsewhere.

But again, as for Me and My House, have nice big tall cans of killitall RAID. Lemon-scented, too :)

[ArmyTeach]

My daughter and I were staying at a friends lovely house in a wooded area on Maui. All windows were kept scrupulously closed, and doors were never left open. For this reason. One morning I went back to make my bed only to have a huge spider scurry out of the sheets. I yelled at my daughter to bring the broom and I killed it.

[chris37]

The only spider I will spare and let crawl on me is the little wolf spider. I just love those little guys.

But not their much, much larger cousins pictured above. These are a truly frightening spider. The first time I saw one of these bad boys was inside my house as it ran in through the open sliding door extremely quickly.

I stomped the damn sh!t out of it, crushing its thorax, then I examined it trying to determine what kind of hellish beast it was. I noticed the staggering size of its fangs, and then its legs twitched and I screamed like a little girl.

Apparently these beasts have a bit of a nasty bite wound as well, but not fatal. This wolf spider is about as big as a tarantula too. The stuff of nightmares.

[chris37]

Oh i already did hah.

I am fascianted by spiders even though scared to death.

[heartwood]

A couple times this summer, we had wolf spiders about an inch across come in the kitchen. Those guys are fast.