Spiders in the house

Discover why eight-legged lodgers are running across your carpet as well as why they're all called Boris...

This week I had a text from a friend that simply read "And it begins" with a picture of her carpet. I knew exactly what she meant.

When I was little I used to collect spiders. I'd have them running up my arms as I tried to corral them into staying in the same spot. Dad says that he came to turn out my light one night and found me sat in the middle of my bed with spiders everywhere. Then something happened. To this day I don't know what it was but I suddenly didn't like my eight-legged friends any more - I'd squeal and run away. That's a more common response and while it may not be as friendly as picking one up and putting it out of harm's way, it's better than stamping on it!

Unlike my friend, however, I've learned to live with spiders again. These days I let them do their own thing rather than try to herd them and I'm actually quite protective of them. When I was deadheading my alliums a couple of weeks ago, for example, I came across a collection of recently hatched flower crab spiders and made sure to safely rehome them on a buddleia flower before composting the allium heads. On the outside of my windows, I do my best to leave the missing-sector orb weaver's webs intact and in the house I quietly acknowledge the speeding house spider as he darts across the carpet looking for love.

Yes, you read that right. Like me, you may notice that at this time of year there are (seemingly) giant spiders emerging from nowhere and clumping across your floors. Don't panic! Autumn is peak breeding time for our house spiders and many of the UK's native 600+ species of spider. There aren't more of them, they're just visible as the males become intrepid explorers on the hunt for a suitable date. They'd prefer to be outside where there's more of a banquet on offer but they'll search all the nooks and crannies of our homes just in case Miss Perfect is hiding somewhere. If he's lucky enough to find her, our amorous male will guard her until she's ready to mate. At this point, there's a period of web-tapping and abdomen-bobbing before mating gets underway. There will be several mating episodes until the male eventually dies; the female will lay the eggs next spring.

House spider on a white background that highlights the hairiness of the legs by Wendy Carter — House spider by Wendy Carter

House spiders are the ones that have chunky but relatively small brown bodies with black markings with long hairy legs (not to be confused with daddy-long-legs spiders that have incredibly spindly bodies and long spindly legs). If you dare to take a closer look you should be able to tell male from female - males have smaller bodies and longer legs and their palps (these look like two extra legs underneath their face) have ‘boxing gloves’ at the end of them. Females have slimmer palps but for the male, this is how he transfers his sperm to the female.

House spiders may give you a shock when they suddenly appear in the corner of your eye as they race across your carpet but, as with most of our spiders in the UK, they’re basically harmless. They may appear to be the arachnid equivalent of Usain Bolt but they can’t keep it up for long – they need to take breathers quite regularly. And, once they’re old enough to hunt out a female, they don’t have much time left in the world.

Almost everyone I know who has a large house spider has called it Boris. No-one could tell me why but then I discovered that in the 1960s John Entwhistle of The Who had a rather drunken evening with The Rolling Stones' Bill Wyman (so the story goes) and they were making up funny names for animals. Boris the Spider was invented and appeared on The Who's 1966 album A Quick One (sadly Boris doesn't have a happy end). Another natural history mystery solved!

Give our spiders some love...go on, they're amazing...