hore News

re

GARDEN

Spiders bring out arachnophobe in all of us

Peggy
Trendell-Whittaker

ECO INFO

PESTICIDES ARE yucky;
bugs — as in those beneficial
critters that eat the crop-
wreckers — are our friends,
So goes the philosophy behind
Integrated Pest Management
(IPM).

have only one problem with
IPM, and that’s when our eight-
legged friends try to “integrate”
themselves into our homes as well as
our gardens,

My adherence to religious and
environmental philosophies such as
“We're all God’s creatures” who live
in “the interdependent web of cre-
ation” tends to break down at this
time of the year, when huge, hairy
spiders invade our basements and
nooks in search, I assume, of shelter
from the coming winter.

Now that we're in the thick of spi-
der season, I have given up any pur-
suits that involve being in our base-
ment, other than scurrying reluctantly
to the laundry room when pillars of
dirty clothes teetering on overflowing
hampers threaten to topple on unwary
passersby and can no longer be
avoided,

I decided to remain upstairs after
last week’s attempt to watch some
TV was interrupted by three multi-
legged beasts darting across my field
of vision, one of which actually clat-
tered loudly with its toenails as it ran
across a magazine page on the floor.

At least l assume they must have
been toenails — ] can't imagine get-
ting intimate enough with any of my
visitors to be able to answer any of
the questions that I faced when |
phoned the Lynn Canyon Ecology
Centre in an attempt to achieve some

scientific knowledge about the crea-
tures.

“Do they have hairy legs?" (As if
I'm going to inquire about their shav-
ing habits when they're climbing up
my wall.) “Do they run at you or
away fiom you?” (1 may be imagin-
ing it, but they alf seem to nin direct-
ly for me at terrifvingly high speeds.

The ecology centre’s Debbie
Robertson kindly offered me the loan
of her two spider books, which were
attractively iNustrated but equally
unrealistic.

“Wolf spiders make nice pets,”
one says earnestly, while the other
encourages you to don a miner's
lamp and make nighttime forays into
your backyard, looking for the
“greenish light" reflected by wolf spi-
der eyes, in order that you may col-
lect a spider or two or three and study
them at length in your leisure hours.
Right.

Not being willing to go to such
extremes, I was not able to use the
books to positively identify which
species were making their way into
our home. Nor was | going to follow
them back to their domiciles to find
out whether they were funnel-web
weavers, sheet-web weavers, trap-
door makers, or yuppy condo-
dwellers.

Going by the pictures, | would
guess that my spiders might be mem-
bers of the Lycosa carolinensis
species, who live in burrows in the.
ground when they're not hanging out
at my house. .

I did discover from reading the
books that scientific knowledge about
the subject did nothing to endear spi-
ders to me, fascinating though their
courtship rituals and poison glands
may be. Just looking at the pictures
gave me the heebies.

I know J come by my phot!s hon-
estly; humans — especially women
— and arachnids have a Jong arche-
typal relationship described in books
such as Spiders and Spinsters, a vol-
ume that, among other things, details
the evil spider myths that have
abounded in our culture and others
for centuries.

I’ve long been in search of the
perfect method for removing a spider
trom one's home without having to
actually come near it.

My sister, u classic arachniphobe,
fashioned a “spider stick” that rests at
the base of her porch steps. Proper
usage dictates that you grasp it firtnly
by the labelled end (do not, repeat, do
not grab the end marked “Spider end;
danger, do not use”) and stride with it

up the stairs, briskly waving the stick
up and down ina rapid motion so it
destroys any spider webs before they
come in contact with your face or
body. An excellent technique, but
leaves the problem of what to do with
the ones who have already invaded
your bathtub.

I shall ever be grateful to former
companion Mario, who taught me the
feather-duster method of spider
removal, by which onc gently scoops
the spider into the feather duster from
a sale distance (handles can be elon-
gated by the convenient and simple
addition of a broom), One then walks
slowly — do not mun or the spider
could fall out and land on you — to
the nearest, pre-opened window
where a vigorous shake is adminis-
tered. Look sharp at this point, to
ensure that the spider has in fact been
shook out and is not still lurking in
your feather duster, plotting your
overthrow.

The well-thought-out develop-
ment of this method indicates that
men are far from immune to spiders’
effect upon humans, but are generally
culturally conditioned to mask their
fear and appear the braver sex when
it comes to these things.

And thank goodness, I say. At
times like these, my commitment to
equal rights and responsibilites for
the sexes tends to go out the window
as fast as the spiders come in.

My mate is becoming accustomed
to the fact that household objects
stuck in odd places announce the
presence of an intruder. A bow!
upturmed in the living room nieans a
spider is trapped undemeath; tele-
phone books jammed against the
crack under the broom closet door
indicates’a spider is inside; our son
and | huddled in fear against our bar-
ricaded bedroom door means that a
particularly large arachnid is roaming
the house at will.

Ihave a particularly brave girl-
friend, Debbie Bryan, who deserves
public recognition for the fact that
she can scoop up a very large spider
in a cup with her oare hands. Other
people f polled, including environ-
mentalists, have a variety of tech-
niques that range from the admirable
to the sadistic.

Kevin Bell, chief naturalist at the
Lynn Canyon Ecology Centre, eartis
top prize for picking them up with his
bare hands and putting them out-
doors: “But I don’t enjoy doing it,”
he admits,

Al Lynch, coordinator of the

the “squish them with a Kleenex and
throw them in the toilet” school of
thought, similar to the “hit them with
a shoe and throw them ina toilet”
philosophy espoused by Ernie the
Carpenter, currently working at my
Mam's house,

Mom herself is a softer-hearted
type, and traps them (the spiders, not
the carpenters) using the cup-and-
paper technique before throwing
them out the window.And I'm afraid

UARIUS VALLEY HANSA

cR-AQ

N. Van
w 1395 Pemberton
883-8766

A ELJE

Visit one of our showrooms
FREE
ESTIMATES

{take the Tibetan monk approach to
spiders, refusing to harm them or
touch them myself, but letting others
do the dirty work for me.

Maybe those of us who shun other
people or treat them coldly are rein-
carnated us spiders, so they can expe-
rience the treatment they were dish-
ing out to others, And maybe the use-
ful, hard-working spiders, having
lived out their karma, head on to
Nirvana. Who knows?

,VNVIGNI~

as

names & styles
to customize

SIZZNOVE-SSVM

22358 Lo anh pret
ughheed Hwy. fa
467-6677, :

‘ CALL
CONSOLIDATED ROOFING SERVICES
FREE ESTIMATES - PROMPT, COURTEOUS SERVICE
© Re-Rocfing and New Roofing

General Roof Repair
© Cedar Shakes and Shingles
© Asphalt Shingles

North Shore Recycling Program, is of &

Miele, engineered and built in Germany.
it’s the allergen-clean vacuum cleaner.

Sra Lo

oa

Get rid of dust mites
that iriggar allergies.

A Vacuum's filtering system is
only as good as the engineering
behind it. So it’s not surprising
that a Miele vacuum keeps
allergens out of the air better

than other popular vacuums.

A Miele filters air three separate
times. The third stage: Miele’s
Super Air Clean Filter. This super
‘allergen magnet’ further cleanses air alter it has been through the dust bag, pre

filter, motor“and fan — giving it one final cleaning as it exits the vacuum.

it's an engineering point that has eluded most other vacuum cleaner manufacturers.

SAVE!
Al

20% off Custom Draperies
up» 0% off Custom Blinds

Blinds
Draperies

Custom Bedspreads
Professional In-Home Consu