Aussie under-floor insulation installer & scared of spiders?

[Lorax]

What woud you do? Honestly.

Just thought about that the other day, as you do. Thought "Shit I hate goin under the house and cawling round, f$#king spiders"

And in Aussie they're REAL spiders, and REAL snakes. And REAL bad-assed toads.

Anyone ever been a sparkie, plumber or under-floor insulation installer in Aussie? (do they even have under-floor insulation over there?!)

How do they do it? Just get hard?

[Timber020]

I lived in Aus a while, got to meet alot of its inhabitants. Get hard, Youll kill way more of them than they will of you, up to a point of course....stepped on a brown snake in bare feet one day, was lucky its strike was stopped by a shrub.

[janno]

You come across spiders over here at exactly the same rate as in NZ it seems to me. And ya get whitetails and redbacks in Nz anyway.

The snakes bugger off as fast as they can - I was paranoid about snakes when I first moved here until we saw one hunting geckos on the wall of our house. When it spotted us we totally put it off it's prey and it squiggled off as fast as it could. So I haven't worried about them since.

My other half is a boilermaker and is often handling steel lengths that have been sitting for ages in yards - prime snake and spider housing.

They just wear tig gloves and long trousers and boots, which you'd be wearing anyway.

The snake bites I've heard of were people trying to pick them up or kill them, or from walking barefoot or sandalled in the long grass. A big no-no.

I think the whole deal just freaks us kiwis out because we haven't grown up with bitey wriggley deadly things.

By the way, I'm talking suburban Perth and Brisbane here, out in the country or on the mine sites is a whole different matter . . .

Oh, and toads are revolting but harmless to people. Only toxic enough to kill tiny dogs and cats. Some mad buggers lick 'em! Gets ya high apparently.

[xwhatsit]

Creepy crawlies really shit me, but Kiwis blow the snake/spider thing waaaay out of proportion in Aussie. Like Janno said, snakes usually piss of pretty quick. I lived very near a good chunk of bush, and can only say that I saw snakes a couple of times. The rest of the times I saw them was getting squished on the motorways.

As for spiders, not really an issue. They don't bother you, and are usually very visible. If you have a clean house they are like any other insect, when was the last time you saw your own house overrun by spiders and earwigs? The biggest worry for me in Queensland was cockroaches. They're far worse down in Sydney (so are the cockroaches), but they are some sort of super-hardened-mega cockroaches, huge, and from time to time they'd get in your house and cause many queasy moments. Forget about ordinary insect spray.

I wouldn't be crawling around under floors in NZ anyway, but I doubt Australia would be substantially worse. Most people get their houses fumigated regularly anyway for termites, so that would take care of under the floors too.

[Big Dave]

>>They don't bother you, and are usually very visible.<<

They were considering amputating my son's hand from a white tailed spider bite. Hyperbaric chamber treatment worked fortunately.

I came within mm of stepping on a funnel web.

As douglas adams said:

The second confusing thing about Australia are the animals. They can be divided into three categories: Poisonous, Odd, and Sheep.

It is true that of the 10 most poisonous arachnids on the planet, Australia has 9 of them. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that of the 9 most poisonous arachnids, Australia has all of them. However, there are curiously few snakes, possibly because the spiders have killed them all.

But even the spiders won't go near the sea. Any visitors should be careful to check inside boots (before putting them on) under toilet seats (before sitting down) and generally everywhere else. A stick is very useful for this task.

[Macktheknife]

I lived in Aussie for 6 years and was bitten 4 times by poisonous spiders, these included a wolf spider (like the avondale/huntsman but nasty, and black); a golden orb spider (huge bird catching bastard); another dirty fucker whose name I don't remember; and a funnel-web (males get really aggressive during mating season).
The funnel-web was worst, spent 17 hours in hospital and had 6-8 antivenin shots, very unpleasant.
How did I get so lucky?
Firefighter; you get all kinds of good shit over there, burning Koala's (drop bears), pissed off scorched snakes, irate home-owners, and crispy cats and dogs, great fun! (not)

[Big Dave]

How did I get so lucky?
Firefighter;

Worst gig over there is furniture removals. Their arms are covered in scars if they've been doing it a while - red backs and wolfs.

[tri boy]

Had a scorpion shinny up my trousers out on a mine site.
They venture out at night, and i was on night shift, looking for parts in the store
room. It eventually turned around and crawled out again. (probably the loosened bowel vibration encouraged the departure) I didn't move a muscle, and felt a bit light in the head for a few minutes after.
A Redback gave me a bite once. Not too bad. The ache just gets worse and eventually made me sweat, and slightly disorientated.

[Krusti]

I find the Black widow I live with gives a mean bite! Never turn your back on them or back them into a corner. Takes very little to get them to bite as well from my experiance.

Ooops here she comes....

[Sniper]

Scared of the unknown. Ive never had a problem with Spiders, Snakes and other creepy crawlies in my time and I used to own a few in SA.

You leave them be and they generally ignore you