A word of caution when working on our cars

[FgNewbie]

I won't put my hands where I can't see any more.

A redback nearly got me when I was cleaning a web inside a garden tap.

One of my side gates regularly had a big spider on it. One night it was too dark to see but I reached over to open the gate, YUK!!!!! I squished him in my fingers when I grabbed the gate. (Gate since removed).

A few years ago, a spider put me in hospital for a month after working in the backyard. Found the fang marks, not the spider.

In the 80s something bit me on the neck while I was driving interstate on the Hume. Doing 140 kph I was slapping my neck like a lunatic and braking as hard as I could. Stopped the car, jumped out, ripped my shirt off and stomped all over it. A scene fit for Youtube. Took a detour to a country town to find a GP. The GP saw the marks and asked me what sort of spider it was. I offered to go back and retrieve my shirt and what was left of the splatter. I got antihistamines instead.

I've had bloody big huntsmen / tarantulas live in or under nearly all my cars over ther years till I could give them a headache. I assume they fall out of trees (which I won't park under any more). They have run across the inside of my screen, outside of the screen then inside the passenger window, across the dash, dropped off driver's sun visor, from inside the driver side trim up the seatbelt, around door hinges & jams, across the roof then in the tailgate. They are just the ones that put the wind up me.

The best one was something really big and furry, ran across the dash in front of my brother in the passenger seat. While my brother was self-ejecting at a set of lights, he wanted to squash him on the dash with a shoe "NO!!!!!!!!" The bugger followed my brother out of the car into the darkness and under the car. Brother wouldn't get back in the car and caught a cab (I was tempted to join him). I drove to a servo and used 3 cans of Baygon before he dropped down under the car.

My new FG has the standard mirror spiders. Not sure what has made a web between the towball and back of the car. I spray and they come back.

I could keep going but I'll leave it with... a female friend has a handful of big spiders living in her kitchen, she has NAMED them.