Spiders want to surf their web like I do.

Every summer I get bugged by the sound of a fly, especially in my conservatory, where I love to sit and surf my computer. For some reason, the fly problem was not so bad this year and I only discovered the reason yesterday. My conservatory has been full of spider’s webs through out most of the summer. I mop the floor and dust the table etc, but I left the upper glass ceiling panels and the plastic cladding area that joined the roof to the windows. There were various spiders’ webs in these areas and I made a conscious decision to leave them alone. I’m not bothered by the domestic spiders we have in the UK and if I find one in the bath, I pick it up and put it outside. They are harmless and I’m not squeamish to house spiders.

Until yesterday, they only time I recalled hearing a fly in the conservatory during this summer was when one got caught in a web. Its panic stricken buzzing alerted me from my writing and as I looked up, I could see one struggling in one of the many cobwebs with a house spider plucking about it. The little arachnid had a body of about 10-12mm with legs that were about 30-35mm. In no time at all, the fly was more securely wrapped and dead. As I looked about the conservatory at other webs, I noticed that there were dried fly and other mite carcasses in many of the webs and realised that it was time I de-webbed the place. I went around with the vacuum cleaner and sucked up most of the webbing with the pipe tool.

Almost immediately, the fly problem returned and the buzzing infuriates me when I write. I like to leave my conservatory door open during the summer and that allows flies to get in. An extremely buzzy one did yesterday and I found myself chasing the irritating thing around the conservatory with a towel, trying to splat it. It ducked dived, landed on walls and windows but always managed to evade me. It flew up to the glass apex of my conservatory and caught itself in a web by the stem of the fan and the plastic cladding spine of the roof. It was a web I had missed and instantly a spider shot out and dealt with the fly, making it lunch.

I’m going to let the spiders continue to have webs in the conservatory and they can have all the flies they want. I prefer them to the flies any day. I will make sure they are not too unsightly, but a few spiders’ webs are better then buzzing flies any day of the week.

The spiders allow me to surf my web in the conservatory in peace, so I'm going to let them freely surf their webs in my conservatory too.