Do you like spiders? There aren't really many dangerous spiders in Melbourne. The most common dangerous one is called a whitetail and if you get a nip from one, your skin starts to die and you end up getting welty sore type things! We also have the redback which can put you in hospital for a few days. Redbacks lurk in dank, dark places so they are easily avoidable but the whitetail can be found anywhere in the house and can often be seen scooting across the carpet in the summer months.

We also have those spiders that tend to go for the psychological angle. Take, for example, the huntsman. It may not be very dangerous, but it's big enough to scare the death out of me, I can tell you, everytime I see one and it gets the adrenaline pumping mightily.

A week or two ago I encountered a huge one in my study at home. It was big enough that I'd swear I could see it licking its lips. I'm pretty sure I could see the hairs on its legs. Then when I summoned up the courage to trap it, it escaped from me - it must have seen me coming and sprinted off along the wall behind a curtain.

The other night I saw it again in the hallway. At least I really hope it was the same one - the thought of two of these devils roaming the house doesn't bear thinking about, especially as they're big enough that they should be paying a share of the living costs!

Again, when it saw me coming it scooted up into the heights of the cathedral ceiling and leered at me - I swear I could see its eyes and mouth but then again I do have a vivid imagination. There's no way I'm climbing up a ladder to reach him and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't drop onto the table as one did a few months back scaring our guests with his unusual party piece - you've never seen people move quite so quickly n- luckily he missed the serving dish!

Talking of scaring our dinner guests, a few years back we use to have a huntsman whom we nicknamed Fred. We could never catch him as he'd disappear behind the bookcases or dresser. Funnily enough he'd use to appear during dinner parties leering at us from the wall. Gave the ladies quite a fright at times - Terry would just nod and say "that's Fred". Quite a party piece. Except one day one lady felt something crawling up her leg. Thought it was the cats tail - shortly after I saw Fred appear from under the dinner table, making his way across the carpet - he had a big grin on his face. Little devil! Not sure what happened to Fred - he just disappeared - perhaps he found his way out of the house!

Hmm, they really are nasty things. One night I woke up having felt something run across my face. I screamed, jumped out of bed and in the process woke Terry. Grumpily he told me not to be so daft but when we moved back the covers guess what we found? A huntsman trying to get comfy! Needless to say we sprayed Baygon in the bedroom the next day. Now Huntsmen are okay outside, but I really don't need them snuggling up to me inside especially in the bed!

Terry, my husband, won't kill a thing. I reckon most our insect neighbours know this and think we are an easy touch and keep coming back. Somethings are brought inside and placed in the bath to be viewed for a couple of hours. Found some mightly funny things in the bath from writhing snakes to little furry things with four legs. Mind you, when we saw a family of rats tucking into the sunflower seed on the bird feeding table (when they saw us watching they disappeared very quickly up the drain pipe and into the roof area) Terry soon changed his mind. Nice looking family they were too. But the rustlings in our walls and the thumps on the ceiling told us that things were getting out of hand family wise so I'm afraid we had to put down some rat poison which was a great shame. Within a week things were quiet around the house again.

We often have possum visitors. Now these little devils can get into your ceilings and in between walls as well. They are really cute little devils but the problem is they piddle and their piddle has a tendency to stink. Luckily our possums build their nests in the trees that surround us but we still have one or two visitors in the roof. You can hear them lift the roof tiles and start scrabbling around. Sometimes they go absolutely crazy and you hear them running and jumping from one end of the ceiling to the other. Not good when you are tyring to sleep. We had some gutter guard put in and this seems to have helped but they still seem to be getting in. I think they think they roof void is their playing space. At least they don't piddle - now if they started that it would be time to call Peter the Possum Man in who traps and rescues them and then deposits them in the countryside somewhere. Trouble in the possums have a way of finding their way back to their same territory and creating havoc again. Not that they worry us too much ... it's just that when people come and stay they wonder what on earth is going on up in the nether regions of the house. We tell them fear not, it's only our resident ghosts running around!