An Auckland woman says her house has been over-run by white-tail spiders, which have bitten her, her husband and have been seen crawling within jumping distance of her daughter’s bed.
"I can't sleep at night because I'm scared a white-tail spider's going to sting me, or bite me," she said.
"I've been sleeping downstairs on the couch and I keep the windows shut and I have to spray my room every night, it's just awful."
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The woman, who asked her name be withheld, said she had been trying different brands of insect spray to get rid of the spiders, but to no avail.
"There was one creeping along our hallway the other day and I sprayed it probably three or four times and it just kept on crawling, it didn't die so I ended up just standing on it.
"It's like they've become immune to the spray or something, I don't know."
She said she had been finding the white-tails everywhere from her garage, to her living room, to her seven-year-old daughter's room crawling along the wall above her bed.
One had even jumped onto her lap while she was driving, she said.
"I'm a bit jumpy - I see spiders a lot."
Her husband had suffered a spider bite to the groin and she said she was bitten in the back by a white-tail.
"It rose up like a big boil the size of a tennis ball and it took ages and ages to go. I've still got a scar now from it."
She said she had been living at her Newmarket home for five years and had not encountered white tails there until this summer.
"We're really clean people, we have a clean house and everything, but I do have a massive bougainvillea plant in front of my bedroom and we do actually have a lot of shrubbery around our property....they're everywhere.
"I don't know if they're seasonal, or if they're here for a whole year."
According to ACC figures, about 300 people a year seek medical help for white-tail spider bites, at a cost of $65,000 to $80,000.
White-tailed spiders feed on other spiders, so experts recommend keeping your house free of spider webs to keep numbers down.