A cautionary tale: trapped inside hammock by spiders!

[firemedic5586]

[Papatechie]

Well at least you can testify to the Warbonnet BB XLC netting doing its job well!

[Paddles Down]

My worst nightmare other than maybe ticks!

[ChadwickAMoore]

While others have pointed out that DEET is not an insecticide, I'd also like to point out that it is not an effective spider repellent either. It is designed to make the user "invisible" to mosquitoes, ticks, no-see-ums and the like.

[Chesapeake]

After reading your tale... my excitement for my newly acquired half-wit has been a little dampened
yikes

Lol. Nope, you'd never catch me in a half wit! Not because its a bad hammock but because I could almost guarantee that hey would find a way inside the net. And the same goes for ANY fronky style or net that doesn't zipper completely closed all the way, without any kind of small opening on the ends that has a mesh cap that uses elastic to keep it tight over the bug net, which makes the Chameleon and some Dream hammocks a no- go for me lol. I'd love to be able to have a half wit or fronky style net but with the amount of spiders and other nasty creepy crawlies that I have theres know way. Enjoy the hammock though! Treat with multiple Sawyer's products and you should be OK...... Unless you live anywhere close to me or any other large body of water lol

[dustin]

I saw a story about a family in Australia who had their house fumigated because they had a lot of bugs. When they came back in the house, all the bugs were dead, but the spiders --venomous ones-- had moved in by the hundreds. They explained that since the bugs had all been killed, they were easy food, but that the bug bomb had killed all of the spider-eating spiders, which caused a void in the ecosystem around the house. Something similar may have happened here.

Even so, I think I would have tried something like the 'creative' renter from the video above. When I was in my 20's, I once woke up after a night in the basement bedroom and there were disassembled pieces of a big wolf spider mashed into my chest hair. I guess I had felt the big guy galloping across my chest while I was asleep and brushed him off, sorta.

Also, Chesapeake, you're not the only one. My wife once woke up in the middle of the night with a bug in her ear before we started going out. I figured that made sleeping there safe for me because they obviously liked her ears better.

[Tyroler Holzhacker]

Sounds like the time I went to campground in Waco Texas and set up my tent on a fire ant mound (it was dark). Next morning was a literal pain in the buttocks.

[luckyc]

Nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

[geneaut]

Not hammock related but when I married my wife she was living in her parents house in our town as they lived a few hundred miles away as her dad finished his career with GMC. He had a tremendous John Deere lawn tractor and I used to have a ball putting it in 6th gear and hotrodding around the yard cutting the grass at just this side of Warp 1. One day I'm zooming around the yard and I'm about to cut the strip in between two of his outbuildings and I make the turn at just a low enough speed to keep at least 2 wheels on the ground when I see in front of my face a giant SPIDER. One of those giant orb weavers. I fell off the mower ducking. Between the spider fear and the realization I could killed myself with the mower I decided the grass could continue to grow in that spot for another day and went inside for a beer. I was 25 and that moment made me realize I was no longer immortal LOL.

I've never had a mower in 6th again. That grass never got cut the entire time that spider maintained the web there either. I figured any spider that could unseat a grown man from a power mower deserved to live as long as they could.

[SIGNAL 13]

If you're car camping, then take along a portable vacuum with the pointed attachment. Then just vacuum up the spiders and their webs when they're on your gear.

The spiders don't bother me as much as fire ants. Got into a bunch of those a few summers back...must have had about 75 - 100 bites on each foot. Was quite painful for nearly a week, but ice packs seemed to help quite a bit.