Spider guide
Huntsman Spiders: Harmless, Huge, How to Remove Them
What to do with the enormous flat spider on your ceiling at midnight, why it is almost certainly harmless, and the honest answer on whether a treatment is worth booking for it.
Huntsmen cross into a house at doorways, eave lines and roof edges, not through the middle of a wall.
Very few people searching for pest control for huntsman spiders actually want a chemical treatment. What they want is the spider off the ceiling, out of the car, or away from the cot, and they want somebody to tell them calmly that the thing with a leg span the width of a side plate cannot really hurt them. That is what this page does first, and the treatment question comes last.
Huntsmen are the most reported and least harmful spider in a Melbourne home. They build nothing, they are not interested in people, and the worst outcome from meeting one is usually an embarrassing noise. The practical problem is that they are quick, they appear at head height, and they have a habit of turning up at exactly the wrong moment. This guide sits with Tim's other household pest guides.
What follows covers how to tell one from a spider that does matter, a method for getting it out of a room or a car without hurting yourself or it, the reason they keep coming inside, and the short list of situations where a treatment genuinely helps.
The fright
Are huntsman spiders actually dangerous?
No. A huntsman has no venom of concern to people, no interest in biting, and no web or burrow to defend. It will run from you given any choice at all. Bites are uncommon, happen when the spider is pressed against skin, and amount to local pain and a bit of swelling that settles on its own.
The fear is about the body rather than the risk. Huntsmen are flat, hairy and broad, their legs angle forwards and sideways like a crab rather than tucking under them, and a big female can cover the palm of a hand. They also move in sudden bursts, which the human eye reads as aggression when it is really an animal trying to get behind the nearest picture frame.
The only genuine hazard is the reaction. Over the years Tim has heard about a car mounted onto a kerb, a broken wrist from a kitchen chair, and a bedroom fogged with insect spray above a sleeping baby, all for a spider that could have been carried outside in a takeaway container. Keeping your head is the whole skill.
| Feature | Huntsman | Worth a second look |
|---|---|---|
| Posture | Legs out to the sides, body pressed flat to the surface | A redback hangs upside down in silk and never sits flat on a wall |
| Size | Large, often 10 cm or more across the legs | A redback body is pea sized and a white-tail is roughly a thumbnail |
| Colour | Mottled grey to tan, sometimes with banded legs | Glossy black with a red stripe, or dark with a pale tail spot |
| Web | None at all, it hunts on foot | A redback builds an untidy tangle with a funnel at the top |
| Behaviour | Bolts for cover the moment you move | Sits tight in a web or a dark fold and stays put |
- Hunting spider
- A spider that chases prey on foot instead of trapping it in silk. Huntsmen and white-tails both hunt, which is why neither leaves a web to tell you it has moved in, and why treatments aimed at webbing miss them.
If anyone in the household reacts badly to insect bites and stings in general, that is worth knowing about regardless of species. The Better Health Channel advice on bites and stings describes the signs that need urgent attention, and any bite that brings on more than local soreness should be seen by a doctor rather than waited out.
The method
How do you get a huntsman out of a room safely?
Trap it under a container, slide something stiff underneath, carry it out and tip it onto a tree trunk or a fence. Work slowly, because speed is what makes a huntsman run up your arm. Choose a container big enough that no legs are caught at the rim, and do it in one unhurried movement rather than three nervous ones.
- Pick your gearA large takeaway container or a mixing bowl, plus a stiff piece of cardboard or an unwanted envelope. Nothing small.
- Approach slowlyMove the container to the wall in one steady action and place it over the spider without touching the legs.
- Slide and sealWork the card under the rim a few millimetres at a time until the spider steps onto it, then hold both together.
- Release on barkCarry it to a tree, a fence post or a woodpile well away from the door and let it walk off by itself.
Three things make it go wrong. A container that is too small traps a leg at the edge, the spider panics and so do you. Trying to brush it into a cup from above gives it a direct route onto your hand. And doing it in the dark, with a torch wobbling in one hand, removes all your depth perception at the worst moment. Turn the room light on first.
Do not use the vacuum cleaner. It is a slow and unpleasant end for the spider, the body jams in the hose, and a huntsman can survive the trip and walk out of the canister hours later, usually while someone is emptying it. A container and a piece of card is faster than finding the vacuum anyway.
Cars are their own problem and worth planning for, because the sun visor is a perfect flat gap and a huntsman will sit in it for days. If one appears while you are driving, the only correct answer is to indicate, pull over and stop before you do anything else. Then open both doors on one side, leave the car for ten minutes and come back: nine times out of ten it has gone on its own. Spraying an aerosol inside a closed car is worse for you than the spider is, and the fumes linger in the vents for days afterwards.
- If you cannot face it, shut the door on the room, roll a towel along the bottom gap and deal with it in daylight. The spider will still be in there.
- If it is on a curtain, hold the container against the fabric and let the spider walk in rather than trying to scoop.
- If it is above a bed, move the bedding out of the room first so nothing gets dropped on later.
- If it is in the garage, leave it. Garage huntsmen eat the cockroaches and crickets you would otherwise be dealing with.
The reason
Why do huntsman spiders keep getting inside?
Because a house offers the flat, dark, dry gaps they already live in, with better weather and more insects. A huntsman spends its day pressed into a crevice under bark, behind a fascia board or inside a wall cavity, and a roof space is simply a drier version of that. Storms, heat and the male wandering season all push them in.
A downpour floods the bark and leaf litter they shelter in, and a run of hot days dries it out. Either way the building becomes the better option, which is why Melbourne households notice them most through storm weeks in summer and across the first cool nights.
Through the warmer months the males leave their crevices to look for females and cover real distances doing it. A male crossing your lounge room wall at midnight is not lost, it is commuting, and it will keep moving.
Moths at a porch light, crickets in the garage and cockroaches behind the dishwasher are all on the menu. Where the insects gather, the hunting spiders turn up a week or two later.
A flat body squeezes through a worn door seal, a lifted roof tile, a torn flyscreen, an unguarded weep hole or the hole a pipe passes through. The usual entry is at roof level rather than at your feet.
Trees and shrubs touching the roof line are the other half of the story. A branch against the gutter is a bridge that bypasses everything you have done at ground level, and the same goes for climbing plants on a wall and ivy on a fence that meets the eaves. Trimming a metre of clearance around the roof changes the traffic more than any product does.
Is it the same spider coming back every night?
Sometimes, and it does not really matter. Huntsmen have no nest to return to, so the one on the hallway wall tonight may be the one you carried out yesterday or a different individual using the same crack. Relocating it further away, over a fence or across a road, makes a repeat much less likely.
Why are there suddenly so many this year?
Numbers follow the insects, and the insects follow the weather. A wet spring grows more of everything, so by late summer there is more for hunting spiders to eat and more of them survive to adult size. Building work and tree removal nearby also push them into neighbouring houses.
The limit
When is pest control for huntsman spiders worth paying for?
When they are coming in often enough to disrupt the household, when there are egg sacs in the roof space, or when the entry points are beyond a ladder and a tube of sealant. One spider a month is not a job. A spider a night in a child's bedroom through February is a fair reason to pick up the phone.
Be wary of any operator who books a call-out for a single huntsman without asking a question first. There is no treatment that makes a house spider-proof, and anyone promising one is selling you a repeat visit. What a proper job does is treat the surfaces a hunting spider has to walk across to get in, which is a different and more honest promise.
- Repeat indoor sightings through the warm months, in bedrooms rather than the shed, where nobody in the house will sleep until it is dealt with.
- Egg sacs in the roof void, which is a flat silk pad holding a few hundred young and a reason to treat the void rather than the wall.
- Entry at roof level on a two storey house, where the eave line, fascia gaps and tile edges cannot be reached from a stepladder.
- A household that cannot cope, which is a real reason and not a silly one. Fear of spiders is common and it makes a home unliveable in summer.
A treatment aimed at hunting spiders goes onto the places they cross: door reveals and architraves, window frames, the eave line, roof entry points, weep holes, the garage door edge and the inside of the roof void. It will not stop one dropping off a gum tree onto an open back door at night, and Tim will tell you that before he quotes rather than after. If that is the problem you have, spider control in Melbourne sets out what a visit covers and the figure is approved before any work starts. The work is backed by his 3-month re-treatment guarantee, which means the same trouble reappearing in a treated area within three months brings him back without a second charge.
If a single huntsman is your whole pest problem, you do not need a technician. You need a bigger container and ninety seconds.
Two related pages are worth a look if the identification is still bothering you. The ranking of which Melbourne spiders matter puts huntsmen in context against the species that do, and the page on white-tail spiders covers the other wandering hunter people find indoors, which is the one most often confused with a small huntsman.
Questions
Huntsman questions Tim gets asked
Do huntsman spiders bite?
Rarely, and only if one is trapped against skin, caught in clothing or picked up. The result is local pain and swelling rather than anything serious, and the spider gains nothing from it. Wash the spot, use a cold pack for the soreness, and see a doctor if the reaction goes further than that.
Is it cruel to catch and release one?
No, it is the kindest option available. Put it on a tree trunk, a fence post or a woodpile rather than on open lawn, and do it well away from the door you carried it out of. A huntsman released onto bark is back in normal habitat within seconds.
Will a surface spray stop huntsmen coming in?
It reduces them and it does not exclude them. A spider that walks across a treated door frame or roof entry picks up the product, but one that drops onto an open doorway at night walks straight past everything. Door seals, intact flyscreens and trimmed branches do the rest of the work.
Are huntsman spiders dangerous to dogs and cats?
Not in any practical sense. A cat that corners one may get a defensive nip and a sore paw, which is no worse than it sounds. The greater risk to a pet is an aerosol sprayed in a closed room, so use a container rather than a can when an animal is in the house.
Why do they come inside in autumn?
The bark, logs and fence timber they shelter under lose their warmth as the nights cool, and a roof space or wall cavity holds it better. They are not seeking you out, they are taking the drier option, which is why the autumn sightings cluster around the roof line.
Do huntsmen lay eggs inside the house?
They can. A female makes a flat silk pad holding her eggs and guards it in a dark gap, often in a roof void, behind a wall panel or inside a disused shed. Finding one is the main argument for treating the void rather than carrying spiders outside one at a time.
Had enough of finding them in the bedroom?
Tell Tim which rooms they turn up in and he will say whether the entry points can be closed, what a treatment would cover and what it costs before anything is booked.
Reviewed October 2026 by Tim, licensed Victorian pest control operator, licence No. 86488. Bite and allergy information: Better Health Channel, allergies to bites and stings and Better Health Channel, spiders. General information only, not medical advice.