Dad avoids bite from false widow spider in Basingstoke

Pepe Tozzo, 63, from Hatch Warren, saw the false widow spider crawl out from its hiding place under the saddle of his mountain bike as he was taking it out from his garage to ride. 

“Everyone was joking that it would bite me on my bum,” said the father-of-one, who managed to take a photo of the creature before setting it free.

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The false widow spotted in Basingstoke (Image: Pepe Tozzo) “I knew they were around but it was the first proper one I’ve seen,” he said.

While bites from spiders in the UK are uncommon, native spiders such as the false widow are capable of giving a nasty bite which can leave small puncture marks on the skin and can be painful and cause redness and swelling.

Bites can also become infected or cause a severe allergic reaction in rare cases.

Pepe believes the Hatch Warren area of Basingstoke is particularly rife with spiders and he also spotted an infamous ‘Basingstoke spider’ in the same week, which he says was about three inches wide.

“It had made a nest across the bin,” he explained, adding: “I tried to take a picture but it was too wet and windy.”

The dad, who moved to the town in the 1990s, said Basingstoke has spiders "bigger than anywhere else", including some he has seen that are so big he couldn’t put a pint glass over the top of them.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. In Hatch Warren we get massive spiders. In my experience, Basingstoke has the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen. They are absolute monsters, some of them are just huge,” said Pepe, who uses a spider repellent with mint on his windows to keep them out of his home.

“I’m not a fan of the monster spiders. I won’t kill them. I try to catch them,” he added. 

Spiders usually start to come out in early September, with their presence noticeable in homes until around mid-October. After this, they tend to be spotted indoors less often.

Female spiders are known to stay in one place for all of their lives, but males are always on the move.

During spider mating season, the males will go searching for females and often find them inside homes, which is why you may notice more of them over the next couple of months.

In the UK, there are more than 650 different species of spider and while all of them can bite, only 12 can cause harm to humans.

One of those is the false widow spider, and according to the Natural History Museum, being bitten by one can feel like a wasp sting.

False widows have long been established in the UK with the first recorded siting in the UK in the 1870s, although their numbers multiplied in the 1980s, particularly in the southern counties.

The Natural History Museum says the spider was first spotted in Dorset, Hampshire and Devon but can now be found as far north as Scotland.