Sitting there minding its own business. Should I be worried with curious toddlers wandering about? Not for their safety, more the spider’s really. Where can I put her?

Yep, false widow..
Our pergola seems to attract them as, at last count, we had 21 of them.

Could you put your finger next to it so we can get some idea of scale, and how aggressive it is?

Lace-weaver spider? They bite too

How true are the colours in your pic?

The ones we get look like this – more red in colour, definitely not black:

I’d be less inclined to say false widow. The abdomen on the OP’s is kinda furry, the false widow is not.

Hacklemesh weaver

False widow. Had loads in our old house. Looks like a few moved with us as well.

I grew quite fond of them.

By the way, both my kids were toddlers around them, and the spiders will not take any interest in them and generally hide away out of reach. I was never really worried.

The key to iding them is that spiders are not generally shiny. If you shine a light on them they will be shiny. I would be worried about them, a gardener i know was bitten by one and spent 3 days having his leg drained. The hospital said it was the 5th incident that week. Their numbers are on the rise hugely…

Retro, opening the door it was back lit like yours. I’ve put it in an air brick into the underfloor outside

lovewookie – Member
I’d be less inclined to say false widow. The abdomen on the OP’s is kinda furry, the false widow is not.

I think the word you’re looking for is ‘fuzzy’, the spider is actually out of focus.
And yes, it’s almost certainly a Steatoda Nobilis, I found one lurking behind a large sink in the plate-making room at my last place of work, somewhere I often had to get behind to shift bottles of chemistry, so it was quietly evicted outside.

Arghh! Scary 😯

I hear their bite can be on a par with a wasp sting. So I think you need to give it a poke to find out if it’s the real deal 😉

why do you think it’s a false widow rather than a lace weaver count?