Leg it! Deadly spiders force family to flee

Shocked dad Jamie Roberts, 31, spotted white patches covering the yellow fruit after he put them in a bowl at their home in the Midlands but assumed it was mould.

But upon closer inspection, he realised the fruit was actually infested with a spider nest containing hundreds of the creepy crawlies – thought to be 30 times more venomous than rattle snakes.

The spiders have not been officially identified but the family believe they could have been the world's most poisonous Brazilian Wandering Spider.

Humans bitten by one can suffer an irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, vomiting and eventual death.

Jamie, who suffers from arachnophobia, and his wife Crystal, 30, contacted the shop after the discovery, who called out pest controllers who advised the family to leave their home immediately.

The couple, along with their two children Georgina, seven, and five-year-old son Joshua, left their home in Hednesford on February 24.

Pest controllers spent 24 hours fumigating their home, but the family were only allowed back three days later after the toxic vapours used to kill the spiders had cleared from the house.

Samples of the spiders have now been sent away for testing at the Natural History Museum.

Jamie, a civil servant, said: "It was terrifying and especially for me because I have a phobia of spiders.

"We bought the bananas from the local shop and there were in a fruit bowl on the window sill in the kitchen.

"I picked one up because it looked mouldy because it had patches of white on it.

"I knew something was wrong because then I noticed the white patches were all over the window sill and the curtains and I could see tiny legs and realised they were spiders.

"At that point, I wasn't too concerned because I thought they looked dead.

"I was freaked out, but I started to sweep the patches into the bin but then they all started moving.

"It was like something out of a horror film because suddenly the window sill was moving with hundreds of these spiders.

"My wife and I rang the shop where we bought them and they asked us to drop them round to them.

"When we did they called pest control and they told us to get out of the house.

"They said they couldn't be sure what kind of species of spider they were because you can only do that when they are fully grown but they looked identical to the deadly Brazilian Wandering Spider.

"We took the kids to stay with my wife's mother while the house was fumigated," he added.

Jamie's wife Crystal, who works for HM Revenue and Customs, bought the pack of bananas from the OneStop store near their home.

She said: "I unpacked the bananas from the cellophane wrapper and put it in the bin so it's possible the 'queen spider' may have been in there.

"I looked up different types of spiders online and found they looked identical to Brazilian Wandering Spiders which are the most venomous spiders in the world," she added.

Records

The family are now waiting for pest controllers to confirm whether the spiders were the deadly species.

Guinness World Records lists them as the most toxic spider on earth and its venom is said to be 30 times more powerful than that of a rattlesnake.

The spider's scientific name is 'phoneutria nigriventer' – the first word being Greek for 'murderess'. A OneStop Stores spokesman said the firm had taken the incident very seriously.

"As soon as our customer contacted us about this issue we took all necessary precautions, including organising pest control to visit the house and arranging for our customer and his family to stay in a hotel while a search and the fumigation took place in their home.

"We'd like to reassure all our customers that such instances are extremely rare and we are carrying out a thorough investigation into how this happened."

He added that the company wanted to make it clear that the type of spider had not yet been identified.

The firm had arranged for a sample of the insect to be sent to Natural History Museum experts for tests.