More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
A Sheerness man got an unexpected surprise when he tried to unblock a plug hole – a spider sunk its fangs into his finger.
Scott Langworthy, of St Helen's Road, was finishing the washing up when he noticed the water was not draining as fast as it should.
He put his hand in to find out what the problem was when he felt a "sharp prick" on his finger and, when he jerked his hand out, he found a black spider was clinging on.
With a flick of the hand, the arachnid flew into a side sink and did not move.
When the 41-year-old's wife Lisa poked it to see if it was still alive, it moved so she killed it with insect spray.
The bite drew blood and left a sore feeling behind in the incident on Monday morning.
Mr Langworthy, a security manager, said: "I was in the Navy for 21 years and I've been all around the world - and I end up getting bitten in my kitchen in Sheerness."
The Kent Wildlife Trust identified the creepy crawlie in Mr Langworthy's kitchen as a segestria florentina, commonly known as a tube web or cellar spider, which are found across the south of England.
Greg Hitchcock, Thames Gateway officer for the trust, said: "As one of the larger species of spider in this country, they are capable piercing human skin when biting in defence. They are not dangerous.
"They were introduced over a hundred years ago initially to docks like Sheerness.
"They don't make a web as such, but line the hole they live in with silk, and have 'trip wires' radiating from the entrance, which alert them to the presence of insects.
"Occasionally males go wandering about looking for females and can find their way into houses."
Eight-legged creatures have been making the national headlines recently with a sharp rise in sightings of false widows, the most venomous species of spider in the UK, including a string across Kent.
