Yet another British family has been forced to flee its habitat after an infestation of Brazilian wandering spiders smuggled itself into their nest on the back of a bunch of supermarket bananas.

The Brazilian wandering spider's bite is so venomous it can leave males of many species with a painful four-hour long erection before killing them. An egg-sac of the wee beasties left on on the bananas "was around the size of a 20 pence piece" Ashley Gamble told the Sun. He said he was unable to count the number of spiders that escaped from it, but some species of spider lay up to 1,500 eggs in a single sac.

Gamble and his partner Sophia Newcombe ran away from their home, according to the Sun, after "dozens" of the spiders began hatching out of an egg-sac that had been attached to a bunch of bananas they had purchased from Asda*.

Gamble said he attempted to hoover up the critters "but they were running off everywhere" and so the family fled.

UK supermarket chain Asda reportedly apologised for the incident, and said it was “extremely rare”, however Gamble told the Sun: "They have just fobbed me off. When I first went in to complain my house was full of spiders they offered me a refund for the bananas, which only added insult to injury. Then a worker said, ‘Oh it’s ok – they’ll all die soon anyway’, which didn’t really help. It’ll cost hundreds of pounds to have the house fumigated and I just don’t have the money."

The couple and their children have moved in with Gamble's parents. “There is no way we’re going back until the house is completely cleared," said Gamble. “I just can’t risk it with the children.”

According to the Sun, a spokesman for Asda said the company was "in contact with Mr Gamble and would like to reassure all our customers that these types of incidents are extremely rare. All our bananas are washed and sprayed before they are transported to the UK and every single piece of fruit is manually checked for quality and stowaways."

“We sell one billion bananas every year and the chance of finding a spider is incredibly low, but very occasionally one hangs around to give us a fright. We are sorry for any upset this has caused and are keeping Mr Gamble updated throughout our investigation," the Asda spokesman added. ®

* The British version of Walmart