Family flee their home in terror after discovering hundreds of world's deadliest spiders in nest on banana from corner shop



Jamie Roberts, 31, of Staffordshire, spotted white patches on bananas

Assumed it was mould but later found fruit was infested with spider nest

Immediately rang pest controllers who told family to leave immediately

A family were forced to flee their home and have it fumigated after finding hundreds of potentially deadly spiders - in a bunch of bananas.

Shocked father Jamie Roberts, 31, of Hednesford, Staffordshire, spotted white patches covering pieces of the fruit from a local shop after he put them in a bowl - but assumed this was mould.

However, upon closer inspection, he realised the fruit was infested with a spider nest - and immediately rang pest controllers who advised his family to leave their home immediately.

Scare: Jamie and Crystal Roberts with their daughter Georgiana, seven and son Joshua, eight, at their home in Hednesford, Staffordshire. The family found a nest of spiders on bananas they bought from a OneStop Store

Spiders nesting: Mr Roberts, 31, spotted white patches covering pieces of the fruit after he put them in a bowl - but assumed at first that this was mould

Insects: Mr Roberts immediately rang pest controllers who advised his family to leave their home immediately

Spiders in bananas: 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

Investigation: The spiders have not been officially identified but the family believe they could have been the world's most poisonous Brazilian Wandering Spider ‘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. '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' Jamie Roberts ‘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.’

Mrs Roberts, who works for HM Revenue & Customs, bought the pack of bananas from the OneStop Store near their home. Purchase: Mrs Roberts bought the pack of bananas from this OneStop Store (pictured) near their home Couple: Mr Roberts is a civil servant, who suffers from arachnophobia, and Mrs Roberts works for HM Revenue & Customs Scary: A file picture of a fully-grown adult Brazilian Wandering Spider. Guinness World Records lists it as the most toxic spider on earth and its venom is said to be 30 times more powerful than that of a rattlesnake

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.’

'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' Crystal Roberts

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

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

Humans bitten by one can suffer an irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, vomiting and eventual death. Their scientific name is ‘phoneutria nigriventer’ - the first word being Greek for ‘murderess’.

A OneStop Stores spokesman told MailOnline: ‘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 the fumigation took place.

‘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.’