Bernard O'Shea: Why are Daddy Long Legs invading my house?

Bernard O'Shea: My kids are terrified of them regardless of how many times I tell them they're harmless.

Why are there so many Daddy Long Legs in our house?

They are attracted to the light and take shelter when the evening gets darker. They also like damp, moist spaces. They are also totally and completely freaking out my kids, who are terrified of them regardless of how many times I tell them they're harmless. That is the essential information I have compiled after reading fifteen articles on the internet.

I could go into their complex lives from larva to 15 days of clumsy courting adventure, and I should have teased the answer until the end of the article to keep you reading. But when I started to think about them, I remembered that I have a very complex relationship with our new house guests. I am writing this more in the hope that I find a kindred spirit out there that screams, “Yes, I was told that too!” Here's hoping.

First, let me clarify for all those entomologists out there and rephrase my last sentence. Why are there so many Pholcidae or crane flies in our house? I’m at the behest of Google here, so I await several corrections on their scientific name. But as Jack Charlton once said when trying to get his head around the post-Soviet commonwealth naming of the CIS, “I don’t care what you call them, I call them Russia".

So if big Jack can be vocal on populist clarity, so can. I don’t care what anyone else calls them; I call them Daddy Long Legs.

According to britannica.com, “Daddy Long Legs are closely related to scorpions but are often mistaken as spiders because of their appearance. However, unlike true spiders, whose body is divided into two distinct segments (the cephalothorax and the abdomen), daddy longlegs look as though they have only one segment because of a broad fusion that makes the juncture between the two segments almost indiscernible.”

So just in case you have Arachnophobia, it’s nice to know that they are related to scorpions. I imagine a Daddy Long Legs on 'Who do you think you are?' sitting with a genealogist weeping solemnly at the birth record of their great, great, great, great, grandmother, sobbing, “I know it sounds so silly, but deep inside, I always knew there was a little bit of scorpion about me.”

So, it's nice to know there’s a half-scorpion arachnid obsessed with the big light in the kitchen, but it’s also relieving to see that they are harmless. An urban/rural myth abounded for years of their deadly bite, but that was quashed brilliantly by the comedian Ricky Gervais. If you have a few minutes to spare, his synopsis is well worth a watch on YouTube. But even more bizarre is the collection of broken and bonkers thoughts implanted into my head by my sisters and granny about our long-legged friend along with the usual top three we're all told in childhood:

1. If you stare at poppies, you'll go blind.

2. Stop making faces; it will stay like that if the wind changes.

3. Your eyes will become chewing gum if you sit too close to the telly.

Let's stick with our long-legged friends and start with what my granny told me.

She said that Daddy Long Legs were God’s spiders. They were sent by the big dude up in the clouds to report to him how good we're all doing down on planet earth. It doesn't stop there. The spiders pass on confidential information to a man in red fluffy clothing who delivers presents at Christmas. 

I was petrified of them because to even shout at one, never let alone God forbid (pardon the pun) kill one, would result in class high-grade Catholic guilt and a lump of coal in your stocking. My granny wasn’t too bothered by GDPR or telling a seven-year-old that spiders can listen to you. In fairness, she also balanced the scales by telling me, "Once you have a bite to eat and drop in the pot, you’ll be all right." Sage advice. But my sisters went one further.

They told me they would crawl into my mouth if I slept with it open. Once inside, they would creep down into your belly and give birth to thousands of them. These are the same women that would dress me up as a human doll and time me to see how long it would take me to get to the shop to get them sweets. As the youngest and the only boy in the house, I was grateful for any attention, but this one freaked me well into adulthood.

Then there was the pièce de résistance, the ultimate Daddy Long Legs statement. This came from the ingenious mind of one particular and incredibly inventive sister who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are. She told me my favourite confectionary fondant-filled egg was made from ground-up Daddy Long Legs. It took her over two decades and an arbitrary independent court that I hired to get her to admit to telling me that.

But of course, my father had to go one better. Growing up, he would frighten the absolute shite out of us with his stories about the banshee. He would also finish every banshee story by telling us that she never haunted anyone from Kerry because the Kerry people gave her shelter when everyone else failed her. 

We were all born in Laois, so she was out to get us. He’d also try to convince anyone that every time Kerry lost in football, they were served “a bad meal” the night before a game. But when it came to the long legs brigade, they were a sure sign that the banshee was nearby. So, if you can imagine a seven-year-old me seeing a Daddy Long Legs, I would think, “God knows I was bold, and he’s going to tell Santa. I’m going to have to tape my mouth up before I go to bed tonight, and that’s if I survive the banshee, and I’m definitely in trouble because I ate a cream egg yesterday.”

I’m tempted to at least pass on one of those bonkers traditions to my kids the next time I hear them scream the house down but then again, we’ve just all started to get a night's sleep. I think I'll stick with turning off the light and letting them out the window.