A CHRISTCHURCH woman has told of her own false widow spider nightmare.

Nicola Turnham, of Monkswell Green, was bitten three times by a spider that crawled onto her dressing gown as she hugged her cat.

The 37-year-old said the bite felt like ‘lots of electric shocks’ and caused bruising and swelling on her arms and shoulders.

“I felt something funny and thought it was a twig at first,” she said.

“But it still kept going – it was like lots of electric shocks going down my arm.”

Nicola, a chamber maid, shook the gown off and found a yellow and black spider, which she released back into her garden.

She said: “I got in a panic because the bites swelled up on my shoulder so I ran down to the doctors.

“The swelling was going up my neck and down one side of my body.”

Her GP gave her antibiotics and it took around three weeks for the venom to leave her body.

“It was horrible, I could feel it all down one side of my body, like an electric shock but continuous,” she said.

‘I blame my cat for eight-legged visitor’

A MAN from Hamworthy, Poole who found what he believes was a false widow spider on his sofa, is blaming his cat.

Colin Lewis believes Barney may have brought the spider into the house in Elijah Close on his thick fur from the garden.

He said he had never seen a false widow before but recognised it from the story in Tuesday’s Daily Echo, where Catherine Coombs from Lytchett Matravers suffered a serious bite which infected a hand.

“All of a sudden we have one in our living room,” he said.

He captured the beast in a container and said, “I’m going to vacuum clean later to make sure there are no more.”