A woman who spent three decades living in crippling fear of spiders says she has overcome her worries by hitting the web and watching tarantula videos on YouTube.
Vanessa Woods now sleeps in the same room as 35 tarantulas, some of which measure up to nine inches long and are venomous.
The care assistant says it took her just nine months to accumulate 35 furry friends after subjecting herself to the unusual type of exposure therapy on the internet.
Her pets are kept in enclosures in her bedroom – just feet from where she sleeps every night.
Vanessa said: ‘I was always one of those people who would run out of the room when they saw a spider, I was terrified of them.
‘If one was in my house I’d have to call for someone to come and get rid of it because I was too scared to go anywhere near them.’
She added: ‘Now I’m absolutely in love with them, I can’t imagine my life without spiders in it, I think they’re the most amazing animals.’
Vanessa, who is from Wymondham in Norfolk, began overcoming her fear of spiders 12 months ago by watching hour after hour of educational videos on YouTube.
She said: ‘At first the videos gave me the heebie-jeebies but as I learned more about spiders I realised they weren’t this scary creature that I had imagined, I actually became fascinated by them.’
Vanessa took her interest to the next level by purchasing a lasiodora parahybana, which is also known as the Brazilian salmon pink bird-eating tarantula.
The salmon-pink is a spider from north-eastern Brazil and considered to be the third largest tarantula in the world.
Among her collection is also a burgundy Goliath bird eater called Tank, which measures nine inches long, and a Costa Rican zebra tarantula called Ziggy.
One of Vanessa’s most dangerous pets is a curlyhair tarantula called Skitters, which is covered in characteristically unique long curly bristles.
Curlyhair tarantulas, an opportunistic ambushing spider, holds its prey with its front limbs and injects it with venom delivered through two hollow fangs.
Vanessa said: ‘When I think back to how I was with spiders just over a year ago, I could never have possibly imagined I’d have 35 of them as pets.
‘I’m so happy that I was able to change my attitude and grow to love them, owning spiders is such a fulfilling hobby and they bring me so much joy.’
Vanessa says her new pets are ‘low maintenance’, adding that while some need feeding once a week, others only need to be fed once every 12 months.
She added: ‘I’d like to have 100 of them and maybe then I’ll stop.’
