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Staff at a National Trust house have declared war against a Christmas present they definitely did not want. The workers are desperately trying to stop Australian spider beetles spreading through the property and to keep them away from visitors during the holiday period.

The tiny bugs are munching their way from the bat-filled loft at Knightshayes in Tiverton, Devon, down to the second floor.

Devon Live reports the staff had to carefully manage their Christmas decorations this year because of the infestation in part of the Grade I listed property.

Collections and house officer Gemma Ramsbottom said: “A big conservation challenge that we face this year is an infestation of Australian spider beetles.

“Over the last couple of years nationally there’s been a real increase in these little friends.

“They’re not a massive issue for our collections thankfully, because they are originating in the attic.

“They’re mainly on the second floor of the house which doesn’t have any collections in and it used to be a flat now it’s used as storage.

“Our Christmas store is on the second floor, so every single box of decorations had to be emptied, checked, and cleaned before it came down into the house.

“We don’t want to infest the collections.”

Now they have found where the spiders have been coming from in the attic, they have taped up the second floor and fumigated the space.

Ms Ramsbottom says they are working hard to make the house as inhospitable for the insects, which are also known as Christmas critters, while making it nice for visitors.

She added: “They’re tiny, but not very fussy about what they eat, which is the challenge we have for them.

“They go for more organic materials, so we worry about things like taxidermy and organic fibres and textiles.”

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She added: “So far, we haven’t found very much damage at all to the collections because they are mainly at the top of the house and through a lot of cleaning and fumigation, we are preventing them getting to our collections.”

Another problem they have at the house is that have got bats in the attic, so they have had to have ecologists come and tell them what they can and cannot do.

Knightshayes is a Victorian country house near Tiverton designed by William Burges for the Heathcoat-Amory family in the 1870s.

The house is Grade I listed and the gardens are Grade II listed in the national register of historic parks and gardens.

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