Why so many of us are casual spider-murderers

[Jilly_in_VA]

A
As I opened the front door, I mentally prepared myself for the obstacle course ahead.

First I needed to fetch something from the shed – the domain of monstrous spiders the size of baby mice, who lurk in corners with just their furry, gangling legs protruding. Then I moved some old paving slabs, carefully side-stepping the scuttling, scorpion-like forms of woodlice spiders, who had made their home beneath them. Finally, I guided the new fronds of growth on my jasmine plant up the fence, trying not to get covered in the wiry daddy longlegs who stalk its vertical plains.

Eventually my journey ended on the patio – and here there was a shock. Lying on the paving, legs splayed out wildly, as though he had fallen from a great height – was the pallid corpse of Stripy. This talented web-artist had reigned over my garden for three years, and over that time something strange had happened: I had started to like him.

Seeing him there, dethroned from his latest two-dimensional creation between my bins, he seemed somehow less blood-curdlingly alien – and more like any other animal, with a heart that had just stopped beating.

But not all spiders meet such peaceful ends. The moment we sense the pitter-patter of their tiny feet across the living room floor, or catch a glimpse of movement in the corner of an eye as they abseil down from the ceiling, they're likely to end up squashed, poisoned, vacuumed up or simply flushed away from our homes. Why do many of us kill spiders so casually, swatting out their lives with our god-like power, almost like it's a reflex?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211004-why-so-many-of-us-are-casual-spider-murderers

[Wingus Dingus]

1. I used to be, until I got older. Now I make

more of an effort to catch them in a tissue and throw them outside, but sometimes I do kill them when they are too fast to catch, too threatening looking, too inconvenient to escort outside, or I find them somewhere horrifying, like in my bed or shower.

[Jilly_in_VA]

2. I don't care for the "house spiders"

but I do trap the wolf spiders I occasionally find and carry them outdoors, unless it's too cold, in which case I deposit them in the far reaches of the basement. I am fascinated by the big spotted garden spiders. One usually makes a big web at the corner of the house in the fall and I will watch her until she leaves her egg sacs and departs. Those ladies are quite beautiful.

I tried to teach my kids not to be afraid of spiders. One summer when they were, I think, 4 and 6, we read Charlotte's Web. That summer a big spider made a web on the awning outside our back door and we would go out and watch her. They named her, of course, Charlotte, and one day I caught my daughter talking to her. They never did bother that web and were sorry when it was gone. I made their dad leave it alone too, even though he didn't like spiders.

[Duppers]

16. Same here: I escort them outside in a jar.

My son used to be terrified of them until, between homes,* the 3 of us had to live in a camper for almost 4mos. One cannot avoid spiders in a camper, sooo he had to adapt.



*Sold home, rented a house until our builder finished our custom hm. Then suddenly the landlord decided she wouldn't month-to-month rent to us. So, we bought a small camper where we lived from 9/1 to 12/22. Fun times! But yay, our 12yo's spider phobia was banished!

[Cracklin Charlie]

3. I'm fine with them, as long as they stay outside.

I’ve had a giant orb spider working on my back porch for about a month now. He’s getting huge!

He’s fun to watch, and not near the door, so I leave him be.

[mockmonkey]

4. Every year we are invaded by millions of Caddisflies

After that, the Spider invasion happens. I probably had as many as 20 Spiders on my ceiling in this one room. I think it's down to half as many. I figure if they stay on the ceiling we won't have a problem with each other. Last week while trying to sleep I look up and there are two spiders by the ceiling light coming down on webs. I watch to see if I need to panic yet. They would come down about 8 inches and then head back up. They were building a web across the ceiling using the loop of web they just made.

Because the Caddisflies are now gone the Spiders have started eating each other. At some point I'll have to start sweeping the webbing off the ceiling. Today I noticed my first Daddy Long Legs in the corner.

The porch is even worse with webbing. This happens every year and cleaning the dead Caddisflies and sweeping all the webbing from the ceiling is a chore I can do without. Occasionally I get a bird on the porch who can not get back down the stairwell. The other day there was a finch flapping around. I got one of the windows open but then I have to try to get them to fly in the right direction. There were so many webs that the poor thing got tangled in them and he fell down. I picked him up and carefully pulled all the webs wrapped around his small feet and wings. I'm sure he was glad to get the hell out of there.

My car is covered in Spider webs. The car wash doesn't remove them. I have to get a bucket of soapy water and scrub them off.

Soon it will be too cold for them outside and the webbing on the porch will be brushed off. A few Spiders will get knocked down but I won't kill them.

[Duppers]

17. Wow!! You are inundated!!

No spider phobia at your home. 👍

[mockmonkey]

18. I was watching this the other day and...

I was so creeped out. I've seen Arachnophobia and I will not watch it again. So I guess you could say I do have a little bit of a phobia of spiders. We have these black spiders that mainly stay on lower levels. They run really fast and I HATE them.

[Duppers]

19. Yikes!! 😱

Too scary.
I have my limit too...and have been bitten several times.

[Grasswire2]

5. because they bite

The bite I had on my belly this year must have happened when I was asleep in bed. It was a large, double, swollen red bite that itched for weeks.

I kill them.

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. You're positive it was spiders

and not ants or mosquitoes or chiggers? I got one of those on my upper chest, but it was in the midst of an ant invasion.

[Grasswire2]

9. positive

And it wasn't Kitty, either.

We don't have chiggers in the north, I don't think.

No ant could make a double welt 1.5 inches across. Not a mosquito bite. It lasted for many weeks.

[SCantiGOP]

10. I had a friend years ago

who was finally diagnosed as having been bitten by a brown recluse.
He had smoked when he was younger, and this was back when people could still smoke around you in an office, and he had never had any problem with tobacco. His bite was not particularly painful, but did cause a nasty sore that took antibiotics and several weeks to heal, and after that he was so sensitive to tobacco smoke that he could have a horrible reaction just by being next to a smoker and inhaling the residue from their clothes.
As their names indicate, the nasty little brutes hide and are rarely seen, which is why most people in my region will check a pair of shoes before they put them on if they have been left outside.

[Grasswire2]

11. shudder

They have plenty of room outside. No need to come in and potentially bite.

[SCantiGOP]

13. They avoid people, so you usually encounter them in basements and attics

My friend had been in an outdoor picnic shelter at a State Park when he was bitten.

[Grasswire2]

14. they avoid people but they come into my apartment?

They could just stay outside. Plenty of shelter, water sources, whatever they need.

[SCantiGOP]

15. To clarify:

I was just referring to the Brown Recluse. Most other spiders seem to prefer indoors.

[yonder]

6. I rarely intentionaly squash them, and that's never for jumping spiders.

[Grasswire2]

12. I do not kill daddy longlegs.

They are cool, and they don't bite, and mind their own bidness.

I don't think they are a true spider, are they?

[SCantiGOP]

7. The answer is pretty self-evident

----Because some of them have a very painful bite, and a few even have venom that can cause severe illness.
and, almost all of us don't know enough to tell the difference.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. I see the occasional black widow spider.

Trust me, they are very quickly dead.