Three years and eight months ago, the PTB etcha-sketched my life via house fire, covid, and a lot of other unpleasant stuff. Then I found an orbweaver that I didn’t recognize.
Now, after many AudHD study sessions (rabbit holes), I have 2 pet jumping spiders and 7 tarantulas (“never in a million years,” I thought), and my entire (new and very cute little 1970s) house is a squish-free/spider-safe zone.
The small “army” of Furrow Orbweavers (Charlotte and friends) eat flying bitey bugs on the porch. A Grass spider and a Cobweb spider guard the lower levels from crawling bitey bugs. Cellar spiders protect the basement from invading indoor crawlies. And the rest get gently captured and set free. (Unless it’s winter, then they get housed temporarily and fed until it’s warm again.)
Fear was transmuted into fascination and appreciation through understanding. Now that I understand how they work, that most are virtually blind and that they don’t even have ears but instead sense the world through their bodies (and webs if they make them), I fear NO spider.
Any contact they have with humans is purely accidental. When they seem to be running AT someone, it’s only panic and desperately running for the nearest cover; that safe-looking shadow that happens to be under our feet. And they don’t want to bite us, they need that venom to eat. If they use it in defense, they risk starvation.
Spiders (except jumping spiders) don’t understand the concept of human. They know only three things: food, danger, and possible partner (sometimes also food). 🖤
First, I love your spider at the top… I learned today that you cannot stack too many eyeballs when it comes to bugs. Second, I feel the spider zone is very much based on spider size. There is no zone for really big spiders in our house. The tiny ones can come and go as they please except for beds, chairs and yes… showers.
I've been too lazy to move them and too emo to smoosh them for a long time. Last night my 10 year old found one in the bathroom and wanted me to take care of it, but I was like, "it'll be fine just leave them alone!" And she is also too emo to squish but also too scared to leave it. So she used a little cup and paper and moved it outside. Her first catch and release! What a milestone.
If I can get a big spider in the glass jar I will take it outside. I really don’t like spiders in my shower since it is usually a surprise appearance. I do allow spiders in the ceiling zone of my house. Right now I have 2 spiders with pretty extensive webbing between the inside glass window and the outside screen(I keep this window closed) - kind of like a slow motion nature show. Last summer the spiders were ready to duel in the middle when their webs started overlapping. I left for vacation and came back to only one spider. When my kids were little we had a spider make a large web between a window and the front porch light. We caught and threw crickets into the web for Charlotte(of course we named her Charlotte ❤️). It was so cool to watch her come down and wrap up the cricket. Charlotte got very big but never wrote any words in her web.
We live in CO and recently visited La Junta for the annual Tarantula migration (actually a misnomer since it’s males out looking for female courtship and escape without getting eaten, if possible) and it was absolutely fabulous! I also have a friend spider (wolf) by my bathroom sink and a barn tunnel spider by my front door. I absolutely despise mosquitoes, ticks and needlessly aggressive stinging things but spiders - what a delight! (I might feel differently if i lived in Australia…)
The older I get, the more zen I can be about spiders. If they don't come too close to me, I can coexist with them. (But not in my bed. Not that level of coexistence.) Except, strangely, daddy-long-legs. This is where someone is going to chime in and tell me they're not even really spiders and remind me they can't hurt me and all that...and you know what? I don't care. They scare the crap out of me and I will NOT coexist with them, I will run away screaming like a little girl and make someone else make them go away.
I moved into a basement apartment with only 2.05 meter high walls almost two years ago. I quickly realized that may stance on spiders had to relax A LOT. They're everywhere, definitely in my shower, pretty much every corner, every doorway. I remove the webs a lot, but the spiders will always be my roommates here, and I'm cool with it. I love it when they catch annoying insects!
My attitude toward spiders is mostly benevolent. I used to carry them out of the house on a piece of paper, but nowadays i usually ignore them. No bugs allowed, though. Especially not flies, which are disgusting filthy disease-carrying menaces that I actually enjoy killing.
I feel like the size of the spider also effects the size of the spider zone. We get huge crab spiders that change color like chameleons this time of year and outside is great, inside on the curtains is a no-go zone.
Spiders are cool but I’ll kill wasps inside if they don’t leave on their own accord when I direct them to an open window. They will sting and don’t seem to have any anthro-redeeming features, like bug eating.
I have that spider zone too and any that venture down get ejected out of a window. I can't kill them or I feel haunted by their little ghosts. I should note I'm in Scotland so they're not going to harm me. I used to be scared of spiders (I inherited that from my Dad) but kind of like them now. I have noticed if I name them, and greet them when I go in the room, they dissappear the next day. Maybe they're just popping in to check on me. I like to give them names like Reginald or Bartholomew.
We have a GIANT orb weaver who made a web right in the path to our door and we ducked and crouched around her for two full days before deciding we needed our walkway back and she could re-web somewhere else. But in the house? Fair game for squashing. RIP spidey. We did have the cutest tiny gecko popping up in random places and decided he was our family pet. My kids caught him with sock hands and built him a terrarium in a tupperware but when we left for the long weekend we had to set him free outside and haven't seen him sense. I've been in Texas for 15 years now and I will still do murderous things to all the tree roaches, a full multi-step murder. When I was living in SC I learned they call them Palmetto Bugs, which tracks, a true southern re-branding to make them seem less terrifying. I ruthlessly killed them all there as well (or made someone else do it).
I live with spiders, flies, fruit flies, moths, and sometimes ants. That's in addition to my grown daughter, her chicken, my disabled chicken, and our two cats. Sometimes I take spiders outside in a glass, sometimes I just let them be. Flies usually want out, and I go let them out the door. The rest of us manage to get along.
There was a time when I too had a “spider zone.”
Three years and eight months ago, the PTB etcha-sketched my life via house fire, covid, and a lot of other unpleasant stuff. Then I found an orbweaver that I didn’t recognize.
Now, after many AudHD study sessions (rabbit holes), I have 2 pet jumping spiders and 7 tarantulas (“never in a million years,” I thought), and my entire (new and very cute little 1970s) house is a squish-free/spider-safe zone.
The small “army” of Furrow Orbweavers (Charlotte and friends) eat flying bitey bugs on the porch. A Grass spider and a Cobweb spider guard the lower levels from crawling bitey bugs. Cellar spiders protect the basement from invading indoor crawlies. And the rest get gently captured and set free. (Unless it’s winter, then they get housed temporarily and fed until it’s warm again.)
Fear was transmuted into fascination and appreciation through understanding. Now that I understand how they work, that most are virtually blind and that they don’t even have ears but instead sense the world through their bodies (and webs if they make them), I fear NO spider.
Any contact they have with humans is purely accidental. When they seem to be running AT someone, it’s only panic and desperately running for the nearest cover; that safe-looking shadow that happens to be under our feet. And they don’t want to bite us, they need that venom to eat. If they use it in defense, they risk starvation.
Spiders (except jumping spiders) don’t understand the concept of human. They know only three things: food, danger, and possible partner (sometimes also food). 🖤
First, I love your spider at the top… I learned today that you cannot stack too many eyeballs when it comes to bugs. Second, I feel the spider zone is very much based on spider size. There is no zone for really big spiders in our house. The tiny ones can come and go as they please except for beds, chairs and yes… showers.
Spider size is a KEY FACTOR I failed to consider. Will for sure remove a spider of significant size.
I've been too lazy to move them and too emo to smoosh them for a long time. Last night my 10 year old found one in the bathroom and wanted me to take care of it, but I was like, "it'll be fine just leave them alone!" And she is also too emo to squish but also too scared to leave it. So she used a little cup and paper and moved it outside. Her first catch and release! What a milestone.
If I can get a big spider in the glass jar I will take it outside. I really don’t like spiders in my shower since it is usually a surprise appearance. I do allow spiders in the ceiling zone of my house. Right now I have 2 spiders with pretty extensive webbing between the inside glass window and the outside screen(I keep this window closed) - kind of like a slow motion nature show. Last summer the spiders were ready to duel in the middle when their webs started overlapping. I left for vacation and came back to only one spider. When my kids were little we had a spider make a large web between a window and the front porch light. We caught and threw crickets into the web for Charlotte(of course we named her Charlotte ❤️). It was so cool to watch her come down and wrap up the cricket. Charlotte got very big but never wrote any words in her web.
I wish I could add a random chair to this comment. Chairs!
We live in CO and recently visited La Junta for the annual Tarantula migration (actually a misnomer since it’s males out looking for female courtship and escape without getting eaten, if possible) and it was absolutely fabulous! I also have a friend spider (wolf) by my bathroom sink and a barn tunnel spider by my front door. I absolutely despise mosquitoes, ticks and needlessly aggressive stinging things but spiders - what a delight! (I might feel differently if i lived in Australia…)
*googles annual tarantula migration* *shudders*
I'm fine sharing space with spiders, but cockroaches are a hard no. Those I squash with a paper towel and double-check they're dead.
The older I get, the more zen I can be about spiders. If they don't come too close to me, I can coexist with them. (But not in my bed. Not that level of coexistence.) Except, strangely, daddy-long-legs. This is where someone is going to chime in and tell me they're not even really spiders and remind me they can't hurt me and all that...and you know what? I don't care. They scare the crap out of me and I will NOT coexist with them, I will run away screaming like a little girl and make someone else make them go away.
I moved into a basement apartment with only 2.05 meter high walls almost two years ago. I quickly realized that may stance on spiders had to relax A LOT. They're everywhere, definitely in my shower, pretty much every corner, every doorway. I remove the webs a lot, but the spiders will always be my roommates here, and I'm cool with it. I love it when they catch annoying insects!
My attitude toward spiders is mostly benevolent. I used to carry them out of the house on a piece of paper, but nowadays i usually ignore them. No bugs allowed, though. Especially not flies, which are disgusting filthy disease-carrying menaces that I actually enjoy killing.
I feel like the size of the spider also effects the size of the spider zone. We get huge crab spiders that change color like chameleons this time of year and outside is great, inside on the curtains is a no-go zone.
Spiders are cool but I’ll kill wasps inside if they don’t leave on their own accord when I direct them to an open window. They will sting and don’t seem to have any anthro-redeeming features, like bug eating.
Am I really a bad person when I drown spiders if they are in the shower or sink?
I have that spider zone too and any that venture down get ejected out of a window. I can't kill them or I feel haunted by their little ghosts. I should note I'm in Scotland so they're not going to harm me. I used to be scared of spiders (I inherited that from my Dad) but kind of like them now. I have noticed if I name them, and greet them when I go in the room, they dissappear the next day. Maybe they're just popping in to check on me. I like to give them names like Reginald or Bartholomew.
We have a GIANT orb weaver who made a web right in the path to our door and we ducked and crouched around her for two full days before deciding we needed our walkway back and she could re-web somewhere else. But in the house? Fair game for squashing. RIP spidey. We did have the cutest tiny gecko popping up in random places and decided he was our family pet. My kids caught him with sock hands and built him a terrarium in a tupperware but when we left for the long weekend we had to set him free outside and haven't seen him sense. I've been in Texas for 15 years now and I will still do murderous things to all the tree roaches, a full multi-step murder. When I was living in SC I learned they call them Palmetto Bugs, which tracks, a true southern re-branding to make them seem less terrifying. I ruthlessly killed them all there as well (or made someone else do it).
I live with spiders, flies, fruit flies, moths, and sometimes ants. That's in addition to my grown daughter, her chicken, my disabled chicken, and our two cats. Sometimes I take spiders outside in a glass, sometimes I just let them be. Flies usually want out, and I go let them out the door. The rest of us manage to get along.