Had to evict a big ass spider from my room today and was reminded of this meme template. At least it’s easier to evict spiders than cats, the latter don’t fit in measuring cups.
Someone here mentioned a while ago that some house spiders learn your active hours and typically come out to hunt when you’re either not around or asleep.
I usually ignore them because I’d much rather deal with occasional corner cobwebs than literally any other pest hanging around.
Spiders are the only thing not interested in my food.
Spiders being present also ward off pests that you won’t have as many while you have their active predators there. Spiders are bros, just let them do their thing.
It’s also common knowledge that when you’re inactive (sometimes referred to as asleep) spiders descend into your mouth about 8 times per year. 🫥
For anyone that may actually’ve believed that:
So how did this claim arise? In a 1993 PC Professional article, columnist Lisa Holst wrote about the ubiquitous lists of “facts” that were circulating via e-mail and how readily they were accepted as truthful by gullible recipients. To demonstrate her point, Holst offered her own made-up list of equally ridiculous “facts,” among which was the statistic cited above about the average person’s swallowing eight spiders per year, which she took from a collection of common misbeliefs printed in a 1954 book on insect folklore. In a delicious irony, Holst’s propagation of this false “fact” has spurred it into becoming one of the most widely-circulated bits of misinformation to be found on the Internet.
See the average is stated as 8/year, but the problem is Spiders George, who lives in a cave and swallows 37 000. Spiders George is a statistical outlier that should have been pulled from the data set!
What are they doing, just fucking teabagging me in my sleep tri-fortnightly?!
We tend to leave spiders alone in the house, they don’t really bother anything and keep other bugs at bay. The exception is when I need to work somewhere they built webs, then the webs gotta go and for that I use the shop vac.
For the centipedes though we have an agreement, they can stay as long as we don’t see them. You start scurrying across the kitchen floor and I will step on you (though to be fair I think that’s true for anything that “scurries” in the same way a centipede does).
I’m usually arachnophobic, but once I had an orb weaver decide to live on the back of my work truck. Freaked me out at first, but I let it be. It would come out of it’s hiding spot at night to make its web across the truck, and I would watch it clean up in the morning before I left. Almost got it on my face a few times while doing overnight work. It stayed with me all summer, I could always find it hidden under a door seal or up on the ladder rack, tucked away.
It was nice almost having a pet. Then, one morning, I get ready to leave for work. The web was still up, tattered, and spider bro was nowhere to be seen…
That ending was surprisingly sad.
I draw the line at black widows, like the ones outside my sibling’s house.
They are not friend shaped.
For real.
Black Widows and Brown Recluses, no thank you.
Cellar spiders and jumping spiders - you’re good.Not saying you should befriend black widows or anything but they are actually pretty docile and will only bite in extreme situations when they are trapped and it’s the only option. Typically they will just pretend to be dead.
Problem is that’s a very common situation, like when they’re wedged in a plant pot, in drainage holes along the house, in the A/C unit, in the hose reel, or places in the yard the dog will sniff. Especially when they nest there and get defensive over their silk ball.
I’d want to leave them alone. But its simply not practical.
As a borderline arachnophobe, I’ve had the privilege of hosting a gorgeous orb weaver in a really awesome spot for this season. She’s got a massive space, where lots of flies come, and it’s in a social area outdoors, but the location is perfectly situated for viewing from a distance so it doesn’t trigger anything for me.
She has her mate, she’s healthy as hell, and I’m actually dreading the day she passes because it’s become a bit of a ritual daily interaction with her.
Have you considered getting her a companion, like some pig?
a rat and a goose would make good friends too.
Now am sad
We had this giant orb weaver (yellow garden spider) living outside my wife’s office window at home for almost two months. We named her Shelob because of how surprisingly big she was, and I at least really enjoyed visiting her from inside until one day she was just gone.
Im actually really proud of the pictures I got with the sun backlighting her since it shows how translucent they are
Photo of said spider, spoilered in case folks don’t want to see it
I taught my kids early and often that spiders are friends, aside from a few dangerous ones we don’t really encounter here. Mosquitos are scarier than spiders. One of my kids is still terrified of spiders though 😭
I don’t think arachnophobia is learned or a result of upbringing!
Look at any 2 year old digging around in the dirt and notice how they will happily pick up and examine spiders and other “creepy crawlies” with their bare hands. They haven’t learned from society as a whole that they’re supposed to be weirded out or afraid of these things.
We tried so hard to raise our kids to not be afraid of spiders, and to decide for themselves whether they had a preference for blue or pink, dolls or cars etc. But none of that effort survived contact with their extended family or starting school.
At least for the spider thing we’re having some success with unlearning that fear. When it’s a choice between spiders in their room or mosquitoes, they’re choosing the spiders.
I haven’t been able to observe all two year olds. It’s only a few percent of the population that has arachnophobia, and the fact that it doesn’t always present in infancy doesn’t mean it’s learned.
Though it’s quite possible there’s a combination of predisposition and learning.
Definitely some evolutionary coding at play.
One of my coworkers said she was trying to catch some ants to try to nurse a spider in her house back to good health. Absolutely insane behavior.
golly, what a woman 💘
tell her that she’s my friend and I love her for that
spiders are fine as long as they arent venomous, and Estonia doesn’t have venomous spiders in the wild
Perhaps dont eat the spiders?
shit right i meant venomous
Also, both will absolutely bite you, randomly. And climb on random things.
At least spiders won’t drop things off ledges
Except for themselves. Usually aiming land on your head for some inexplicable reason.
Well, they are not really the same, are they? One is cute, small, furry and graceful. And the other one’s a cat.
We have huntsman spiders in Australia, they make great house pets. It’s a little game everyday to see what wall/corner they have moved to and they keep other bugs away.
They also eat mice and lizards and can drag them up the walls.
There’s all the people posting that they are arachnophobic in the comments, and then there’s this person lmao.
I wonder if they were more common here would people be more or less arachnophobic in general? Like, I’m much more afraid of a wasp than a crow because crows cannot sneak up and stab me. Or rather, they haven’t tried. UNLIKE WASPS.
I’d still be careful with crows. They’re wicked smart, can mimic sounds including human speech, and remember your face for life.
However, crows are normal beings, while wasps are demons from hell. It’s unfair to compare them
I will defend the wasps. Most are harmless, many perform vital duties like pollination and pest control (they parasitize hornworms in the garden for example), and even species with reputations for being angry will only be angry if you get near or destroy their homes. And who wouldn’t?
I spent the last month pressing apples for cider and almost immediately this activity attracts fleets of yellow jackets. But as long as you don’t smoosh any they won’t sting and are quite friendly. I will even grab them out of the cider bucket with my bare hands if they fall in, and set them down to dry off with no risk. They’re kind of like cats in a way, curious and a bit moody, again though, as long as you don’t start messing around with their nests
with crows it’s a very human kind of threat, they take offense to the same things we do and retaliate in the same way.
Whenever crows come up, I remember that
fake as fucktotally legit true story bro of someone who started a crow gang war by offering french fries to one side and annoying and harassing the other.Exactly. Even better, you’re not obligated to interact with them, so they’ll always be strangers you can simply ignore and respect.
Wasps are important links in the decomposition cycle [of your happiness].
cereally tho, if you’re eating outside and you attract the attention of The Wasp, you must offer payment for their services. Animal proteins are most valuable, followed by whatever else they might be interested in. Just remove a little piece of whatever it is, hold it up for them to sense, and put it to the side. It’s actually really cool to see them carve up a chunk of it and carry it off like a heavy cargo helicopter.
Personally, and idk if there’s a phobia for this, I really don’t like things that are small and fast. If I can’t keep track of something it makes me uncomfortable. So spiders are an ick for me.
this is why i’m generally fine with orbweavers: they will literally stay in the exact same spot forever if they keep catching food, and if they decide to relocate they won’t spend more energy than necessary.
many years ago I had a big one that camped over a light in a corner that was always on, so I got to see her catch SO MANY things. Moths, earwigs, other spiders… Spiders do unfortunately poop so the lampshade had spots on it but it was evidence of what WASN’T roaming around my place
I fucking love spiders, they’re awesome
I kept wokf spiders in my place. They take care of ants, prevent roaches, and get rid of the other spiders that are dangeous. No help with mice, though.
Huh, it might’ve actually been a wolf spider that I threw out. Didn’t know spiders that don’t build nets enjoy entering homes. I guess temperatures are starting to drop, so it makes sense.
At least it would explain why it was just sitting in the middle of my wall nowhere near a corner.
Also apparently the other commentator was right, your wolf spiders are probably too small:
Wolf spiders are a vital source of natural pest control for many people’s gardens or even homes, since the wolf spider preys on perceived pests such as crickets, ants, cockroaches, and in some cases lizards and frogs
just find some bigger ones
I would not like to live together with a spider that helps with mice. That beast would probably keep me from living in my home or cure my arachnophobia by force,either one of the two.
If a spider was you sized it wouldn’t hesitate
“A tiger enters the room”
It’s probably find it’s legs don’t really work at that size though.
