I’m a bit of a spider fan, and am perfectly fine with letting 8-legged folks roam about the house (as long as they’re harmless - wolf spiders are okay, brown recluses are not.) Right now, for instance, there is a sizable Lycosidae wandering about on my bedroom carpet, and I am chill with it (although I don’t want to step on it at night, since its guts are gross.)
If I had a wife who demanded that harmless spiders be killed just because they scared her, I don’t know how I’d react. I am not a fan of killing when a critter doesn’t need to die (I don’t like seeing paper wasps killed either, for instance, if they’re good for eating pests and don’t pose a threat.)
So…spider-fearing Dopers, could you co-exist with a spouse who let spiders roam about indoors?
(Side question: Why do non-venomous spiders need killing? please explain)
I am an arachnophobe… My only “nightmares” always consist of having to enter dark, spider-infested places for… Reasons. *shudder*
But couldn’t live with anybody who kills them.
I will basically only kill houseflies and bloodsuckers (ticks and mosquitoes). I did kill a black widow in my utility room once. Otherwise I just ignore them or relocate them (after a very long period of psyching myself up).
Nope, nope, nope. Spiders need to be trapped under a glass and put out the window. Immediately.
I know that I live in a country with zero deadly poisonous spider species, but my lizard brain refuses to recognise this, and tells me to panic whenever I glimpse a spider-like object from the corner of my eye.
I am okay with spiders, although maybe not the big hairy ones. My wife can’t stand them and insists that they are evicted promptly.
We have a nifty gadget which is a tube and a battery-powered fan. Put it near a spider and it gets sucked in. Flick the switch and the unharmed creature is blown away.
I’m an arachnophobe who has lived with my pro-spider spouse for over 30 years. She’s not sufficiently pro-spider to buy a tarantula or play with native spiders, but she is quick to promote catching most spiders in the house and releasing them outdoors. Particularly scary looking ones, though, the big and hairy ones, she calls me to kill. So maybe she’s just a little bit pro-spider.
We get female dark fishing spiders here. I measured one with a 97 mm leg span. Nobody here is comfortable with those in our living quarters. We also get black widows outdoors, but they aren’t really that scary, as they are very sluggish and pretty small. They are worrisome, in the sense that we should remember to lift idle shelters cautiously lest we reach under and edge and get nailed. But that’s more like being aware that old wood has hard-to-see rusty nails sticking out of it, and not so much a phobic experience.
Are you kidding? I don’t even want to know someone that likes spiders, let alone live with them. A considerable amount of time is spent spider proofing my entire yard. And I’m good at it. Looks like I have finally eliminated the wolf spiders. Last year there were none while previous years I saw 4 or 5 each summer. I did see a bunch of medium sized aracs all of which managed to get under the garage doors. They sneak in the corners where the seal leaves a fine gap. This great product from Home Depot has worked fantastic. And for those who say, “But they eat the weight in bugs every week”. Guess what - they don’t weigh very much. I’ll take the bugs. I respect and appreciate insects. Awww, cute little praying mantis!
Help me understand this (since I’m a fan of both insects and arachnids): What is it, psychologically, that makes someone say, “6 legs good, 8 legs bad?”
Same. I’ve been ordered to kill the harmless things before but I just refuse. I’ll catch and release but if they want them dead they’ll have to to their own dirty work. The exceptions are things that are poisonous, venomous, or sufficiently disgusting/annoying (roaches, mice). Those things will die.
I’m adjacent to this issue. I don’t like bugs, whether insects or arachnids although I’m not phobic. My wife likes them, quite a lot, and has spoken about getting a tarantula or shudder a horrific tailless whip scorpion. We were previously an all snake and lizard house (which I’m totally cool with) that transitioned to an all snake house as the lizards passed away, and then one day she brought home a rehomed cat from the vet. So now we’re a 5 snake, 2 cat house (2nd cat was rehomed from Craigslist).
And the cats represent too big a threat to any insect, so I am saved from the horror, the horror, the horror . . .
Dear god those things are ugly. Okay, so otherwise I dislike but do not harm household insects that aren’t disruptive (ant invasion, get the bait, daddy longlegs shoo or take it outside). But every once in a while we’re at the local exotic pet store, and she sees that . . . THING and gets all googly eyed at it.
ETA - interestingly enough, about 2-3 years ago she brought home an acorn/bark scorpion that she found outside her clean room at work (she kept it in a micro den in our house for a year), and it was creepy, but still didn’t give me the heebie-jeebies like the thing that should not be.
While I appreciate praying mantises, whenever one turns its head to look at me, it seems to be thinking, “If I could just figure out a way, I’d eat like a king.”
Neither Mrs. J. or I are bothered by spiders, but they don’t belong indoors, especially when their eggs hatch into many many baby spiders in my houseplant collection.
On the other hand, while I am snake-tolerant, Mrs. J. is a major legless reptile-o-phobe.
My wife dislikes spiders. I have a definite “live & let live” attitude. If she sees one, she accepts that I’m just going to transplant it outside. If I see one, I just quietly wish it luck. There’s no venomous spiders around here except for the rare black widow and they don’t hang out in lit, traveled areas. If I did see one by some random chance, I obviously wouldn’t leave it to roam the house.
We were previously an all snake and lizard house (which I’m totally cool with) that transitioned to an all snake house as the lizards passed away, and then one day she brought home a rehomed cat from the vet. So now we’re a 5 snake, 2 cat house (2nd cat was rehomed from Craigslist).