Yay I made a poll. So uh, the question is kind of straight-forward.
I know people who put effort into not killing bees, spiders, flies, whetever crawls into their house, so they gently toss them outside with a tissue. But some people squash everything they see, no questions asked.
Me I only really kill mosquitos and cockroaches, when I encounter them at home (or on my body). I kind of feel bad about killing other crawly creatures, especially ants. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s that ant farm I had when I was a kid, but it would just feel wrong.
I only kill vermin. Even then I feel a little bad about it. But not bad enough to live with an infestation.
I really hate seeing little kids being encouraged to step on bugs just because they happen to be crawling by. Bugs are alive! I taught my kids to respect life.
How about an option for “only in self-defense?” I don’t kill any of them if I can help it, but I will swat a mosquito that’s actively trying to bite me.
Things like mosquitoes and houseflies get swatted because they’re annoying. When I see things like spiders I usually figure that, if they’re here, they must be eating some other bugs I don’t know about so God bless 'em.
Only certain kinds, and only if it’s in my house or trying to eat me; I stopped killing spiders when I lived in Costa Rica (where they’re viewed as beneficial since they eat mosquitos and mosquitos transmit dengue fever), but I’ll admit to having killed a couple since - I do tend to go Ogette smash! on things that startle me and spiders are good at startling…
There’s no venomous spiders in Spain outside of zoos, so I don’t need to worry about them biting me.
If it’s in my house, it signed up for a death warrant. I accept them when I go out into their world, even if they are trying to kill me; they can only accept me the same way.
Except for centipedes. I don’t kill those cause they freak me out and run around really fast and then spatter legs everywhere. So I usually get my SO to kill them, who welcomes the oppportunity to be the Manly Rescuer.
I tend to leave spiders alone, as they are Nature’s bug zappers (and I’m not in brown recluse or black widow territory).
Any six-legged crawlies, however, get terminated with extreme prejudice. My cat likes to help; he’s a champion moth and fly grabber (and eater :nonexistant barf smiley: )
The above go for inside my house. Outside I’m pretty live and let live except for wasps, hornets, and bees. I’m deathly afraid of being stung so I will either run like hell or hit them with Raid.
I voted “Yes, only certain kinds” although “Yes, but only in the home” is also pertinent. I kill cockroaches, houseflies and blowflies, mosquitoes, silverfish, centipedes, ants and Clockspiders, but only when they’re in my house. Outside, I leave even them be, and inside, I leave other spiders alone, and I gently remove beetles and millipedes to outdoors.
That’s my motto. I would never kill anything outside and almost never inside. An exception would be mosquitoes or other stinging bugs that I could not easily capture and release outside. A box elder landed in my hair last night. I let him crawl around on my desk as I used it to test camera close-ups. It’s still crawling around her someplace. Same deal with spiders. There’s the occasional long-legged one that needs help getting out of the slippery tub and sometimes those tiny jumping spiders that hang around window sills. If it ain’t bugging me, I don’t bug it.
Outside, don’t much care, except for yellowjackets and mosquitoes. YJ’s nest on our house, especially under the deck railing; during the summer I engage in chemical warfare against them on a regular basis.
Inside? The tiny, compact jumping spiders get a pass, if I can convince them to hang on to me (or an object I’m carrying) long enough to get them outside. Larger spiders are terminated with extreme prejudice.
When it gets unusually hot and dry outside, strawberry root weevils seem to find their way indoors. These are small, slow, flightless beetles. They just seem kinda dumb and harmless, and I end up feeling sorry for them, so they get scooped up and escorted outdoors.
I only kill roaches and mosquitoes (and them only if they’re on me). I actually really enjoy spiders and other types of insects, and often try to get a close up look at them while letting them outside. I’ve often tried to figure out why it is that I (and so many others) absolutely detest roaches, while not minding beetles at all even though they look very similar. I think it is the way they skitter. Or maybe it is some sort of hard-wired genetic memory that got built in somewhere or other.
If I had an actual infestation of anything else in my house I would try to kill them though.
In my new rented room, we have a house rule: humans stay upstairs, spiders stay downstairs (in the basement). We only have to go down there to do laundry so it’s a pretty good arrangement. If I see a spider upstairs, it must die (there was one in the shower today, too bad so sad). If they stay downstairs, I’ll keep a cautious berth but let them be.
Caveat: any spider that attempts to descend onto my head is destined for the electric chair, regardless.