I mostly have a policy of tolerance towards all living things. More than that; a policy of active rescue. I can’t stand to see animals hurt. If there’s a spider drowning in the pool I’ll fish it out. If there’s a bug in my sink I’ll remove it from the sink before I turn the water on. If there’s a dying wasp in the house oh poor thing might as well give it some fruit juice to get it through its last hours. (True story). I think crickets are cool and stink bugs are beautiful. I do have some issues with spiders, but I’m ashamed of myself and trying to get over them.
The exceptions are mosquitoes. Well, any parasite, but skeeters are the ones I see the most. The daily bane of my summer existence. Og, I hate those things. Squish em all, as far as I care.
Vermin are killed on sight. Insects that are helpful (e.g. spiders) are helped outside. I actually had a pet spider that lived on my side view mirror on my car. Every day, as I drove to work, the wind would break his/her web. Every night, he would make it again and the cycle would continue. We did this for like a month.
On the other hand, other insects (not only vermin) I usually kill on sight:
Ants: gotta get them before they make a nest indoors.
Termites: I have a ton of books I need to protect.
Centipedes: I have no desire to find out if I’m allergic to centipede bites.
You didn’t have an answer that suited me, so I didn’t vote. I’ll kill cockroaches pretty much whenever I can; I’ll kill ants I find in the house, and of course I have active anti-vermin measures in place. But if a flying insect is in the house, I’ll try to relocate it rather than kill it; likewise a spider (though I’ll destroy their webs).
Outdoors, even on my own property, I do not kill most single insects or spiders. Doesn’t seem fair. I’d destroy a wasps’ or bees’ nest on the property, though.
Roaches get the death penalty. Other insects are generally safe around me. If they cause trouble at my place, they’re escorted back to the border. The latter applies too to large, hairy, spiders, who are never granted a residence permit.
If I can save a spider, I’ll try. Hell, the white spiders that crawl on the windshield of my car I consider to be good luck. There are but two exceptions:
Those vicious bastid spiders that have lobster claws as front legs. They’ll attack you for no reason, they’ll attack you if you try to move them. They have the morality of scorpions & they need to die. By me, they always hang out in pine trees or pine-type bushes.
Bathroom spiders. You felt the cold tile. You know that cold tile means death. In your world, laws have no exceptions; you ask no quarter and none is given. The Rule of the Tile is no different. Don’t move and I’ll make this as painless and as quick as possible.
I kill whatever my wife tells me to kill. Otherwise, I find little mounds of shaving cream, or oven cleaner, or whatever other aerosol product she can find to immobilize creepy crawlies with.
Little tiny spiders I leave alone. Everything else in my apartment gets squashed. I have an electric bug zapper acquired in China that is perfect for the purpose. Press the button, hit the bug, and snap, crackle, pop! Sometimes with a nice flash and a smell of burning popcorn.
House centipedes are the worst. I’m feeling dizzy and sick with fear just thinking about them. Looking at a picture on Google makes me hyperventilate and my heart starts racing. They have to die or I’m moving out.
That’s quite the financial hazard. The trick is to cut off their funding supply.
I am not a fan of spiders, and this year, because of wacky weather, there have been a ton of indoor invaders, or webs built right where I’ve been walking, so they’re quite prevalent.
If they are indoors, I’ll kill them, unless they’re huge or cute. Both of those are rare, so the majority of the time they get sprayed or squished. Disease-ridden things like flies are definitely for the chop.
Outdoor creepy-crawlies are left alone, in fact I’ll even occasionally observe their natural behaviour to entertain myself.
Yep, it’s the only animal I detest. As well as skittering and the antennae, I would add the softness of their bodies. Not that I’ve ever touched one, but I imagine it would feel like touching a ripe plum. And we have pretty big ones here in Aus. Give me a Huntsman any day. I do kill Redback spiders when I see 'em though - they are deadly.
I live in a rural area, and consequently we get plagued by flies in the summertime, so I’m armed and ready with a can of flyspray whenever I see more than three in the kitchen at any given time.
We also have lots of spiders, even the venomous Redback hanging around on the verandah, but I’ve adopted a ‘Live and Let Live’ approach. They help to sort out the fly problem so I’d be stupid to annihilate them. Mozzies are eaten by the plethora of frogs we presently have (wettest season on record etc etc) and all the rest (crickets, cicadas, bugs and beetles) just add to the nocturnal cacophony that makes country living so sweet.
Mosquitoes are actively out for my blood. They die.
Flies annoy me with their incessant buzzing about and slamming into various surfaces. I’m not quick enough to swat them, so they get sucked into the Dustbuster instead.
Stinkbugs get picked up and either thrown outside or flushed, depending on how harmonious I’m feeling.
Spiders get to stay. Everything else gets relocated outside.
I tried letting a centipede stay once, but he kept tripping my fight-or-flight response every time my lizard brain noticed the wall was growing a mustache, so now they get relocated outside, too.
Oh yeah, them too if they sit on me. I don’t want no damned Western Nile virus.
Another thing that makes Calgary such a great place to live in summer is the lack of bugs. No rats, few bugs, cool evenings - it’s like heaven here in summer.
I love bugs. I not only don’t kill them, I will not tolerate them being killed in my house.
There are always reluctant exceptions. I’m sure I’ve killed mosquitoes by instinctively swatting at them. I once very guiltily sprayed to end an out-of-control ant situation.
In general though, I don’t kill bugs and I don’t take the killing of bugs (or any living thing, for that matter) lightly.
Spiders and cricket-y types get escorted out. You die if you sting, suck blood or eat my stuff. We have these wicked little wasp-like things that are pure evil. The cat chased one down and got stung on the nose, poor thing. It obviously hurt like hell and he has devoted his life to exacting his revenge ever since. Well, that and sleeping 18 hours a day.
