How long do spiders live? I’ve had one just inside my front door for about a month, and if the pile of corpses keeps growing, I will need to vacuum them. I suspect it’s going to be difficult to put the concept of, “Get your feet up,” across to him.
(I now know that my apartment is not as bug-free as I liked to think it was. This spider is living large.)
Bwah!
Until roughly three seconds after I see them.
Well how’s that for a coincidence? I was just in the middle of reading this thread when I decided to pop into the kitchen for a snack – and I found this little guy hunting around in the vicinity of my just-cleaned dishes, getting his tether webs all over them. :smack:
He didn’t seem too interested in doing a code review for me, so in the end I let him go on a potted plant, where he can make himself useful by killing more annoying bugs. 
Nice shots :). I’m guessing you are in the American Southwest or somewhere nearby ( West Coast ). That color pattern is a common mimic for Velvet Ants. It’s probably the Redbacked Jumping Spider, but there are a few of them with that coloration.
Thanks! And you got the coast right, at least; I’m in northwestern Washington. 
What are the really common spiders likely to be in the Quebec area? Brown, kind of fuzzy and maybe about an inch to an inch and a half big, including legs?
We have one stupid one that sets up the beginnings of a web across the landing halfway up the stairs outside. Given as those stairs lead to 4 apartments and at least 8 tenants, there’s a lot of traffic on those stairs and his/her web gets constantly torn down as we walk by. Nonetheless, a short while later, there’s another string or two stretched across the landing. Stupid spider never learns.
I dislike spiders but I’m not afraid of them. I let them live in the front of the apartment, but not in the bedroom - if I can relocate it I will but if I’m already ready for bed (read:naked) then forget it, the spider dies. My husband is rather pathetic in his fear of spiders (and other insects - he once nearly accidentally killed me because of a lady bug) and so the bedroom is a bug-free zone as much as possible.
‘Modern’ spiders - like those who build webs in houses, live one to two years. I find the collection of corpses fascinating to study, so tend to leave them. Visitors either put up with my spiders, or don’t visit.
"Primitive’ spiders are those whose fangs point straight down so they tend to raise their front halves to attack. These are the trapdoor spiders, Australian funnel-web and mouse spiders. They can live 20 to 30 years. I know of one Australian arachnologist who has been monitoring a female trapdoor who is now well over 30 years old.
Having some resident web builders in the house, or on the outside of windows and doors, is really good fun. The more you watch them, them more interesting they become. You will be amazed how well you get to know their habits and just how active they are. I use a strong torch, day and night, to watch mine - free entertainment. And when the little jumping spiders visit, the free entertainment just gets better.
I have two rules for spiders. Don’t go in the shower, and don’t drop down from the ceiling onto me.
This morning, one that set up shop in the ceiling-corner of my shower. He snuck in there about an hour after I showered. Usually, I find them in the tub, and I just wash them down the drain, but since this guy has a home already, I’m not sure what to do.
Sounds like good rules. What to do? Enjoy his company.
Cute and adorable!!! Thank you! Is it possible for a jumping spider NOT to be cute and adorable?
Okay, fuckers. Look. I like you. I like you a lot! I spent half the day Friday protecting your little brother! So why, precisely, are you trying to barricade me in my house?
Honestly! Months go by sometimes between sightings of large spiders when I’m not gardening a lot. This morning when I took the dog out, as I stepped down the first step of the back steps I realized, wait, there’s… oh shit. There’s a giant spider an inch from my face.
Now, see, we have a deal. I don’t like anything, no matter how many legs, to approach within a certain radius of my face without permission. You didn’t ask permission to spin your web (which you had just started, lazybones) across my back steps. You can spin it anywhere else. Anywhere else in the world, just about, and my face is in no danger of coming into contact with your house. Relocate.
Then I go out the front door to find that a completely different spider is chowing down on some prey, having started a web across my FRONT steps. What the fuck, guys? And of course I only saw this one when I got rather too close as well. I couldn’t really get a good look at what kind this one was, since it was all cuddled up around its breakfast. There are no spiders anywhere else on my front porch, which offers several better places to build a web just like the space over the front steps, okay?
Because now it’s getting a little creepy, is all.
