I don’t mind spiders as they eat the bugs I really don’t like. I do, however, prefer that they avoid places where they might actually end up on my person. In Texas, I had little furry hunting spiders that lived outside a number of my windows; they don’t spin webs, just catch and eat bugs, and I made sure they remained unharmed when the exterminator would come by to kill the rest of the bugs. Which was fine; he liked them, too.
But I also sometimes discovered a black widow or, worse yet, a brown recluse spider on my garage door. For some reason, the edges of the garage door were their favorite place. So I had to keep a sharp eye out for them, and they got sent to spider heaven as soon as I found them. Spiders that won’t hurt me I can deal with; spiders that can, bye-bye!
The things that totally creep me out are silverfish, slugs, and <shudder> leeches. I once picked up a small leech on my leg while trying to hack through the jungle in our new back yard in Louisiana, and my family is still laughing about my screaming like a little girl and spinning in circles freaking out.
In my part of the world (south east England), Pholcus phalangioides is known as the cottage spider, due to it’s liking for old buildings (Especially thatched ones). Crane flies and harvestmen (Opiliones) are known as ‘daddy long legs’.
I’m an arachophobe, btw, and as far as I’m concerned, spiders come in three sizes: ‘tolerable’, ‘big buggers’ and ‘ARGH!’ Anything larger than tolerable gets Dysoned with extreme prejudice.
My husband killed my big spider in my bathroom. It committed the cardinal sin of getting too close to him (on the shower curtain) instead of hiding like I’ve encouraged it to do.
Thanks for the info, Boulter’s Canary. Just goes to show why scientific names are useful.
One of the urban legends here is that the DLL is mega venomous. This is simply not true, and it is believed that this story got started due to mistaken identity. The DLL at a glance looks like the Violin Spider. Now there’s a major league arsehole.
I’d rather get bitten by a Button Spider (neurotoxic) than this fiddling cytotoxic sumbitch. Necrosis anyone?
I used to be on board with the happy environmentalist viewpoint that spiders are good and virtuous and our friends of the insect kingdom until one of the little bastards bit me. After nursing an itch on my leg for what seemed like months, and a cratered scar for a time after, I squash first and ask questions later. At least inside the house. They can live freely outdoors if they don’t mess with me.
I’m another one who adopts a “live and let live” policy. They stay out of my hair, they live. Only one spider has ever crawled into my hair and I am still P.O.'ed about that one - I let him live, and an hour later I found him in my hair. It was the highest-pitch scream I ever emitted.
My SO also finds them and stomps on them though. I can’t complain, because he kills centipedes for me.
We had a critter where I grew up (North Dakota) that was called Daddy Long-legs.
However, it looked nothing like the wikipedia link.
The daddy long-legs I picture looks like the spider thing in a Johnny Quest episode…like a ball with 8 legs and 2 antenna coming out of it. What the heck is it if it isn’t a daddy long-legs?
I have been bitten by two brown recluses in two parts of the country, both very close to my heart requiring lots of attention for months. (Bitten on boob + medical tape = tearing areola skin that isn’t actually necroticizing yet. Lovely.) I think I’m allowed to despise them.
Here we have black widows, that like living in the dirt on the lawn. Two petite dogs we have. I don’t want them at risk. We have pest control spray the outside of the house twice a year and the worst we ever see indoors is a gnat that comes to look at the bananas. Except for one week after each spraying we might see two spiders total that presumably come in and are dying. They get smashed. Always. So any spiders in our house are definitely not “hey you got other bugs they’re eatin’.”
I’m proud. Only in the last year have I been able to get close enough to smack them with blunt objects like VCR cassettes. Even the tiniest ones have to be smashed about seven or eight times to guarantee their death. I can’t do anything after that, though. I have to bring in someone else to throw away the body. It’ll sit there forever otherwise.
I’d rather deal with a spider than a goddamn fucking butterfly though. FUCK those things. Them and moths. The bigger, the worser. You can’t tell where they’re going! They just drift around randomly! They might land on you and you can’t notice and dodge, like with bees or wasps! Oh god…now I feel so itchy and nervous.
Fake edit: I just now got the first clock spider picture to work. Now I want to die.
I don’t know but it probably was. There are a bunch of little creatures that are called daddy long legs. Most of them are not spiders but are arcnides. And no I didn’t know you could be one withought being the other until recently. But there it is.
It committed the cardinal sin of getting too close to him (on the shower curtain) instead of hiding like I’ve encouraged it to do.