(no subject)

[arethinn]

[Poll #1049164]

Myself, I generally leave them alone, unless they are right over my bed (catch and take outside), in the bathtub (which they can never get out of unaided, thus catching and taking outside is really saving them), or my mother has pointed them out (and she would kill them if I didn't take them outside). If they're anywhere else in the house I just say "hello, spider!"

Comments

[winterredwood.livejournal.com]

I try to take them outside, but if the cats find a spider first I'm likely to let 'em play with it.

[elf]

Depends on where and what kind of spider.
Black widows, and anything that looks remotely like them, get killed on sight. Zero tolerance for spiders with round smooth black bodies. Not even if they might be common grass spiders.

Wolf spiders get killed if they're in open areas that people move through. Wolf spiders are aggressive; they'll bite people who move too close to them.

Cellar spiders get killed if they're on the bed, tables or kitchen counters; if they stay to corners, under shelves and such, they're welcome to stick around. They only get killed (or even moved) if they're in an area that people actively need to be using. If they want to use the area between the lamps and the walls, that's fine with me.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

We have black widow spiders in the Bay area?

[elf]

We have them; they're rare. The black widow found in the Bay Area is the shiny black Latrodectus mactans, sporting a characteristic red hour-glass-shaped mark on the underside of her abdomen.

Black widow webs are very strong; since their venom is strong enough to take down even wasps, their webs are strong enough to hold a large, struggling bug, unlike cellar spider webs that won't hold a full-grown fly.

And they're fairly non-aggressive, except for males during mating season. Which go hunting for mates away from webs, hence the "squish it if it looks like a black widow" policy. But even those are mellow compared to wolf spiders, which have a "bite first; decide what it was later" philosophy.

[glitterychaos.livejournal.com]

One of my biology teachers (with a fondness of spiders that I share) has done a few studies in the Bay Area and found that black widows were significantly more common than previously thought, and far from rare. The few cases of black widow bites is mostly because well, they aren't agressive. They'd much rather be left in peace and if bothered, tend to run first and bite only as a last resort.

Part of the problem lies in their IDing characteristics. Who's going to turn a spider over onto its belly to look for a red hourglass marking before squishing it?? Not many people. In any case, not all widows have that prominent, easily IDed red hourglass mark. There's also a widow spider common in California that's not even black (its brown, varying shades of it if I remember rightly).

In any case, they aren't dangerous to humans if you take the few simple precautions most spider sites recommend (most important is the wearing of gloves when handling non-frequented places outside): http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG369/notes/black_widow_spider.html

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

Whoa! I had no idea they were that huge. The biggest spider I've ever seen (aside from a tarantula), which was grey/brown and had set up shop in the ivy on our backyard fence, was bigger than 40mm legs stretched, but not by much. Most spiders in my house are 15mm tops.

[glitterychaos.livejournal.com]

They don't live out in the open. In fact, my prof had to crawl under houses before he found lots of them. So um, don't go crawling under your house? :)

I've a fairly big spider, with an abdomen of oh, maybe 30mm, maybe a bit more. Plus legs its definitely over 40mm. Its quite happy in its ginormous web outside my bedroom window, and doesn't mind the camera flash or flashlight, so I've had fun observing it web-spinning and eating and the like. But that's large, for a spider out in the open. I don't usually see them bigger than 10-30mm, legs and all, just hanging out in the open. And I usually am looking out for them too :)

[heartssdesire.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. They are quite common in rural areas and they do get pretty large. I've seen ones with bodies nearly the size of the pad of my thumb. Fortunately it is pretty uncommon to find them in houses unless it's been sitting vacant. They like dark, quiet places. You usually find them occuping the corners of sheds, spaces underneath people's decks or stairs, stuff like that. They're pretty distinctive even if you can't see the red hourglass; their bodies look very fat and very black and shiny like armor, and the legs are sharp and black and smooth, not hairy. They *look* like dangerous spiders. Also the webs they make are tougher, not cobwebby.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, depends on the kind of spider. I'd definitely add brown recluses to the instant death list. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with them anymore now that I'm back on the east coast.

Wolf spiders are crazy and they get death, too. I had one chase me across my bedroom in FL. I have to say that's the first time I've actively been chased by any animal.

[ninth-myth.livejournal.com]

same here. small and harmless - catch and put outside.
huntsman in an easy spot catch and put outside (call for help if around, i'm not good around spiders but i still want to throw up if i make it drop a leg and they have bad uncooperative legs) in a bad spot kill and hope like hell i know where it dies.
anything weird looking is usually poisonous around here so isolate and kill.

[ninth-myth.livejournal.com]

and on seeing some of your replies, average size of spider discovered in house is about 8 to 12 cm leg span (not stretched out even) or the little ~2cm whitetails. and i have a lot of 'stuff' and good spider hiding places hence the freaking out when they run. the freaky looking ones are usually smaller and more compact, about 5cm. spiders are firmly the boyfriend's domestic duty. i keep jars, cd spindle lids etc in most rooms. but i aim to keep a well sealed house (and car!) so i can just avoid the whole issue. i'm ok with them outside, just run in the opposite direction.
we have the world's giantest woodpile and my father likes to lay a new fire whenever the old one is burnt. and it's an open fire so perfect invasion potential. paranoid? not much.

[rialian.livejournal.com]

===I tend to be respectful of these folk....no reason to harm unless they are interested in harming me...(even the more toxic sorts.)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

To further clarify - if the spider is small or easy to capture, it's caught and taken outside. Others are killed - spiders are scary, but that's not their fault. They are also not as scary as centipedes, for which the only answer is death.

[rainsingingwolf.livejournal.com]

Normally, I'll leave them alone if I recognize that they're not poisonous. My mate is deathly afraid of them though, so lately, if I recognize they are not poisonous, they simply get taken outside.

I used to have a pet spider in the corner of my room when I was in Kindergarten or First grade. That was really cool.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

I used to take them outside. Now, I live in an apartment complex where taking anything outside requires opening three doors with fairly heavy tension bars (while holding a cup with paper over it? Or some other spider-containing device? uhhh...) and walking down two flights of stairs.

Or else just throwing the spider out a window with something like a 20-foot drop onto a sidewalk.

Basically, it's just not practical any more. I don't feel very good about this.

[suileach.livejournal.com]

Mostly it depends on the type of spider and on who else is home. If someone else is around who is capable of catching them, then I alert them (if the spider is particularly fast, large, hairy, of any variety wherein 'necrosis' is a potential effect of being bitten, or ON ME, this involves screaming) so that the spider can be taken outside.

Unfortunately, if I'm home alone and anything but a Common House Spider is actively in my space, then it's kill it or trigger a panic attack (sometimes both at once). :/

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

It depends more on what kind of spider it is. I hate the little black ones, but I like the big spindly ones that live in the corners of the room and catch bugs for me.

In general, I will kill or ignore, never remove. Even better, get someone else to kill or remove if it's a black one.

[ahril.livejournal.com]

If I am by myself, I'll usually leave it alone. There's a rather large brown Huntsman spider currently setting up shop in the laundry room, but only I or the cat ever go down there, so I'm not worried about it. The tiny ones that usually inhabit the corners of the ceilings and catch gnats and whatnot are also usually left alone unless they are in the children's room and they are pointing and screaming. In that instance, I usually get the dust mop, gently harvest the spider(s) and put it (them) outside. Their webs are removed when they become noticeable, but usually the spider that made the web is gone from it by that time.

The poisonous ones here do not generally come inside except for perhaps inhabiting the crawl space under the floorboards into which I do not venture. We have both black widows and brown recluse, and we have seen examples of each outside during which times we have shown them to the children at a distance so they know what they look like, and then left them alone.

Asian tiger mosquitoes are killed ruthlessly wherever they are found however.

[gesigewigus.livejournal.com]

I've started killing them, but I have a basement room with millipedes, ants and spiders, so I proclaimed that now if I find them in my room, I will kill them, outside of the house they are okay. I restate that every time I kill one, and it does seem like the number of them is going down, but that could be in my head.

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

Anything that looks like a black widow or brown recluse in my house gets squashed. Wolf spiders, I scream like a little girl and make someone else deal with, as having had one jump at my face was the original cause of my arachnophobia. I'm mellowing in my old age, so everything else gets left alone.

[heartssdesire.livejournal.com]

It depends not just on where it is, but also what species.
Most spiders I won't kill. I have a superstitious belief that it causes bad luck and spiritual malaise to kill spiders. The exception is black widows. There really isn't a tolerable population level of black widows I can responsibly allow anywhere near my house, so I kill them if I find them around my house or sheds or anywhere people might stumble across them. If I ever saw a brown recluse I'd probably kill it too.

Any other spider I generally catch and take outside. Sometimes if they are minding their own business making a web up near the corners of my ceiling I just leave them, figuring they help keep other bugs under control. If I find them crawling around on the walls, or on the furniture or floor, I take them outside. I used to leave just about any spiders I found unless they were *on* me, or stuck in the bathtub, but then I discovered that eventually they breed in your house and then you have tons of spiders and they end up getting on you all the time, and biting you in your sleep, and generally being a nuisance. At least, in the country it's that way, maybe it's less of a problem in cities. So now I take most of them outside.

[billfl.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm in the minority (at least aroud here), but if I see them in the house, they're gone. Outside is a different story, but the arachnia have no place in my indoor environment.

[rainman1432003.livejournal.com]

If it's a Brown Recluse in the house, I kill it with extreme prejudice. If it's in certain corners of the house, I'll leave it; otherwise I take it outside, unless it's in a place where I vacuum on a regular basis, then I say "happy reincarnation!" You should be able to code this up very easily...

Long time, no talk. Hope all is well in CA.

Later,
Ran