Dang spider

[Lizzie]

Like Miss Z., I like spiders. I ignore them no matter where they are unless they are really big and I'm afraid one of the cats might get an upset stomach from eating it, then I capture it and put it outside. I'm always rescuing spiders from sinks and tubs by putting a cloth down so they can crawl out and scuttle off.

However, I do have an aversion to the small black spiders that walk sideways like a crab because they will bite me and always cause a big lump that will last a week. I capture them if I can but will kill if I have to because they will harm me.

And, if faced with a black widow spider, or, even worse, a scorpion, I would be murderous.

[phesina]

I've followed this thread with morbid curiosity... am I the only one who catches the offending creepy crawly in a cup/hand, and puts it outside?

No, you aren't the only one. I live in a very small apartment, which is right next to the door to the outside and the bushes in front of the building. Any living thing I don't want inside with me somehow winds up walking onto a napkin or piece of cardboard or into a box and then being escorted outside.

Most of the little tiny ones, including spiders, I just kind of feel live and let live.. if they won't hurt me, I won't hurt them. Ants and little flying things that spread germs, though, get done away with.

The other day while I was taking a shower I saw a tiny little black caterpillary-looking thingy maybe an inch long at the top of the shower curtain by a ring hole. I considered what to do about him.. first thinking "You got up there, you get down now," ..or somehow either interrupting my shower or waiting until I finished it, then gently opening the shower curtain, getting out, finding some kind of container to edge him (her? or are they "its"?) off into.. then having him wait in it while I got enough cover-up on to take him outside and set him loose. But before I finished the shower, he disappeared.. he was no longer up where he had been and I didn't see him anywhere else around there.. so I'm hoping he got somewhere safe.

[Marigold2]

OMG you let him see you naked?

[phesina]

I didn't "let" him do anything... by the time I saw him, he'd already been scoping out the whole scene.

That must have been what happened.. He thought "Now I've seen everything!" and departed for wherever they go.

[Asiel]

If there's one thing that will have me running out of the house it's a spider. I don't care what the size is, I just freak if I spot one. I also never kill one - I just run and scream for someone else to come to my aid...

[tokolosh]

If there's one thing that will have me running out of the house it's a spider. I don't care what the size is, I just freak if I spot one. I also never kill one - I just run and scream for someone else to come to my aid...

Limpet used to take care of all spiders for me. Not that she ate them, but she'd do one pounce or pat and then spend another 20 minutes poking the remains and wondering why they weren't doing anything. My mom's horror was caterpillars and she used to whistle up the dog to deal with them.

I don't mind small spiders too much. If it can fit on a penny, I'll live with it. But here we get these great huge leggy things that could grip a baseball, with BODIES the size of a dime, coming up out of the pipes, and I don't care whether it's a fellow creature or not. Problem is, if it's big enough for me to swat, it's also big enough to leave an actual corpse - and that would upset me almost as much as the living object. I'm just unwilling to take responsibility for what my own cowardice drives me to do. I want it gone and the truth is I don't care if it dies for my peace of mind. But I don't want to have to look at the corpse.

My solution to all the angst is the vacuum cleaner

[wombat2u2004]

I killed 13 Funnel Webs one day on a building site whilst testing the soil at the bottom of a hole 8 feet deep x 4 feet wide x 6 feet long. They kept on dropping off the walls of the hole and I had to step on them with my boots.
My mate up top even had his truck started in case I was bit.....I'd have to get to a hospital within 20 minutes.....or one dead Wombat.

[Marigold2]

Man is that thing ugly. Eek.