this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Spiders are comrades in my ongoing extermination war against against mosquitoes.
Those spiders you find inside may be of a type completely adapted to living indoors with humans. Putting one outside means death.
I made this mistake with a stink bug when it was winter. It was ok with being on the piece of paper I had it on. When I opened the door and the cold air hit it, it backed away towards me. I set it down and it stopped moving. Oops. :(
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Big this.
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Spiders deserve to live, Mosquitoes deserve to die
Even vegans agree.
Are mosquitoes angels?
I cry.
One thing to notice Most animals that are inside your house, are inside your house for a reason. And if you put them outside to "live" they will just die if they cannot return to a suitable environment with a reliable source of food and proper cover from the weather and predators.
So, sorry for taking away the guilt free feeling of putting an animal outside thinking it will live a long happy life in the wilderness.
I often think about this too, though a quick search about house spiders did suggest to me they have a decent chance of survival through winter. I don’t think human structures have been around long enough for species to have adapted to be dependent on them.
Even though I still have arachnophobia, I've intentionally lived with spiders for over a decade and I've not had issues with mosquitoes even if I left all of my windows open. And my roommates are thriving!
They're very chill roommates, too! After about 1-2 months of adjusting to living together in my old apartment, they stopped spinning webs in the areas which I used frequently and focused on the zones which I left out for them - ceiling corners, gaps between walls and furniture, etc. I did occasionally clean up their old webs every now and again (while taking great care not to bother the spiders themselves) because they also gathered a lot of dust. But they'd replace the old webbing in a matter of days.
And they never developed overpopulation issues, even though I did see them producing egg sacks regularly. I was expecting to drown in spiders by the end of the first year of trying this arrangement, but I never counted more than 15-20 spiders apartment-wide.
15-20? Do you tend to have open windows or doors?
Generally, yes, even during winter for the most part.
Yeah I've always had similar arrangements with spiders. I don't bother them if they don't bother me. Wolf spiders chilling in my bathtub do get expropriated through the nearest window though.
Oh, wow! I'd probably just die if I ever saw a wolf spider in my tub! Like, complete simultaneous organ failure, the energy which is me would just eject from my body.
Lucky for me, I live in Temperate-Continental, so my biggest threat is seeing a Long-Legs dangling down to check up on me while I'm showering!
And I'm serious about this. Maybe it was just me imagining things, but I swear they started inspecting me every now and again. Like, I'd be at my desk playing, and I'd see one rapelling from the ceiling, like 20-30 cm away from me. Seldom has any descended onto the actual desk, though, they'd just hang for a bit, then climb back up. It was strangely comforting, though, it makes them feel a lot more alive and present than the mind would tend to think about an eight-legged thing right out of my nightmares. They really have become my roommates.
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i love spiders, they are such helpful creatures.
Spider bro is my ally against the wool moths, at the moment. If I catch one I'm putting it in the closet.
They earn their keep.
We had aphids in the garden last year. Wolf spider moved in, big fat guy. Made short work of em. Wolf spider is welcome among my lettuce any day.
I have so many spiders on the lower floor of the place I'm in now I've given up on even bringing them outside. I identify what they are to keep track if we have an uptick in dangerous ones. If it is a particularly gross one it goes in the garage to war it out with the cellar spiders otherwise I just shoo them under furniture so I don't have to think about it. Damnit I'm turning into my dad...
They keep the bad stuff out, I figure. I try to put them in my plant pots if I find them around.
I only wish spiders wanted to be hugged and kissed as much I want to hug and kiss them. Actually, this applies to a lot of things.
I think they die outside or come back in.
My rule has always been simple. It I'm in its house (outside), it's not my business. If it's in my house, I have to make a choice. That choice was always smash (I'm arachnophobic), but my daughter has led me down the paragon path and I now save more than half of all spiders inside of my house. Maybe more. I don't get that many spiders in my house here in arid western Canada.
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To be fair, the spider will likely be responsible for the deaths of many other insects, but honestly, I'm ok with that. They can live in my house rent free if they keep the other bugs from making my home their home.... And they don't crawl on me. That's just begging to be killed....
Spiders are bros.
I agree that we shouldn't disturb nature, but let's not forget that animals kill each other all the time. There's no such thing as ethics in nature.
Spiders are good, they eat the other bugs that cause trouble. The spiders we have are tiny though.
My preferred method is using a piece of paper, slide it gently under them and lift.
Tried and true! I also add a jar because they make me jump, I can't help it lol. I have had big orb spiders crawl on me in the woods while climbing in the US and we have large spiders here incl. the giant English house spider here. They are both the size of hands. Freak me the fuck out haha.
to continue the story: so, he was released in the wilderness and the other 2 spiders saw him all clean and posh that decided to beat him up and mug him.
Unless the spider in question is a likely danger/hazard, leaving them be is generally my policy. They don't usually bother me. That said, the time a calisoga spider got in the house, it caused a visceral fear reaction. I didn't kill it though, just got safety glasses and trapped it before releasing it outside (I didn't know that it was not a tarantula at the time).
My wife and all my kids are deathly afraid of spiders. I put them all outside and I'm happy that's the example I'm setting.
Spider bro, spider bro, keeping that fly population low.