I have been allowing spiders to live in my house, and I don’t know if this is a Stretching Exercise or if this is something that will land me in the madhouse, because AIEEEEEE SPIDERS IN MY HOUSE.
This came about because of a meme, in case you have been thinking nothing anyone says on Facebook changes anyone’s mind. If you’d prefer not to click any link in a spider post, it’s the meme where a spider is saying things like “Okay, I got all the termites and ants taken care of for you… HEY WHAT’S THAT BOOK FOR?” and so on. In school, my friends teased me for anthropomorphizing ANYTHING (even on one memorable occasion a crouton) (it’s Paul who makes it so memorable, by never letting anyone forget it), and this just GOT to me. Fine, spiders are good. I accept it. I will attempt peaceful coexistence.
But dear sweet biscuits, there has got to be an UNDERSTANDING. They can be up in the corners, that’s fine. They can even walk from place to place as long as I don’t have to see them do it. But there can be no (NO) dangling down from the ceiling. There can be no (NO) showing up in the shower. And this morning when I turned the calendar page to take a look at May (HOW IS IT ALREADY ALMOST MAY?), I had to add a new rule: no (NO) climbing around in the calendar. IT IS NOT A JUNGLE GYM.
OMG, so funny. I am the spider killer in the house , so I get to decide who lives and who dies. If you are there when I finally get to you , You are dead. If you are in my personal space such as a calendar, you are dead. If you make my husband squeal like a child , you may live as long as you are not in the potty. I am so sorry about your surprise. I hope the offender died for his treachery.
Might I add – no spiders in the bedroom and/or climbing on a sleeping person?
I’m trying the same thing at our house in order not to pass along my fear of spider to my kid. So far I do best with the little tiny ones who hide in the corner (we name them all Spike) but I do insist they stay out of the bedroom.
I love your writing! Have a fantastic week!
My big issue with house spiders is the DISAPPEARING. You can stay as long as I can keep an eye on you.
Spiders can live in my house (well, one or two, not hundreds and hundreds). They don’t bother me, they don’t bother my husband. My older daughter is 4 and has picked up from somewhere that spiders are generally considered scary so we’re working on that. I used to remove spiders when I found them and put them outside but now I don’t, can’t be bothered.
I started to write a comment about how no spiders are allowed to live in the House on the Corner because in Kansas spiders are brown and reclusive, but then I read the meme and ha! Almost decided to let them help me with the wasp fighting, but no. Even laughter can’t save the spider who crosses my path. They are creepy.
LOL!!!! I felt the exact same way after seeing that meme! I try so hard to be a good Buddhist and not kill bugs, but DAMN… keep to your part of the house, and I’ll keep to mine. If you show yourself, you run the risk of sudden death. And, for the love of God, stay off my face in the middle of the night.
Surely you are not suggesting that I am supposed to just let spiders live? In my house? The house I am also living in? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Also, we are obviously going to need to hear the story about the crouton.
Oh, you make me laugh.
True story: I have always been a live-and-let-live kind of person re: spiders. I will escort them out of the house promptly, but I won’t kill them (obvious exception: black widows). I have always assumed that this was a sign of my spiritual nature (don’t kill Auntie Spider, mother of the universe), or possibly my superstitious nature (bad luck etc.), but when I recently reread James in the Giant Peach to my kids I realized that it probably originated in a desire to distance myself from the awful, totally sexist portrayals Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, who trap a spider accidentally while painting and later kill it on purpose (as most normal people would, especially while cleaning). Well played, Roald Dahl. Spiders are upstanding citizens of the world, and even a truly mean-spirited and cruel (but “jolly”) centipede makes the grade, but a couple of unmarried women who just want to keep their house reasonably clean? Flatten em.
I still don’t kill spiders, though.
So you guys get daddy long legs in America? They’re pretty harmless. Anyway, one morning I get up and the ENTIRE bathroom is flooded. So I yelled to my husband, “RYAN, WHY IS THE ENTIRE BATHROOM SATURATED!?” “BECAUSE THERE WAS A DADDY LONG LEGS IN THE SHOWER WITH ME SO I HAD TO LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN SO I COULD JUMP OUT IN A HURRY!” I should have been angry but I actually cracked up laughing!
I really have no problem with spiders, the one poisonous one around here is a redback and they tend to live outside. They are ‘kill on sight’ because of pets and kids being around. Every other spider may live inside. Though I admit my thoughts on that were tested when I found about 100 baby spiders on my lounge room window. *deep breaths Heather, deep breaths* I walked away and left them alone, which was quite difficult.
Also, I’ll tidy their home if they get too out of control, just to remind them that I don’t actually LIKE their home being inside mine lol. They can easily rebuild and it keeps them in check a little.
Spiders creep me out, but they are allowed to live in my house too! One lived in my bathroom for 3 weeks and I had to work around him because I couldn’t bring myself to kill him. This made getting ready in the mornings a very long process!
What was especially scary is each morning when I went for the shower, I wouldn’t have my contacts in yet, and I had no idea where he would be loitering that day. One day he planted himself in the sink for a day so everyone had to wash their hands in the kitchen.
I thought maybe he was depressed and suicidal or maybe he a part of some initiation hazing. Then I thought he might bring all of his friends to my safe house. Or maybe he is a she and waiting for her spiderlings to hatch. It was too cold to bring him outside and I felt bad for him – I wish we could’ve established some boundaries though.
I’m fine with spiders living in my house….as long as I don’t know they are there. Once I do know they are there, I send in the executioner…aka Hubby.
We had a daddy long legs who lived in our apartment once when we were first married. I named him Boris. I kept an eye on him and would see him periodically as he moved around the living room from wall to wall. I try to live and let live with most spiders but some of them are so gnarly that they just have to go. And house centipedes? OMG, immediate death.
Ah yes. We are into peaceful co-existence, mostly, though gentle relocation (to outdoors) is among our tools, if position or behavior is problematic (this applies to all bugs/spiders). Problematic relocation can include location problematic to the bug (e.g. you are in the sink and I want to run the water), so it really is pretty friendly/gentle/well-intentioned.
The roaches, though! Oh, the roaches (those large ones, known as water bugs I think?). Urgh. Rationally I know there aren’t (don’t seem to be) that many and that they are no different on a philosophical level from all the bugs and spiders whose presence I embrace. But! Ooh, they skeeve me out and I will sometimes smush them.
Books to reduce spider-fearing children’s concern: maybe Charlotte’s Web? My son is currently freaking quite specifically about poisonous spiders and the thought that one might bite him and we have a library book that provides reasonably reassuring information: they are rare (around us, anyway), timid, and really not all that dangerous, usually (there are exceptions that likely involve allergic reactions, per our library book…).
As a teen, I found and brought into our house a small (1-2 inch) brownish orb on a branch and dropped it in a pottery thing hanging on the kitchen wall. I’m pretty sure my mother and I were both aware of what it was, but it looked cool, and it was winter — until it was spring, that is, when one day 800 million miniscule preying mantises appeared in my mother’s kitchen. Oops. Fortunately she’s pretty steadfast. (There was also that time the turkey soup she cooked for New Year’s day guests turned purple because I’d used the same pot to make some — lovely, I might add! — tie dye. And then left town. Being old enough to drive, and leave town independently. But not old enough to properly wash the pot, apparently.).
We have spiders in the basement. I can handle them in the basement. I don’t want to get any cozier than that and I’m willing to take their life to secure the borders of my comfort zone.
I used to peacefully scoop them up and deposit them gently outside. Then i moved to this horrid place of searing summer heat and black widows. They thrive here. Now I not only kill every slider on sight (baby widows look different so I’m just being cautious) but I have a spray guy come out quarterly to kill all of them. And I’m not a pesticide person. But EFF those black widows everywhere!
You are kinder than I. I stomp them out. I admit it.
Or I , ah, ask someone else to stomp them out.
And I sleep soundly.
You are kinder than I. I stomp them out. I admit it.
Or I , ah, ask someone else to stomp them out.
And then I can sleep soundly.
UGH. Shower spiders are the WORST. And why do they appear right when I’m all soaped up and therefore the most vulnerable?!