Should I kill spiders in my home? An entomologist explains why not to.

[Cattledog]

I know it may be hard to convince you, but let me try: Don’t kill the next spider you see in your home.

Why? Because spiders are an important part of nature and our indoor ecosystem – as well as being fellow organisms in their own right.

People like to think of their dwellings as safely insulated from the outside world, but many types of spiders can be found inside. Some are accidentally trapped, while others are short-term visitors. Some species even enjoy the great indoors, where they happily live out their lives and make more spiders. These arachnids are usually secretive, and almost all you meet are neither aggressive nor dangerous. And they may be providing services like eating pests – some even eat other spiders.

My colleagues and I conducted a visual survey of 50 North Carolina homes to inventory just which arthropods live under our roofs. Every single house we visited was home to spiders. The most common species we encountered were cobweb spiders and cellar spiders.

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Both build webs where they lie in wait for prey to get caught. Cellar spiders sometimes leave their webs to hunt other spiders on their turf, mimicking prey to catch their cousins for dinner.

Although they are generalist predators, apt to eat anything they can catch, spiders regularly capture nuisance pests and even disease-carrying insects – for example, mosquitoes. There’s even a species of jumping spider that prefers to eat blood-filled mosquitoes in African homes. So killing a spider doesn’t just cost the arachnid its life, it may take an important predator out of your home.

https://theconversation.com/should-i-kill-spiders-in-my-home-an-entomologist-explains-why-not-to-95912?linkId=52304535&linkId=54962394

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I leave them alone, but my cats sometimes eat them.

[JuJuYoshida]

2. I kill them, one of those bastards left a hole in my back.

They picked the WRONG ONE to bite so my cat and I are waging a full war!

[hibbing]

3. I usually leave them alone

Occasionally I will capture them and let them outside. Especially if they are huge.

Peace

[whathehell]

4. I just "evict" them from the premises..

I don't like to kill anything.

[Brainstormy]

5. taking spiders back outside

is a man's job.

[Lint Head]

6. And they leave spider dung and pee everywhere.

[GemDigger]

7. I have the lower 5' of the room and they have the top. They live if they stay out of my space.

It also depends on what kind of spider.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. I rarely kill them. We do have some bad ones like brown recluses that

I don't want to share rooms with. Also, we have a very tiny one that bites me. I react really bad to spider bites . I take Benadryl as soon as I can to reduce swelling and itching. Once in San Francisco, I had to go to an ER for direct shot of Benadryl.

[samnsara]

9. i relocate them outside

[TomSlick]

10. Gee, I don't know.

Spiders are like snakes. Sure, some of them are harmless - even beneficial.

Nevertheless, my rule is kill them all and let God sort them out.

[3catwoman3]

11. I often put them outside if I can...

...capture them under a drinking glass (not just a man's job - ).

I often find spiders hanging out in our cats' litter boxes. We call them "the poop spiders." I tend to dispatch those as they look like brown recluses and I don't want them to bite the cats.

[japple]

15. That's what we do here in our home in North GA. Same thing with wasps, bees, other

insects and occasional lizards/skinks) that make their way indoors. We just put a glass over them and slide a stiff cardboard underneath, then relocate them outside.

[Rhiannon12866]

18. I do that, too!

Glad to hear it's not just me. I have a big plastic cup that I saved - and I have a card to put on top, think it's my voting information...

[3catwoman3]

19. I also rescue worms from th e driveway and sidewalks...

...after it rains, so they don't dry out and die when the sun comes out.

No such mercy for flies, mosquitos, and stinging insects.

[Rhiannon12866]

20. I have done that, though I don't do much outside

But inside - just tonight I climbed all over the place to catch and release a moth that I'd accidentally let in. But I agree, I draw the line at mosquitoes!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. I get black widow spiders in my house.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to ignore them.

I also get the occasional daddy longlegs, and they're too creepy to tolerate. And I don't have mosquitoes where I live.

I do get an occasional lizard in the house. Those I gently shoo to outside.

[msongs]

13. yep, red hour glass squash time nt

[D23MIURG23]

14. I held this view until I had an apartment with a centipede problem.

I read about it and found out that centipedes will eat spiders.

[japple]

16. Have a bad story about centepiedes. My cousin was bitten by a centepiede

in a motel. She had an allergic reaction. By the time she got back from her vacation several days later, her organs were shutting down. She is an ICU nurse and knew that her symptoms were severe. She was on life support for several days. She spent several days in (her own employer's) ICU. She spent many days on a wound vac in a rehab hospital. After 6 months, she was able to go back to work. She still has issues...

[D23MIURG23]

17. That's awful.

Sorry to hear that this happened to someone in your family.

I was luckily never bitten by any of the centipedes, and even if I had been these weren't dangerous, just your typical house centipedes. There are centipedes you really want to stay away from though.