Thanks to the commentator who provided an uncensored version - have a bonus meme
The spiders that live in our houses are also often unsuited or unable to live outdoors.
That’s not quite true. Take cellar spiders for example. They are evolved for living in caves, which put a great constraint on where they could live. But we came along and covered that planet in perfectly good “caves” for them and now they are one of the most widespread spiders there are.
So they are quite capable of living outdoors (unless you count caves as indoors), but without us there would be a lot fewer places for them to live.
Other spiders might use the indoors to extend their life span. Tegenaria spp. for example are mostly seasonal in the wild (meaning, they only live for one year and only the offspring makes it to the next year) but indoors some have been reported to be up to 7 years old.
So it’s not like that they unsuited to live outdoors, it’s just that indoors suits them much better. We usually call these spiders “synantropic”.
Well are those specific cellar spiders still able to, or have we softened them? Could one who’s only lived in a cellar pick up and move to a cave?
Good question. Someone should try it … there might be PhD in it!
But Pholcidae (the cellar spider family) is probably the only spider that has an established population in Antarctic. And it’s entirely within our Antarctic research stations … because they are just so good at living in human storage spaces.
Even if all humans would go away suddenly … our structures will survive to some degree. So the cellar spiders will probably be fine.
Well I would try it, but none of the caves around here have wifi.
If y’all spiders are going to live in my home you need to stay where the bugs are. Not on the ceiling directly over my pillow. And not in the bed! Under the bed, you’ll probably never be noticed and you’re welcome to eat the dust bunnies and bogeymen. Under the oven range, sure. I can’t reach down back there and you’re probably doing good work. But dude, there’s no food for you in the shower, and you’re gonna drown, just stay out!
Nah, they’re eating all the bugs that try to crawl into your nose and mouth while you sleep.
If you gotta problem with spiders you gotta problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate.
House spiders are almost exclusively harmless and gain a terrible reputation. Down here in the south east we have an abundance of orb weaver spiders.
Absolutely gorgeous and, for the most part, totally harmless. I genuinely don’t understand why people are so terrified of these things. Spiders are one of the reasons we’re not completely overrun with insects and other pests, and most species would much rather avoid us than have anything to do with us.
The brown recluse and black widow should obviously be treated with respect, but even they are highly misunderstood. Neither species is particularly aggressive toward humans, and bites are relatively uncommon. They generally bite only when threatened, trapped against the skin, or otherwise disturbed. Their reputation is considerably worse than their actual behavior.
Spiders aren’t out looking for people to bite. They’re predators doing an extremely useful job of keeping insect populations under control. Unless you have a medically significant species in your home, there’s usually very little reason to be afraid of them and quite a few reasons to appreciate them.
I love spiders, but they still creep me out. So I prefer to bring them away if they’re in my house. Garage is neutral territory, mostly. But when a Wolf Spider and I both scare the crap out of each other, it gives me heebie jeebies tho
My cat was getting into the basement at my exes house, and the spiders SENT A FUCKING MESSAGE. They got their biggest guy to come up and perch on the toilet paper in the bathroom. I decided I didn’t need to pee and secured the basement door better from then on.
I live in Western Australia.
I don’t believe it’s really possible in practice to actually die from a spider bite in my area, although we do have spiders here which are considered “deadly” and there’s plenty of these around. Our kids are 3 year old twins. They love being outside but have no awareness of friendly vs deadly bugs.
You can buy poison / repellent stuff from the hardware store. Don’t mess around with a pressurised can. Get the 3 or 4L bottle of something bifenthrin based. Mix & pour into one of those big pump spray bottle things, you want one with a wand.
Then spray the places around the outside of your house, fences, and garage where spiders would like to be. Do this twice a year. I do it once after the end of the rain season, and again 6 months later.
It’s quicker and easier than mowing the lawn, and it avoids having webs everywhere outside, and huntsman-surprise inside.
So, you’re the bee killer. Bifenthrin is banned throughout the EU because of its impact on pollinators. It is toxic to birds and highly toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. Recent studies in mice suggest bifenthrin exposure contributes to the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s Disease. I hope you don’t let your kids play around it.
If my children want to play with autistic mice, then that’s their god given god damn right.
-OP
Settle down mate, there’s no need to be a cunt about it.
You’re conflating residential use with agricultural use. Bifenthrin is not “banned throughout the EU”, it’s restricted from agricultural use.
The studies you’re referring to talk about dosages starting from 0.01 mg/kg per day. That’s something like 1ml a week for a toddler. They’re not going to “catch autism” from playing near the fence I sprayed with bifenthrin a month ago.
How about the bees, birds and aquatic life?
Get a lot of flies in your house? Because I don’t get any, due to my friendly neighbourhood spider.
Kids make you functionally paranoid, I won’t fault your decisions though. I learned about spiders at that age, listened to my mum about them and developed a phobia, so hopefully your kids will not grow up being way too afraid of them and can have spiders in their house when they grow up. Good luck!
No, we don’t actually.
We live on the south coast so the small flies are only around for a few weeks, and the bigger ones never get too problematic.
Spiders don’t really control flies. Plenty of flies in the bush. A couple of flies a week is ample sustenance even for a large spider.
Weird how we all got cancer and all the animals keep dying around our house.
I had to evict the jumping spider that lived in my curtains for 2 years because I was moving, I felt terrible. That little lady worked hard and earned her place, I offered to bring her to the new apartment, but she declined, I wish her the best.
I scold the spiders in my home and tell them, “Do your job!!” when there are flying bugs in my home
What about car mirrors?
Sounds like it’s the spider’s house.
Spider: You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it.
Are the garages any different from people and houses, vs caves and tents?
I would 100% prefer seeing spiders in my home than mosquites and cockroaches, but then again I dont live in Australia and spiders are tiny asf
Australian here, living in Australia: do other countries not have spiderbros the size of your hand who hunt down mosquitoes and flies and roaches without using webs because webs are for losers?
I live in Mediterranea, we only have like thousands of mosquitos at summer and cockroaches, especially if you leave at ground floor.
Northeastern US dude here - not where I’m at. We have garden spiders, which get pretty big, but they like to make webs; and nursery web spiders, which hunt actively and get pretty big, but they don’t get that big.
Oh, and we have these things. They’re pretty well up there in terms of size, but they mostly just eat fish.
I’m terribly sorry to my spider friends. You see, I’m an ADHD creature and that means there aren’t really much of routines to learn. Must be frustrating for them!
Give yourself some credit, you’re rarely walking on the ceiling
At one point in my life I was living in a dank California basement room, spending 99% of my time in bed due to a severe mental health crisis, 2 years straight.
One night I saw a spider chilling at the bottom of one of my bedposts. I took a picture of it and went back to bed.
8 years later I used image search to identify what kind of spider it was.
It was a brown recluse the size of my hand.
The problem with that story is that there are no brown recluses in California. They have some desert recluses in the south-east, but they barely interact with humans.
It was a brown recluse the size of my hand.
They also don’t get this big. You most certainly misidentified some other brown spider.
You’re right!
I’m not getting a very good picture of the actual spider here but I have to agree with the first AI suggestion from what I’m seeing. Reluctantly. Definitely not a recluse, though.
Poor thing lost a leg on the left! But yeah, Titiotus is a very good suggestion, checks all the boxes … it kind of annoys me because I probably wouldn’t have thought of Zoropsidae, because we only have the one here in Europe.
Actually, it bit you and you died. Welcome to hell.
If we’re all in their hell it explains why things went downhill so much faster 8 years ago.
Thanks to the commentator who provided an uncensored version - have a bonus meme
Don’t just thank them replace your shitty censored version with it
No need to be rude about it.
Are you offended that I’m rude towards a meme ?! Get lost.
I mean you’re being rude towards the person who posted the meme, not the Pic itself lol
I have figured cockroaches do the same
Not the ones I knew in life
My garage has vents to the outside, so those bastards tend to come in at will through them at night. Every now and then, I’ll have a late night at the bars, and they get to meet the bottom of my shoe or a propane torch. I don’t care how “considerate” they are being.
