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Comment by apricot13 | Hacker News Reader

One half of me is fascinated by this as spiders are such amazing creatures. So long as they don't break our house rules they're welcome to stay, especially the spindles! The other half of me didn't scroll far enough down and a a slither of the video played at the bottom of the screen making me think a spider was running across my arm and made me jump!

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Yeah same, we do not bother spiders in the house unless they jump into bed or on food or whatever, and then we just take them outside. With spiders and cats in the house we never see any flies or other insects.

We have a lot of spiders and yet they don't seem to do much about the silverfish. :(

They do hunt millipedes and then drag the corpses back to their lair to form a millipede graveyard.

Silverfish are one of the few insects grosser than any spider, even the way they scuttle is revolting.

I'm more offended by the fact that they eat books and bookbinding glue.

I have a rule with the spiders where if they get too bold they get the vacuum. I don't mind them lurking in the corners but I don't want them crawling across my desk. I think most of them understand the arrangement by now. Only occasional enforcement is necessary.

glass and piece of card, come on!

Incidentally, this method cured me of arachnophobia. Having it trapped inside the glass, yet in my hand and up close to take a closer look, allowed me to gradually see them as not all that scary. It's like that therapy where you gradually get closer to the thing you're afraid of (desensitization?).

I like to think of them as little robots, however I still need to get my partner to move them.

I think it’s their speed which I don’t like!

THIS. You can then also show the spider to the kids for added interest before releasing it into the wild.

The point is to send a message to the other spiders.

I deal with trespassing flies this way. They spend some time in fly jail (butterfly net, twisted closed and propped against the door frame through which they entered) pour encourager les autres, then they go free outside at dusk.

Pheromones, interpretive dance, telepathy,—I don’t know exactly how the others get the message but I know that they do, and they stay on the correct side of the doorway.

I tried this with a yellowjacket and a screamer of a Shop Vac that has a six-foot hose. I was sure it would have suffocated from the dust inside the vacuum bag clogging its spiracles.

Next morning, the wasp (now with tattered wings) was sitting in the corner of a window. I have no idea how it made it out.

It's probably a pretty natural path for the wasp assuming it survived the initial time you were running the vac. The shopvac is just a big container with at the top an exit path following the wall naturally out the tube. They don't even tend to have a flap like smaller hand vacs might have to keep dust from falling out during use.

Use glass and a paper sheet, much easier and less harsh on the "bugs".

I don't find that any easier, and generally don't care about insect welfare.

I feel guilty when I take down the webs. Wool dusters work as well as the vac.

Lately I have been trying to get macro photos of spiders hanging on their threads and so far failing because they see the camera and drop down a foot before I can set up the shot.

I'm sure putting it outside makes you feel better but it's a death sentence regardless for most house spiders to be put into the outdoors.

Why?

This was my exact arrangement with them when I used to live in a basement suite that was crawling with them.

I've never really understood the "spiders protect you from pests" argument. Yeah, sure they eat flies. But I'd much rather have a fly buzz past me and get stuck to some fly paper than have a spider drop from the door frame on an invisible silk thread and slam into my face, or run across my pillow. Maybe I have arachnophobia, but they're freaky little creatures that I don't want in my living space.

They eat the creatures who want to eat you. Like beautiful guardian angels

That's how I feel about dragonflies. Spiders are, to me, equally interesting but less enjoyable. I tolerate a few spiders in our house, but not in bedrooms or the kitchen.

> than have a spider drop from the door frame on an invisible silk thread and slam into my face, or run across my pillow

Rare if ever happens. Maybe 5 times in your life time. I will pay that cost any day. I have made friends with spiders. Flies spread diseases, spiders eat them. Spiders seldom bite humans and when they do, it’s nowhere near as bad as getting scratched by a cat.

For what it's worth, it happens to me about 5 times each summer. But I also welcome spiders as pest control, so it's not a surprise, and I forget all about it 5 seconds later.

You should make friends with Canadian spiders then. They are very polite. I don’t remember the last time I got bit :)

beware the canadian amnesia spider

Suit yourself, I'd much rather have the latter. One of the best features of spiders is that they can't fly. If a bug can fly, all bets are off. Who knows where that thing is going to end up. Spiders are at least more predictable.

I've never been prevented from sleep by a spider buzzing around the room, either.

> I'd much rather have a fly buzz past me

Ever wonder where those flies have been? Maybe on some nice smelly garbage, and then on your food or your dishes. Flies carry diseases, man.

> and get stuck to some fly paper

Glue traps are cruel.

Aren't spider webs kind of like glue traps

No.

The spider quickly kills the prey. Glue traps don’t.

They paralyze them and wrap them up till they want to eat them which can be days later.

I saw a butterfly get stuck to a web once. It immediately started hurling itself violently away, trying to shake itself free. The spider was not immediately in evidence.

I managed to take the web off it, but not without tearing off the part of the wing that made contact. I assume that in the butterfly's best-case scenario, that would have happened anyway. It was able to fly afterwards.

Now try to save a butterfly from a glue trap.

This is the first anti-fly paper take I've ever seen on the basis of morality.

I said glue traps in general are cruel. Google it.

https://www.peta.org/issues/wildlife/wildlife-factsheets/glu...

It's actually spider webs that protect you from pests. The webs keep catching bugs as long as they are there, the spider just eats what it wants then moves on.

I don't mind spiders at all, they mostly stay out of my way. Flies, on the other hand, land on my food, buzz around the room when I want to sleep, and are generally a nuisance.

Mosquitos and flies are much more harmful than spiders.

My house has a problem with little black ants that pest control services never could quite take care of. Spiders kept trying to set up shop near a window, but I would always knock the web down. Once I relented and let the spiders do their thing my ant problem went away. All I need to do is clean up a few ant corpses in the fall, which is a tradeoff I'm willing to make.

The best way to get rid of spiders it to get rid of the files yourself then.

If there is nothing in your house for the spiders to eat, you won't have spiders. If you remove the spiders but not their prey (flies, etc...), you will have more flies, and spiders will keep coming back.

The reason the spider web in the article is so huge is that there is a huge amount of flies to feed the spiders.

I feel like a lot of the pro-spider replies have never accidentally disturbed or stepped on a momma wolf spider carrying her babies on back and witnessed the pure terror that ensues as hundreds of babies swarm out across your floor.

In this case, it’s more on us to not break their house rules when we visit their cave.

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