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Comment by _qua | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mosquitos and flies are much more harmful than spiders.

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