Spider makes his home up near the registers

[BowserKoopa1]

I want a spider as a pet, a big hairy tarantula. When I am able to afford to get my own place, I will get one.
There is a funny story that I would like to share.... Awhile back when my best friend's annoying brother still lived at the house, he would do all kinds of things to annoy us. I found out that he has a very big fear of spiders. I kept on teasing my best friend and saying I was gonna surprise him with a big spider next time he starts pestering us. Funny thing is, I did buy a spider but never showed it to him. I wound up taking it straight back to the pet store after my mom refused to allow it in the house.

[mharbourgirl]

Yeah, severe arachnophobia here, I hate it but I've never been able to even reduce it a little. People think I'm very weird about it, though. I won't let people kill spiders. If they're in the house someone must carry it outside where it belongs. Spiders do a very important job: eating all the OTHER insects that I am in varying degrees afraid of. As long as they stay outside, I'm cool. But don't even show me a picture of a spider: you may get hurt, my reaction is so violent.

At least I live far enough north that there are no poisonous spiders and I've never had to live with roaches. Those things don't frighten me, they DISGUST me and I want to just flail away killing them until they're paste. I am SO never visiting Florida.

My dad was once maintenance manager at a large university and got me a summer job on the maintenance staff. He thought it would be funny to send me to the insect labs to clean some rooms. I came back to his office after one look around the place and told him I was either going to quit or tell Mom if he EVER did that again. If you've never been in a large insect lab, and you have problems with giant spiders, maggots, and cockroaches as big as your face, it's a place you should avoid.

[ShootMePlease]

Spiders and crickets don't bother me. I have no problem with them being in my house. I have been known to pick up a cricket that has gotten caught in the tub while I'm taking a shower and put them on the bathroom floor.

I will not be mean to them. They're just trying to live their lives. They're cool in my book.

[EricKei]

I don't have a problem with harmless-type spiders/caterpillars, etc, I just wouldn't wanna live with them in the house. The bugs that sting (like the dropbear-style fuzzy caterpillars that infest our area at times), on the other hand? Yeah...I prefer to keep them at arm's length...ideally when I'm armed with a flamethrower >_>

[Retail Associate]

I am terrified of spiders. No other insect causes me fear and I will release most back to the outdoors (except flies) but the sight of a spider, any spider, puts me into a state of fear and trembling. I know it's nuts but I've never been able to overcome it. I believe it's because my older brothers pestered me relentlessly when we were kids...chasing me with spiders and webs.

If I see a spider in the house I cannot relax until I know that thing is dead. One night as I was climbing into bed, a big, black spider ran across my pillow. Even after killing the spider I had to wash all the sheets and blankets from my bed before getting in it.

Right now, just thinking about spiders is making my skin crawl.

[ADoyle90815]

The only spiders that deserve to die are black widows, brown recluses, and a new arrival in my area, the brown widow as their bites are worse than the black widow bites. Any other spider is left alone, unless they dangle in front of me from the skylight, then they get taken outside.

I'm also one who has a phobia of cockroaches, and since I live a block away from a middle school, I get the bigger ones that eat paper. Normally, they stay outside, but I was really annoyed with my cat when he brought in a live one to play with, only to let it get under the bookcase, so when it came out again, I had to kill it. I don't mind if my cat catches them, as long as he kills them and leaves them outside.

[ShinyObject]

I freaking LOVE spiders! Yeah, I know...I'm weird.

Growing up I was taught to respect all animals and my grandfather and I spent time watching spiders, ants, beetles and pretty much anything else we could find. One of my earliest memories is of a huge black and yellow orb spider (body about the size of a quarter) who had her nest in the corner between our house and garage. I watched her all summer and was broken hearted when her time came in the late autumn.

Up until last week I had a dime sized spider that was in the laundry room but moved into the hall when it became colder. She stayed up at the corner of the wall and the ceiling. I haven't seen her so I suppose her time has come as well. I was hoping she'd lay her egg case so I could move it out to a protected place in my shed. Spiders eat so many harmful pets that they are welcome in my home and garden any time.

I would never dream of killing one. As my grandfather said when I was being a brat and squashed one..."Very good -- you killed it. Now make it come back to life..."

[Shalom]

Like I said in that other thread, I don't mind spiders. They eat bugs.

Back when I was in university, there were several buildings connected by glassed-in walkways. Spiders would build their webs right across the glass, thinking (incorrectly) that there was an opening there for the flies to fly through. Of course the flies thought the same thing, so the spiders still made a decent living. One day, I was passing through the walkway from the Pharmacy building to the Biology building, and I noticed a 3x5 card taped to the inside of the glass, near one of the webs. On it was hand-written:

Common Garden Spider
Argiope aurantia
Very rare in Western New York
Harmless, please do not disturb

Guess that's what happens when you've got a lot of Biology majors wandering around a spider habitat...
(note, I don't remember the exact species, it might have been some other kind of spider)

The only insects that inspire true loathing in me are the wasps and yellowjackets. Maybe it's part of my needle phobia, also because I got stung (twice) by one when I was about 3 or 4, but I absolutely despise them and will gladly commit insecticide if I ever see one. (Or worse, more than one. I had to change an air conditioner in my old apartment about 11 years ago; pulled the machine out of its sleeve and lo and be hold, a freaking wasp nest. I shoved that chassis right back into the sleeve, ran out to Shop Rong and bought a can of bug spray. Then I pulled the chassis out again, saturated the nest, and spent the next fifteen minutes waiting for the stragglers to come back. About once or twice a minute another wasp would come flying up to the hole in the wall, shpritz went the spray, and the wasp fell out of the air. There must have been quite a pile of them under the a/c unit by the time I was done. Hate hate hate the pointy little bastards.) I'll gladly kill mosquitoes if I can catch them, but they don't inspire such passionate dislike.

[BowserKoopa1]

Ok I am just gonna come out into the open and say, I like insects, pretty much all of them. Certain ones like flying bugs with stingers and a few other ones I prefer to keep their distance. Call me crazy, but I actually feel sorry for all of them, as they really can't help what they are, any more than a spider can help being a spider. Their lives are short enough as it is, so when I see a bee or something, I pass by it very carefully so much as not to startle it and make it feel threatened. I found that if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.
As for hornet's nests, I actually had a bad encounter with one. My dad told me to bring him the garden hose, and when I lifted it up, I was attacked by a bunch of very angry hornets. I quickly ran and dove into the pool, escaping without a single sting. Luckily it was the middle of summer

[MoonCat]

It's because they're creepy. Creepy crawly, creepy creepy crawly crawly....

Anyway. They freak me out but I try not to kill them. I keep a few large empty jars around because I'm the only one in the house that will go anywhere near them, and release them outside.

I'm not afraid of centipedes anymore, but I don't want them in the house. I try to catch those and let them go outside, too.