I'm fascinated by the spiders in my bathroom

[skygazer]

I live in the woods so I get spiders and they seem to like the bathroom. I've had one living in the corner of the ceiling above the shower - he/she is tiny yet there are always dozens of little flying creatures' dessicated corpses festooning its web and dropped like empty candy wrappers on the edges of the tub. Amazing how many this guy catches. We have to clean that corner of the tub several times a week because of the bodies.

Spiders are neat.

[MrCoffee]

1. spiders are scary bugs that are scary.

[LaraMN]

2. Yes.

My Mom used to LOVE when we'd get big ones building webs on the back of our house.
She named them and she checked on them every day.
:scared:

[MrCoffee]

3. MrsCoffee knows that MrCoffee is nothing but a wuss when it comes to bugs

they're scary!

[skygazer]

4. But they're not bugs!

They're arachnids and they eat nasty bugs like flies and gnats and little stinging things. They build beautiful webs that are like miracles of architecture and when they're outside and you see them with dew all over them, they shine like jewels.

Spiders are our friends!

[Arugula Latte]

6. I can accept what you're saying intellectually. However,

I have a primeval reaction of creeped-outness (that's a technical term) when I am in their vicinity. I can't seem to get over it.

[Arugula Latte]

5. Ew. Spiders. The only part of nature I don't like.

Well, that and salmonella. And, I guess, because Republicans are some sort of slime-mold lifeform, they're part of nature, and I don't like them. :scared:

[skygazer]

7. What is wrong with you people?

~sigh~ Poor little spiders get no love... :cry:

[MrCoffee]

10. The spiders started it.

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

27. From a purely darwinian viewpoint

The humans that enjoyed the company of spiders were likely bitten and died because so many spider species are indeed poisonous. It also explains rats and snakes, rats are typically typically thrive, and contributing to filth and pestulence, making them a human health hazard, and snakes are usually pretty poisonous and deadly themselves. So I guess that's what's wrong with us people.

[skygazer]

42. Actually, very few snakes are poisonous

Most are harmless and very useful for keeping real pests, such as rodents, to a minimum. Though all spiders have venom (it's how they disable their prey), most are not poisonous enough to kill a human. As for rats, they're actually quite clean animals but they are scavengers and the filth and pestilence they tend to be drawn to is created by humans.

[BarenakedLady]

8. In my house

The spiders and I coexist peacefully. I think we freak each other out equally.

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. I know just what you mean

I get a lot of Daddy Longlegs in here, and when they hang in the bathroom I'll get 'em out of harm's way before I take a shower.

I call 'em all "Dude."

OTOH, I don't want 'em crawlin' on me. :scared:

[skygazer]

11. Which reminds me of a story

My SO came home from work one day and as he came through the door, he felt something lightly brush the top of his head. He reached up and smoothed his hair and that's when he realized that the thing was a spider's egg sack! His head was immediately covered with hundreds of newly hatched baby spiders, all tangled in his hair and freaking out (not nearly so much as HE was freaking out, however).

A long shower pretty much took care of the issue though he felt very bad about the fate of the spiders and was quite touchy about anything tickly on his head for some time.

And I suppose this post will do nothing to improve anyone's phobias! :rofl:

[Oeditpus Rex]

12. No problem

After I read it, I went into the bathroom (checking it for spiders first) and shaved my head.

:scared:

[Arugula Latte]

25. Goddamn it! Now I can't stop scratching my head.

Why did I have to read that story? Whyyyyyyyyy?

x(

[u4ic]

13. I've got a spider residing in mine, too

I'm tempted to just vacuum him and his web up...but I may just leave him for now.

Since mine is up high on the windowsill, there are no falling corpses.

Spiders scare me. :scared: I don't like anything with more than 4 legs...

[Jamastiene]

14. I've always been afraid of spiders until recently. Long story long.

That's the only way I know how to tell 'em. I don't do long story short, unfortunately. I just can't bring myself to miss a detail. This is kind of interesting though.

An orb spider (garden spider) built a nice big web on my deck earlier in the summer. She built it diagonally between the steps and the deck. It was not in a place where I would walk through it, so I decided to leave her alone. I started talking to her too. I have always loved those types of spiders despite my fear of most other types of spiders.

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed one egg sac about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. I left her alone still in hopes to eventually "tame" her, so I could sit beside her on the steps and videotape her. One week ago, I noticed another egg sac about the same size. So, now she has two egg sacs.

As the summer progressed, I walked by her dozens of times on the way to fight with the triffids in my jungle. I have no yard or lawn, just a jungle of triffids that continually try to strangle me as I sleep. Well, eventually, she quit pulling on her web with all eights as I walked by. The first time she quit pulling it and making it bounce, I stopped and spoke to her closeup. I remember reading somewhere, that this certain type of spider learns through experience what is a threat and what is not. I had also read that the pulling with all eights was to make it more difficult for bats and birds to snatch her up and eat her. It makes her web bounce and it makes her a moving target.

The first 3 or 4 times I spoke to her, she gave it a good yank, so I went on. I would never touch her, because I'm too chicken shit, but I really did want to get some closeups with my old 8mm camcorder. As the summer went on, I kept stopping and telling her that if she wouldn't build her web where I would walk through it on the way out, I wouldn't tear it down.

Finally, last week, I broke out my dinosaur of a camcorder and went outside to film her and her web. She did not yank the web even one time. She did move one time, but then went back to her normal upside down lounging position. I even got really great closeups of her and the eggs. I even put my finger next to one of the eggs to get a perspective on its size. She didn't react like she did the first time I met her. She moved once to look at me. I zoomed in and tried to get the best possible footage. Of couse, this is all on tape, but when I try to get some of those great screen grabs from tape, it ends up all blurry. I wish I had a better camera. I'd love to collect pictures of the critters in my jungle and make a web site documenting it one day.

Note: While I was videotaping her, I happened to see a couple of huge grasshoppers, or locusts possibly. I zoomed in on them a little bit too. I didn't realize at the time, but later when I brought the footage inside, I noticed that both of them actually crapped when I turned the camera on them. It's odd that both of them did it. When I saw that one did it, I laughed, but when I saw that both of them did it, I began to wonder. That was just an interesting note, nothing more.

[huskerlaw]

15. Yuck!!

My motto on spiders and other assorted bugs...If I didn't invite you in, you don't pay rent or I didn't adopt you (the kitties), you can't live here. period. If I have to kill you to get you out, so be it.

Nasty bastards, all of them.

[Lisa]

16. I've been finding them in my bathtub

I'm assuming it's because they fall in there and can't climb out due to the enamelled surfaces, not because my tub is incredibly fascinating for them. I try to scoop them up in a piece of cardboard and carry them outside.

[miss_american_pie]

17. They look for water sources

which is why I spray the kitchen and bathrooms every autumn. :D

[azmouse]

18. I'd rather find those spiders than the scorpions I see

Scorpions are truly the most creepy things I've ever had to squish. :scared:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

19. I :heart: spiders.

We have some wonderful orb-weavers on our front porch lately.

Who the hell needs Halloween deorations? :D

[Fox Mulder]

20. When I find a spider in my apartment, I don't kill it.

I catch it and put it outside.

They do more good than harm.

[Sgent]

21. Spiders ***shiver**

Mice, rats, and roaches -- no problem.

Innocent little brown house spider (not recluse) causes me to go into major panic reaction (bp & hr increase, etc). I was bitten by a wolf spider when very young (6 or 7) while out in the woods. I have a near panic reaction even when they are on the outside of a window or similarly un-troublesome.

I actually took a class in spider identification and biology to try and help my arachnophobia -- with limited results. I know the spider is no threat, but my first instinct is to kill, kill, kill.

[bigwillq]

22. Spiders are so cool.

It's so funny how that one spider was living in the corner of the ceiling abover the shower.
I had a daddy long legs up in the corner of my shower.


Then he just went on his way. :(

[Not_Longer_Than_20_C]

23. I lost my pet spider

is he over there? He's hairy & has 8 legs.

[RetroLounge]

24. One of those little fuckers bit me the other night

I woke up Monday morning with a throbbing burning red armpit. A whole bunch of red bumps.

The next day the muscles and nerves in my shoulder and armpit began hurting. The skin is peeling a bit.

The pain began moving down my arm. Tender to the touch, burning needle like pain all the time.

Doctor looked and said guess I was not sleeping alone after all. Spider? Centipede? Who knows.

But this is why I squash the little fuckers when they are in my house. Stay outta sight and eat flies, fine. Crawl around where I can see you, you're splat...

I'm on steroids and antibiotics, and my armpit still hurts like all hell.

:mad:

RL

[lizziegrace]

34. Damn Retro

That's a nasty bite. Do you think it might have come in the house with the books?

Take care of yourself. Steroids are nasty but necessary.

[RetroLounge]

37. Could be from the books / boxes.

I'm home from work today. I hardly slept. My armpit is still painful and throbbing and red.

I may go back to the clinic later if it still hurts.

RL

[lizziegrace]

38. The only poisonous ones out this way are

brown recluses and Black widows, right?

Recluses are nasty. The bite kills tissue.

I would go back. Have them check eosiniphil (sp?) levels to see if you're body's having an allergic reaction to it. Also ask if there's an antidote.

:hug:

I'm so sorry. :(

[RetroLounge]

39. Recluses do not get this far north.

thankfully..

http://dermatology.cdlib.org/DOJvol5num2/special/recluse.html

I think it might have been a centipede wearing Haruka's spiked heels on every foot... :D

RL

[lizziegrace]

41. You're probably right

and it's not the bite but the spiked heels that got you.

Take care.


:hug:

[KT2000]

26. I like spiders and ants

I have a huge mound of thatching ants in the back yard. They have cleaned my yard of aphids. They say that when the nest gets too big, they will start raising aphids to feed the colony. They also say the the ants control the temperature in their colony with the use of tunnels in the mound.

They drag sticks 5 times their size back to the nest along several highways they have made through the grass.

Another kind of ant was dragging a dead bee across my deck. Another ant came to help when he had to go up on the frame. The helper then started running around in circles because it was too much for him (I am guessing). With the one ant trying to pull the dead bee up onto the ledge - he was really just hanging on to it (think - person holding a car), I scooted the dead bee onto the top of the ledge. The ant then took it over the side and hopefully back to its nest.

All insects are pretty cool.

[Random_Australian]

28. Spiders, an Aussie perspective.

FUCKING WATCH OUT HUGE ANGRY POISON SPIDERS EVERYWHERE!

And when you see how far a huge spider can jump, THEN you don't like spiders. It is simply amazing to see and spider larger than one's hand leaping at things.

And did I mention amzingly scary?

[WilliamPitt]

29. Crush. Kill. Destroy.

:scared:

[Robeson]

30. Unless they are poisonous, I leave them alone...

...they do perform a function. I had two Black Widows in my garage this Summer. Of course, they had to go...

[MissHoneychurch]

31. Just for the fun of it - lives with AirmensMom

[seemunkee]

32. Found a big black hairy one in the bathroom last night

My wife majorly freaks out about them so I just quietly took care of the problem when I flushed. Found another one on the kitchen counter this AM. I'll usually try to move them into the basement so they can deal with the cricket problem.

[lizziegrace]

33. I've escorted the same one out of my house 3 times

It's about the size of a half dollar. A little too big to stomp. I put a plastic bowl over it, slide cardboard under and show it the door.

Lelapin would freak. She hates spiders.

[ScreamingMeemie]

35. We get the HUGH kind that would come and take your coat for

you. Living by the lake causes us to be over run with them. And in winter time they want to come in and have dinner with us and that's just a little too freaky to contemplate. :scared:

[gfindu]

36. The webs

always interest me the most.

[myrna minx]

40. I am fascinated by spiders and ants.

I love watching a spider weave a most elegant web. If I see spiders in my house, I leave them. I guess they are there because they have found a food source. :scared:

I love to watch ants work and communicate. I'm in awe of how much they can carry.