If you saw a spider on the wall, what would you do?

I’d go to the kitchen and get a glass and a piece of paper…then trap him/her and escort him/her to the great outdoors.

same as SpatzieLover. (:

I’d kill it. Don’t judge me!

@TenaciousDenny : Murderer! Just kidding.

On the wall:
Step 1: Shoe in hand.
Step 2: Attack stance.
Step 3: Smash spider.
Step 4: Jump around and shake that icky feeling off of myself.
Step 5: Regain calm, cool composure.
Step 6: Clean former spider ick off of the wall.

Spider on the ceiling:
Step 1: Scream bloody murder.
Step 2: Get vacuum.
Step 3: Attack stance.
Step 4: Power, ON.
Step 5: Suck said spider into the endless tube of suction power.
Step 6: Return to normalcy.

I always take them outside. Sometimes I ignore them. I can never kill them!

@Les thanks for the suggestions. I’d do exactly what you would. :)

I would kill it as well. And not feel a pang of guilt.
Though, I feel guilty about that.

It seriously depends on my mood. If it’s one of those big wolf spiders, I’ll take it outside, otherwise there is a huge mess to clean up.

Spiders don’t bug me at all (npi), but I do kill those disgusting millipede things that just look like a set of false eyelashes skittering across the floor. Those things are the devil incarnate.

Depends on what kind of spider. If it were a daddy long legs I would probably ignore it. If it were one of those fat, black, hairy kind I would scream and have someone come and get it and put it outside.
I have selective arachnophobia.

@ubersiren: Those are centipedes. I have the biggest irrational fear of those, I don’t care what anyone says. I was going to buy my brother a book yesterday, and of all the 300 pages in the book, I landed on the page with color plate pictures of centipedes. I dropped the book, and placed it back on the shelf.

If I came face to face with one of those in my apartment, I’d move. There’s no Dad in Wyoming to take care of them for me.

I am absolutely, downright terrified of centipedes. All insects/arachnids, really. My boyfriend’s parents’ house has a small infestation of centipedes; when I say that, I mean I’ve seen more in the 7 months I lived there than I ever had in my life. I used to have nightmares that made me whine and whimper in my sleep.

@poofandmook: I know what you mean. I have yet to actually kill one of those. Usually once I see one, I am half a block away in 10 seconds. One morning I was getting ready for work and one came out of the shower drain. I calmly (amazingly) turned the light off, closed the bathroom door, and left a note on the kitchen table regaling my story. It was still there when my dad came home hours later.

Ugh.

I ignore spiders.

I’ve heard that centipedes sometimes can give you nasty bites. Yah, Wikipedia says “Some species of centipedes can be hazardous to humans because of their bite. Although a bite to an adult human may only be painful, those with allergies that are similar to that of bee stings and small children are at greater risk. Smaller centipedes usually do not puncture human skin.”

I had one run across the back of the stove once while I was cooking. I screamed, turned off the burner, nearly flipped the pan off the stove, stood in the middle of the kitchen floor waiting for it to come out… grabbed some chemical from under the sink, and sprayed the shit out of it until it died. Then I swept it under the fridge. LOL

I’d ignore it or, if my wife and/or daughter freaked about it, I’d take it outside.

@daloon: Yeah, Hawaiian centipede bites are no fun, so I’ve heard. Alas, my irrational fear prevents me from linking you a picture. I can’t even look at one. So I leave that for you. ;-)

scream bloody murder then try to kill it or have someone else kill it

@Les : Oh god, I know what you mean… I lived in my parents’ semi-finished basement for a time, and they were everywhere. And they’re fast, too. You try to whack em and they run under your bed… I didn’t ever really sleep well there. Horrible. Horrible. I make my husband dispose of those. I could let a spider crawl on my eyeballs, but one of those things at 20 feet and I’m a wussy girl.

I am so scared of bugs, including those icky-looking brown beetle things. One time, when I was about to go to sleep, one dropped RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY FACE onto my pillow. It scared the crap out of me, I probably screamed for five minutes straight. I’d probably have to change pants if I came face-to-face with a centipede. shudder

But, I love holding worms. It sounds gross, but they’re AWESOME *waits for taunts and “EWWWW“s

These bastards.

@ubersiren: Here’s how bad I am. I made my friend in college find the picture of the household centipede in my dictionary and cut it out. She was in hysterics the whole time.

@Les : Now, that’s pretty bad. And funny.

@ubersiren I literally just screamed when I saw that picture. I’m gonna have nightmares now. D:

Suck it up with my toilet plunger

oh, oh this has happened to me. there are always little spiders around my house, and the only time i mind is when they’re in my room, too close to my bed for comfort.
but once there was this BIG effing spider – it looked like a tarantula to me, but i don’t know much about spiders – and he was just walking around on the ceiling in my living room. i ended up just getting a broom and shooing him outside.
i don’t really kill any bugs, except for mosquitoes and the like. even roaches usually just get the boot outside although i’ve sprayed a few to death in a fit of horror, but i always feel really really REALLY bad afterward, so i try to control myself

Go get the fly swatter & kill it. One ran behind a clock on the wall lastnight & I was armed for action. Took the clock down & killed it. Swatted it a few more times on the floor just for good measure.

JBF 1, spider 0

If there was any other human being there, I would scream for them to kill it.

If I was alone and it was on the wall, I would smash it with a book if it was small. If it was large, I would use a long-handled flat surface duster I have.

If it was over my head on a web, I would repeat step one above while jumping and then running out of the room.

If I was alone, I would use the handle of a broom or the like to carefully knock the web so the spider went on the ground, and then I would smash it with a book.

I would leave it alone and probably move.

I’d probably ignore it and check back later to see if he’s still lurking around. If he didn’t disappear after a while, I’d shoo him outdoors. I have a thing about killing things.

@SuperMouse Move houses or just move yourself, as in go in another room?

@mangeons just move rooms, no need to vacate the entire house for a single spider!

I’m with @TenaciousDenny. Death to the intruder!

The daddy longlegs are everywhere but they eat the mozzies so we try to peacefully coexist. But I hate it when they live over top of the tub and poop all over the white porcelain, it turns into concrete and you need a sand blaster to get it off. Never knew spiders poop so much!

piss on it

I’d kill it. jonsblond also got very angry with me once for eating one, which also killed it. this is not my usual method of spider dispatch

well i know what I wouldn`t do, I wouldn`t get my brother in there because he is petrified of spiders and makes me kill them, it`s like on The Haunted Mansion where the brother was scared of spiders.

I scream and run around like a little girl and make my husband kill it. No lie.

@Blondesjon : It just occurred to me that you and Jonsblond are 2 different people. I’m very slow.

Panic (this happens when I see a spider anywhere), then kill it.
I’d rather see a spider on a wall. If it’s on the floor, I might step on it. If it’s on the ceiling, it might fall on me. Either way, they’re both touching me.

Edit: Having a spider fall on you is much worse though.
Double edit: I’m so checking out my ceilings now. =[

Catch the little guy and then release him in the backyard.

I am a paranoid, agoraphobic person. I would nab it with a tissue and get rid of it, then I would spend the next ten minutes wondering how many other spiders were hiding where I least expect them.

@Allie

Dammit, now I’m checking my ceilings!

Wow. I never realized that fluther was full of so many wusses.

@AstroChuck…word

I’d be too scared to take it outside, for fear it would get back in. Plus, I could feel it wriggling and… ugh. double shudder I usually kill it (or more often make somebody ELSE kill it) and then make them flush it down the toilet to make sure it’s good and dead.

I’d either put it outside or leave it be.

Or, I might take my contacts out so as to be able to see it up close, and watch it walk around. Have you ever watched a spider while it’s spinning a web? Or even just walking? They’re so beautiful.

@mangeons…i’ve watched a few of your youtube links…i think you’ve killed more than a few yourself

@AstroChuck: I didn’t count, but are we seeing equal numbers of male wusses and female wusses, or is the wuss population primarily comprised of females?

I don’t believe anyone except for @Les

Indoor spiders do not belong outdoors, and you are not doing them any favors by releasing them outdoors. It makes about as much sense to put them outside as it does letting your dog run inside the lion enclosure at the zoo. Outdoor spiders do not come inside in the Autumn, (as many people assume) and if you do find one in your house, it got there by accident, by maybe hitching a ride on your shoe or on something you brought in from outdoors.

Indoor spiders have evolved to live indoors. The best thing to do is to capture them in a plastic cup with a piece of paper or thin cardboard and release them in a different part of the house. Indoor spiders DON’T bite, as people are not food. If you are worried about them, then make sure your blankets don’t touch the floor so they don’t climb into bed with you. Even if they get in your bed, they will NOT bite you, and if you roll over on them, they will be crushed to death before they could bite you anyway.

Wolf spiders are NOT the big brown hairy spiders you see indoors; those are simply brown house spiders. Wolf spiders aren’t called wolf spiders because they are hairy; they are called wolf spiders because of the placement of their main set of eyes. Actual wolf spiders live on the ground outside, under things like piles of logs or under leaves, and hunt small insects for food. This is what a wolf spider looks like. They are usually never any bigger than the circumference of a quarter, legs and all. They will NOT bite you, even if you pick them up and tease them. They are fast and will just run away. They look scary, but to them, we are big frightening monsters. They are more scared of you than you are of them, except for some of the jellies on here that plan on moving because they have a spider in the house.

I probably shouldn’t tell you that for every spider you see in your house, there are probably twenty more that you DON’T see. Whoops, too late. :-)

Indoor spiders will not survive in your house if there is nothing for them to eat. So they are searching for the bugs in your house that are their prey. Kill them if you must, but in doing so, you are only increasing the population of bugs in your house by ridding them of their natural predator. Spiders will eat centipedes and other creatures that will bite you, and for that, I let them live.

So to answer your question: I would do what I always do, I simply wave to them and go about my business. They aren’t hurting me and killing them is just silly.

And here’s a little fact for you. There are about 30,000 species of spiders in North America, and of those thousands, only about four are venomous enough to be dangerous. Not deadly, but they can make you ill if they bite you.

@evelyns_pet_zebra…Here is a fact for you.

@Blondesjon hey, that’s my buddy Fuzz, where’d you find him?

@evelyns_pet_zebra…some australian grown corn boxes…i gotta a buddy with photoshop…

I’d scream for my little sister to come get it, and realize she’s halfway across the country..
Then I’d scream for my boyfriend and not leave the room til it was gone!

I wasn’t terribly afraid of spiders for most of my life and then…
I killed one of those big brown hairy (formerly known as ‘wolf’) spiders by poking it with a stick. That thing was pregnant, and out swarmed thousands (well, maybe 20) baby spiders. I freaked. For a long time after that, someone else had to do the killing for me. I still don’t like them, and they still must die, but I can do my own killing again. The only bug that totally freaks me out are silverfish… shudder.

@augustlan : Yick! That is creepy!

@augustlan oh yeah, silverfish, centipedes, earwigs, and ordinary American and German cockroaches are disgusting little buggers. I hate them and smash them beyond recognition (down to their component atoms) every chance I get. And ants, too. I absolutely HATE ants.

I don’t understand, evelyns, how you think that telling things like “there are 20 you don’t see for every one you DO see” to people with arachnophobia is HELP. You’re just mean, plain and simple.

@blondesjon what are you talking about?

@mangeons…Your answer to this.

the one with the ferrets was hilarious

Oh yeah. I like “Mittens the crime solving cat”

Meow meow meow meow meow, meow. Meow. MEOW!!! hiss

@poofandmook Sorry you feel that way. You might want to avoid reading my answers in the future.

For the arachnophobic…you do realize you’ll never kill them all, right?

Squelch the urge to squash has some “fun facts”
such as: The average spider kills 2,000 insects per year

This one I know from my gardening experience: There are between 10,000 and 1million (or more depending on the land type) per acre.

To me, I look at it like…This ONE very leggy bug can rid my yard of pesties so I don’t have to!

I’d get my SO to remove it and throw it over the wall, of it’s a venomous one, i’d ask my SO to squish it.

@JellyB what kind of “topless” walls do you have in YOUR home?

@mangeons Haha! He throws them over the outside wall, into the neighbour’s yard! Heh heh!!

@JellyB – that is what I do with cane toads, I hate them and they can kill the dogs if they try to eat them, but I just can’t bring myself to murder them so I get them on the shovel and chuck them onto the roof of the empty house next door. I am sure they just hop off and come back into my yard again, it is a dilemma. Someone told me it is not cruel to put them in the freezer then they just sort of nod off from the cold, so I do have a couple in the freezer, but I don’t think it is peaceful, they carry on like crazy when you first put them in.

Toads in the frizzer!

@rooeytoo Eh…..i saw a program on those frogs, taking over Australia or something (is that where you’re from by any chance?) We don’t get them here, as far as i know, i’ve never seen one. As far as spiders go, we do have quite a few venomous ones, so if i see one, i have it squished, i don’t want them wondering around getting up to no good. And i don’t want my kitties to get hold of them. The rest get chucked over the wall or in the garden.

I ignore many since they are good house cleaners of flying insects, which I hate. If its bigger than a dime or has fur of sorts its bye bye spider hello shoe.

@giltesque LOL! The little ones are just as bad as the big ones for me! And tarantulas i don’t find that scary….very weird… :)

@JellyB Weird indeed, since hey make my skin crawl. I’ve held one but have yet to figure out how or why it occured. Maybe I was high back then, yep that must be the reason.

@giltesque Haha! I still couldn’t touch one though…...but it doesn’t creep me out as much when i look at it, as the small ones do…

@JellyB Can you beleive I just got itchy and that bug crawly thing when reading your reply…. Next subject please:)

@giltesque LOL! Gladly! How ‘bout chocolate?! ;)

get someone else to kill it for me ;)