“More afraid of you than you are of them,” he used to say, about spiders. Wanna bet?
“Cute little furries,” he used to say. I know, but so are tigers and I don’t want to share my living room with one of those either.
Actually, I’m not afraid of spiders. I don’t live in Australia or Amazonia, where they really could be dangerous. I live in the UK.
That said and despite what people will have you believe, some of our residents will bite. They’re not aggressive, unless they feel threatened, but they will bite. Such bites are not poisonous as such, but as with insects they can carry disease and infection. My Dad was bitten by one of his shed-dwellers and the wound never fully healed.
Even so, mostly the bite may not be painful and the infection is usually easily treatable. So I’m told.
Dad was old, and slow in thinking that maybe it was something that wouldn’t just “get better” on its own.
So no, I’m not afraid of spiders. I am reviled, repulsed, repugned, by them. They make my gut clench and my skin crawl.
I have been known to actually scream at the sudden sight of one of those giant, hairy, long-legged, multi-facet-eyed aliens in my bath-tub.
And as for the man (long-term lover) who thought it would be hilarious to toss a tomato stalk into my tranquil bathing moment…! Let’s just say it took me a while to see the funny side.
Actually, no, let’s also say that I still get palpitations when I think of that moment, some 25 years ago, even while I now grant that it must have been fun for him. I still jump when I catch sight of things that look like spiders but aren’t: tomato stalks on the worktop, knots in the wooden floor of my favourite BnB, those things that we called scuttlebugs – the things you see out of the corner of your eye that aren’t really there at all.
He's not here any more either – that man – my long-term lover was also my rescuer from spiders. Or perhaps the spider rescuer from me. Either way, now if I want them gone, I have to deal with them on my own.
I have various strategies depending on what and where and how big and how fast. Fast is scarier than big, in my head.
There is the by-now-traditional bug-catcher kit of pint glass and postcard, which works for small to medium sized and not ultra-rapid critters. The bigger or faster ones need the towel-scoop approach, which is less certain and often takes several attempts. I think they’re evolving to evade this one. In extremis, I will use the flush it down the plug-hole manoeuvre – even though I know they just sneak
right back out again. I’ve seen them do it. I’m not suggesting that spiders can’t drown, merely that they can swim and climb up sheer plastic pipes.
I don’t necessarily want them "gone". I just don’t want to see them. I don’t want to know that they’re there. By which I mean here. In my space. So the latest weapon in my anti-spider arsenal is denial.
Or pretence, if you prefer. It’s the old “bogey-man” approach…if I can’t see it, it’s not there. So if it’s just creeping around the edges, I sometimes just leave the room and hope it goes away…back to whichever dark, undusted corner it lives in.
The good news is that mostly they do.
I’m told that chestnuts will keep them away from your hearth. Nope! I suspect that particular myth came about from people who put chestnuts on their hearth round about the time they light their open fires. I still haven’t had the chimney swept, so I try not to think what’s living up there, but whatever it is shifts ‘fallings’ into the grate, and until I actually clean it all out and light an actual fire, I know the long-legged ones will sneak down in the dark.
To be fair: I don’t actually want to kill them, because I know they are all part of the eco-system and it is probable that whatever they are eating is also something that I don’t want to be knee-deep in.
It is just that I don’t want to have to face them. I can look at a bird or mammal and see its expression. I can guess what it’s thinking. When I look at an arachnid, all I see is enmity…and it’s not too wrong in that threat assessment. Revulsion and repugnance feel very much like fear in the gut, and they presumably produce the same ‘attack’ pheromones and presumably these alien creatures that crawl about my home can taste them.
The whole thing is contextual. All my aversion is indoors. Outside, whole different story. Outdoors I’m happy to accept that I am in their space. Outdoors I can sneak up on them, armed with my camera to try to catch images that make them more beautiful to my eye. The opposite of aversion therapy, a wanting to get closer to something, slowly.
I’m a long way from greeting and welcoming them, but half-way to meeting them on their own terms.
Oh, and then there are webs.
I’m sorry, but not very, I need to ask: why do people who spend all year dusting and sweeping then go and hang fake spider-webs as “decoration” for Halloween?
Wrong on every level. If you want your home festooned with ghostly, dusty, choking, insect-snarling, clinging, horribleness then just let it accumulate during the middle of the year in time for Halloween. Think of all the money you’ll save buying the fakes, and all the time you’ll gain which you’d otherwise spend cleaning. Win/Win.
So far as I can see, indoor spider webs have a serious design flaw even from the spider point of view. They work for catching whatever live pray might be around, but they also catch the dust and hair and ‘stuff’ that I am sure is no more useful to the arachnid than it is to me. Worse, from the spider perspective, this catching of muck highlights the location of said webs and has me armed with feathers and brooms to get rid. War of attrition.
And, web-spinners, we know that the only winners will be the hunting spiders who don’t build webs. The fast running guys that really give me nightmares.
Me and the webmasters are on a hiding to nothing.
Here again, outside is a whole other matter…outside spiderwebs are a joy. Outside they don’tcatch dust and dirt, they catch the light, they catch the dew, they catch the frost, and the shine like strings of diamonds from the branches, or lace the lawn in the lightest of fairy hammocks.
Stepping out just after dawn on a cold morning, at any time of year, and looking to the hedges, the fences, the trellis, the lawn, the shrubs, the pots, the seats, is to be reminded just how many spiders go unnoticed about my space.
And how welcome they are!
I’m told that just as many go just as unnoticed inside my home – but really, I try not to think about that.
So here’s the thing guys: we can call an absolute truce if you can find somewhere safe & warm to live, where I don’t have to see you. If you can spin your architecture out in the daylight where it will be blown on the breeze and catch the magic of Autumn light and Winter frost and the last of the insects of the year, I'll be much happier and will leave you well alone.
