I’m the designated spider remover of the house. The other humans here would just as soon kill them. When I’m summoned, I open the bathroom window (it’s pretty much always the bathroom) and get the Skinny Cardboard Tube of Removal, put it gently over the spider and slide it along a tiny bit to encourage the spider to quit the floor or wall and climb into the tube proper. I quickly check, and if all is well, I take it to the window and puff it out to a new life outside. If it’s hideous outside–icy snow or such–it goes into the laundry room behind the hot water heater or some such. DO NOT TELL MY DAUGHTER THIS, as she thinks they all go outside and expresses herself volubly if she thinks they didn’t.
I fully expect to find that I’ve condemned them all to a hideous fate of some sort, but from my limited knowledge, it feels like I’m giving them another chance somewhere else. I’m not worried about them falling from the raised first floor because small bugs don’t plummet straight down like people or elephants. Even so, I regret the inconvenience to them.
Bugs (a nebulous class that includes many types of critter) that I escort outside include bees, wasps, ladybugs, stinkbugs, moths, and spiders. Flies, ants, and crickets must suffer their awful fates at my hand or whatever. Roaches, I haven’t seen in any dwelling of mine since we left Virginia, so I’m not sure what my policy toward them is nowadays. Used to be murder followed by gloating.
wzrd1 says
Note to self: Don’t visit PZ’s house and use the bathroom, lest I get imprisoned. ;)
jrkrideau says
@1 wzrd1
I’d stay out of Morris and maybe Minnesota. Wait PZ reports being in Arizona and Utah. Maybe stay out of thoe USA? North America?
Artor says
“I’m not an arachnophobe, I have spider friends. I even let them use my bathroom!”
Kip T.W. says
I’m the designated spider remover of the house. The other humans here would just as soon kill them. When I’m summoned, I open the bathroom window (it’s pretty much always the bathroom) and get the Skinny Cardboard Tube of Removal, put it gently over the spider and slide it along a tiny bit to encourage the spider to quit the floor or wall and climb into the tube proper. I quickly check, and if all is well, I take it to the window and puff it out to a new life outside. If it’s hideous outside–icy snow or such–it goes into the laundry room behind the hot water heater or some such. DO NOT TELL MY DAUGHTER THIS, as she thinks they all go outside and expresses herself volubly if she thinks they didn’t.
I fully expect to find that I’ve condemned them all to a hideous fate of some sort, but from my limited knowledge, it feels like I’m giving them another chance somewhere else. I’m not worried about them falling from the raised first floor because small bugs don’t plummet straight down like people or elephants. Even so, I regret the inconvenience to them.
Bugs (a nebulous class that includes many types of critter) that I escort outside include bees, wasps, ladybugs, stinkbugs, moths, and spiders. Flies, ants, and crickets must suffer their awful fates at my hand or whatever. Roaches, I haven’t seen in any dwelling of mine since we left Virginia, so I’m not sure what my policy toward them is nowadays. Used to be murder followed by gloating.