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[Ni] Killing Spiders (And Other Insects)

tkae.

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Does anyone else have a problem killing bugs?

It's a spider living in the corner of my shower that makes me ask this question. I think it might be a brown recluse, but there's no way in hell I'm getting my face close enough to look for the pattern.

Plus, if it's not a brown recluse, then it's possibly a spider that kills other undesirable creatures like millipedes and the really fuzzy caterpillars (the nasty ones that I think are poisonous), or even actual brown recluses, so I might be contributing to my brown recluse problem by killing the spider for potentially being a brown recluse.

There's also moral implications to killing a spider without just cause. First of all, I can't condone the indiscriminate killing of creatures based on them possibly being dangerous, and I also can't condone genocide. Second, what does it say about me as a person that I'd kill a creature who's trying to stay out of the way? So far it's stayed in the corner, and curls up into a little ball when I start the water. I smack water at it, and it scrambles up the web, but I feel bad even about that.

I feel like nothing good comes out of killing this spider.

But it might be a brown recluse, and one day I might get in and turn the water on, and it might be on the nozzle and bite my finger. Then my finger will rot off.

It also might be pregnant, because it looks like the abdomen is getting bigger. On the one hand, I can't kill a pregnant creature. But on the other, I'm about to have my problem multiply by the size of the hatch litter, and then it's a runaway train from there.

I could kill it, I guess, but I still feel bad about the cricket I killed a few years ago. It was driving me crazy. It chirped all day and all night for three days, and I was very close to tearing out my wall to kill it. Then I found it hiding up inside the blinds, and I slowly cut it's head off with a steak knife.

Then, after the bloodlust had passed, I cried. I gave it a proper burial.

Does anyone else have these problems?
 

Tiger Owl

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Nope.

Google hi-res photos of brown recluse, wolf spider, and common house spiders. Look at photos then look at spider -none of the North American dangerous spiders are jumpers and none of the jumpers are particularly dangerous (if you are not in N.A. then do your own research). Remove spider, go on with your life. If spider does not vacate willingly than crush spider and go on with your life. Or, you could just leave it and let it procreate and you can live in a home free of crickets and silverfish, etc.

How do I keep ending up on this side of the tracks?
 

xenaprincess

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I wouldn't say I have the same problems to the same degree.... :D

But I don't like the idea of killing anything. Anyway, whenever I encounter critters in the house, I let them go, outside.

My problem is more about the law of the jungle. That we all have to eat something, so my feeding the dog meat (and my eating meat) means that something had to be sacrificed. I also get all wound up about the dogs and cats in shelters. Oh, it never ends!!
 

Kyrielle

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Um, no. Can't say I do.

While I don't recklessly run about and kill small animals that wander into my domicile, I can't say I will go out of my way to NOT kill them or feel anything more than a tiny twinge of guilt when I do. Generally, if the creature is: 1) harmless, 2) staying out of my way, 3) and not invading my food or bed, then it gets to live either in the same home or is relocated outside. But, I mean, if I (or my cat) end up killing a bug in that category, I don't sweat it.

Anyway, I've lived with spiders that look like the brown recluse. There is a species, the Common/Brown House Spider, that looks very similar, though its web structure and abdominal pattern are not typical of the brown recluse.

Why don't you just get a camera, zoom in on the spider, take a picture, then try to identify it from the photo? Or why not put it in a cup or something and take it outside? I don't understand why it's such a big deal. If it's potentially dangerous, relocate it.
 

INTP

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I kill annoying bugs like mosquitos, i try not to step on earthworms(or slugs etc) and even save some bugs from dying, like once there was a spider in my kitchen sink(had water in it) i helped him out. Spiders are my friends because they are enemies of my enemies.

Here is the little fellow i saved from my kitchen sink:

7Yuh2.jpg
 
A

Anew Leaf

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Anything with more legs than it should have is sentenced to death by me. Usually accompanied by me screaming bloody murder and brandishing a shoe, wad of twenty kleenex, vacuum cleaner, etc.
 

Tyrinth

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Anything with more legs than it should have is sentenced to death by me. Usually accompanied by me screaming bloody murder and brandishing a shoe, wad of twenty kleenex, vacuum cleaner, etc.

Hahahahaha.

But, back to topic at hand... No, I can't say that I do. :)
 

kyuuei

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^ It is true, Saturn has very strict rules on the amount of legs a creature is allowed to have.

As a general rule of thumb, and crawling spider with two brown tones to it that's rather fast gets sentenced to death. I don't play around with potentially getting my arm rotten.
 

Savage Idealist

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I live in Washington and sometimes see brown spiders which are either Hobo Spiders or just normal house spiders. But since it's intially difficult to differentiate the difference based on casusal appearance, I usually go with the safe method of just killing it. The risk of necrotic flesh wounds isn't worth the spider's life, not by a longshot. That said, although insects and the like don't feel pain, I usually may befreind an insect and be nice to it, or I might stomp it out of existence, depending on my mood and what kind of insect we're talking about here.
 

Rasofy

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My code:
Don't kill butterflies and bats. All the others should pay the price for not knowing where their habitat is.
I'm enforcing natural selection. I should feel proud of myself.
 

Matt_s

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I generally let spiders go on about their business or I'll take them outside when I'm feeling industrious. I always swat mosquitoes. I only kill ants when they're completely mobbing my residence. The only buggy thing that makes me feel bad is when I step on a snail. If I lived in recluse territory, I'd probably just kill spiders indiscriminately.
 

Betty Blue

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Yah, i dosn't kill them less i has too.
I would rather rescue a drowning insect than leave it to die, even if i found it icky.
If there were a dangerous and uncompromising insect that i could not rid of any other way then i may have to kill it, but even that would be begrudgingly.
 

The Outsider

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I've killed so many spiders here in my new place. They are big and disgusting and scary, and I just kill them so I don't have to think about them.
 

Viridian

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When I see a small spider, or ant, or whatever, crawling in my room, I avoid touching it and try to shoo it out through my window, usually using a small piece of paper.

If I ever saw one of them brown recluses, though, I'd douse it in gasoline and light it on fire. :panic:
 

Totenkindly

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Does anyone else have these problems?

i don't. I'd just kill it with a shoe and be done with it.

It's a pragmatic issue. it can go kill bugs outside if it wants. And my house is a sealed environment, it's not like I need a big fat brown spider lurking in the side of my tub where i stand naked daily in order to control a 'bug problem.' I also don't screw with recluses; I don't need flesh necrosis to prove to me that recluses and I shouldn't hang out together.

nothing personal, but spiders creep me out. Besides, I saw them in Harry Potter, and they weren't very sociable. :alttongue:

Also, more seriously, I have a lot of things to think about in life; wasting brain power trying to decide whether to kill a spider in my bathtub seems to be a remarkable waste of my energy.
 

Nicodemus

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I remember getting a flask of perfume from someone I do not remember when I was... young. To my astonishment and delight, if applied to small insects such as ants and spiders, it was able to kill. So I used it up in the garden.

Today I only kill things that are in my way.
 
F

figsfiggyfigs

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Yes, but mostly because I fear I will miss, thus inadvertently challenging it to a duel, and now become the object of the hunt.
 

The Outsider

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Yes, but mostly because I fear I will miss, thus inadvertently challenging it to a duel, and now become the object of the hunt.

Oh god, I feel that way too. Sometimes it takes so long for me to prepare to kill it that it just leaves.
 
F

figsfiggyfigs

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Oh god, I feel that way too. Sometimes it takes so long for me to prepare to kill it that it just leaves.

Oh yes. There are so many variables to consider before attempting to murder the insect in question. The angle of the strike, the amount of pressure applied, the speed in which you strike, the lighting, position of the insect, where it will fall, carrying utensils for the deceased, checking if it has family members that will avenge it's death.

This gets worse when it is a jumping spider.
 

Silveresque

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I don't kill bugs or spiders. I find that if I either ignore it or relocate it using a kleenex or piece of paper, it won't bother me anymore. I won't even see it again. So if not killing them gives the same result as killing them, then why bother killing them at all? Aside from that, I don't see any moral justification in killing insects just because "they're ugly" or "we don't like them". If I were going to kill a bug, I'd need a much better reason than that. Now, a brown recluse spider would be one of those special exceptions...
 
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