Should I Kill Spiders in My Home? An Entomologist Explains Why Not To

I know it may be hard to convince you, but let me try: Don t kill the next spider you see in your home.

Why? Because spiders are an important part of nature and our indoor ecosystem as well as being fellow organisms in their own right.

via getpocket.com

I’m sure they are but even I, who finds spiders fascinating, feel the need to crush them when they invade my personal space. I let them hang in my garage, except for the black widows of course, who must die and die quickly, but the brown house spiders, the sometimes spectacular garden spiders, I allow to live, in my magnanimity. It all depends on the bug. You don’t want brown recluses or widows sharing your space. If you see any, there are sure to be more, and the only sensible thing to do is unleash the full armatorium of modern chemistry upon them. It’s a job for professionals. It probably means you’ll live a little less long as the poisons they use are, well, poison. But there’s something unbelievably creepy about the insect world slowly moving in on your space. Out here in the high desert of East County San Diego, there’s an incredible variety of insect life, a lot of it not particularly friendly. I see exterminators, as they are interestingly called, as an investment in one’s health and psychic peace. So my advice is, don’t kill the occasional but usually be prepared to wipe them out. Your dreams will be nicer that way.