Messin with spiders

[yung.carl.jung]

Moths ate holes in my two suit jackets

Moths killed my elaborate spice cabinet. There's moths and then there's goddamn moths..

I like the ones who don't magically penetrate into my food containers, eat through my clothes or hatch babies in my corn flour. The ones who just flutter around confusedly. Those are my kinda' moths.

 

[Akka]

I despise spiders (on a totally irrational basis), so unless they are absolutely tiny, they are killed on sight if I find them in any room where I live.
I allow them in non-living rooms (like the garage) as long as they are not in a place where I could have them fall on me.

Spiders are absolutely fabulous on an ecological and evolutionary point of view. Sadly, humanity has had an evolutionary point of view which make a lot of humans to see spiders as absolutely disgusting, and I'm part of said group of humans.

 

[warpus]

Spiders are the real heroes, they keep my house clean of bugs. Why would I want to kill any of them? Each spider I kill means more bugs in my house.

 

[Akka]

BTW, about all these "spiders clear bugs" : a spider eats something like one fly worth of insects per week. You might appreciate the work, but I'd hardly count on them to make any noticeable dent on insect population in your house.

 

[Kyriakos]

BTW, about all these "spiders clear bugs" : a spider eats something like one fly worth of insects per week. You might appreciate the work, but I'd hardly count on them to make any noticeable dent on insect population in your house.

You can have a gang of spiders, though.

 

[warpus]

BTW, about all these "spiders clear bugs" : a spider eats something like one fly worth of insects per week. You might appreciate the work, but I'd hardly count on them to make any noticeable dent on insect population in your house.

I mean, I kill a fly a month or so. So each spider is 4 times as productive as I am. Plus the flies will get caught in their traps whether they get eaten right away or not.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

Spiders are cool. They act as pest control. We'd have even more invasive stink bugs without them, and we already get a ton of those.

 

[shadowplay]

I don't need spiders for pest control, I'm my own pest control, and spiders ARE the pest. Not a leaf moves in this house if I'm not moving it. (puts on sunglasses and folds arms)

 

[Lohrenswald]

I try not to cause undue harm to anything if I can help it. If I see a spider in the house I generally leave it be. If it's causing a problem I move it outside with a cup+cardboard

Mostly the same, except I sometimes move them outside even if they aren't really doing anything

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've had a number of pet rats over the years, nine in total but no more than two at a time. They're awesome!

Vermin. So are mice.

Spiders are the real heroes, they keep my house clean of bugs. Why would I want to kill any of them? Each spider I kill means more bugs in my house.

Vacuum cleaners work, too.

 

[warpus]

Yeah like I have time to plug in the vacuum!

 

[Bootstoots]

Vermin. So are mice.

They're cute, friendly, smart little pets. They are also vermin, and they're also extremely good lab test subjects. Rats are good at all three roles - they're generalists just like we are. Mice are less good as pets because they bite, while domesticated rats that are used to humans virtually never bite.

Rodents are genetically closer to primates than either is to carnivorans (dogs, cats, bears, etc.), and it really shows when you watch them manipulate things with their little front paws. I actually kind of think of primates as a type of rodent which are mostly K-strategists rather than r-strategists (link).

 

[sophie]

Rats are super smart. And awesome. Simply the best. Rats>Cats

 

[Lexicus]

I love cats so I don't agree there. I think spiders are awesome, they kill other bugs. Same with these guys:

I'm a live and let live kinda guy.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

When is the last time that cats got into the kitchen cupboards and contaminated everything that wasn't in a sealed glass or plastic container or can?

Never.

When did mice do that? Summer of 1993, when the City decided to save money by not mowing the long grass along the city-owned boulevards and roadsides. In some parts of town (including my area, which was near a wildlife sanctuary and close to the migration corridor), the mouse population exploded because they suddenly had lots more habitat. They became such a problem that year that a neighbor actually begged me to rent her two of my cats, to catch them. I said no, because she had a vicious dog (apparently it never occurred to her that dogs can be mousers, too).

And I rather suspect that rats would be useless at keeping a person warm in the winter. One cat is as good as a spare blanket, and two or more are like a quilt.

 

[CavLancer]

Cats don't kill spiders?

 

[Kyriakos]

I love cats so I don't agree there. I think spiders are awesome, they kill other bugs. Same with these guys:

I'm a live and let live kinda guy.

The giant centipede?

No way. I can't live with that at all... Looks like Yog Sothoth's face

I also dislike grasshoppers, but they don't exist in the city anyway.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

When is the last time that cats got into the kitchen cupboards and contaminated everything that wasn't in a sealed glass or plastic container or can?

Never.

When did mice do that? Summer of 1993, when the City decided to save money by not mowing the long grass along the city-owned boulevards and roadsides. In some parts of town (including my area, which was near a wildlife sanctuary and close to the migration corridor), the mouse population exploded because they suddenly had lots more habitat. They became such a problem that year that a neighbor actually begged me to rent her two of my cats, to catch them. I said no, because she had a vicious dog (apparently it never occurred to her that dogs can be mousers, too).

And I rather suspect that rats would be useless at keeping a person warm in the winter. One cat is as good as a spare blanket, and two or more are like a quilt.

I suspect that if I had a pet rat it would not tear up the carpet every time it saw a closed door.

 

[Lexicus]

The giant centipede?

No way. I can't live with that at all... Looks like Yog Sothoth's face

I also dislike grasshoppers, but they don't exist in the city anyway.

They're not giant, they have big legs, but they're just little bugs. They're pretty gross, the way they move and everything, but I've gotten pretty used to them as they're pretty ubiquitous in basements on east coast of the US.
They're insectivores, and aren't at all dangerous to humans. At my parents' house the cat makes sport of hunting them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scutigera_coleoptrata

I suspect that if I had a pet rat it would not tear up the carpet every time it saw a closed door.

As a cat lover who grew up with cats - yes. I think every house owned by cats (when you have cats, the humans are more like guests or tenants) has at least one piece of furniture given over to the claws.

 

[sophie]

When is the last time that cats got into the kitchen cupboards and contaminated everything that wasn't in a sealed glass or plastic container or can?

Never.

When did mice do that? Summer of 1993, when the City decided to save money by not mowing the long grass along the city-owned boulevards and roadsides. In some parts of town (including my area, which was near a wildlife sanctuary and close to the migration corridor), the mouse population exploded because they suddenly had lots more habitat. They became such a problem that year that a neighbor actually begged me to rent her two of my cats, to catch them. I said no, because she had a vicious dog (apparently it never occurred to her that dogs can be mousers, too).

And I rather suspect that rats would be useless at keeping a person warm in the winter. One cat is as good as a spare blanket, and two or more are like a quilt.

I mean toxoplasma gondii, a parasite found in cat feces has been linked to a number of mental disorders, including schizophrenia, so it's not like cats come out totally clean in the whole "not contaminating your household" department. When you also consider that feral cats are a common vector for rabies, and that cats are the single most destructive species on the planet after humans, killing an estimated 1.4 BILLION birds annually, and being responsible for the extinctions of at least 33 bird/reptile/small mammals species (seriously people, don't let your fudging cats outdoors), yeah I'll take a rat over that any day.