this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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[–] latenightnoir@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Even though I still have arachnophobia, I've intentionally lived with spiders for over a decade and I've not had issues with mosquitoes even if I left all of my windows open. And my roommates are thriving!

They're very chill roommates, too! After about 1-2 months of adjusting to living together in my old apartment, they stopped spinning webs in the areas which I used frequently and focused on the zones which I left out for them - ceiling corners, gaps between walls and furniture, etc. I did occasionally clean up their old webs every now and again (while taking great care not to bother the spiders themselves) because they also gathered a lot of dust. But they'd replace the old webbing in a matter of days.

And they never developed overpopulation issues, even though I did see them producing egg sacks regularly. I was expecting to drown in spiders by the end of the first year of trying this arrangement, but I never counted more than 15-20 spiders apartment-wide.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah I've always had similar arrangements with spiders. I don't bother them if they don't bother me. Wolf spiders chilling in my bathtub do get expropriated through the nearest window though.

[–] latenightnoir@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Oh, wow! I'd probably just die if I ever saw a wolf spider in my tub! Like, complete simultaneous organ failure, the energy which is me would just eject from my body.

Lucky for me, I live in Temperate-Continental, so my biggest threat is seeing a Long-Legs dangling down to check up on me while I'm showering!

And I'm serious about this. Maybe it was just me imagining things, but I swear they started inspecting me every now and again. Like, I'd be at my desk playing, and I'd see one rapelling from the ceiling, like 20-30 cm away from me. Seldom has any descended onto the actual desk, though, they'd just hang for a bit, then climb back up. It was strangely comforting, though, it makes them feel a lot more alive and present than the mind would tend to think about an eight-legged thing right out of my nightmares. They really have become my roommates.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I did yelp. And it took me some time to trap it because I was terrified to touch it. I don't have arachnophobia but I still find the big ones deeply unsettling

[–] latenightnoir@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Oh, I 100% understand that. Wanted to try handling a tarantula in a German pet shop, nearly fainted (knees got weak the instant I registered her on my skin, and I could tell she was not in any way aggressive...).

On the other hand, I've had one of those massive cockroaches sniffing around on my face, and not even a twitch. I seldom understand my brain.

[–] visc@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago