Note from an Eight-legged Housemate

I'm a spider! Fear me! Or not. That's okay, too. I'm really kind of a nice spider. And I'm sorry so many people are afraid of me, or maybe just want to squish me. I don't think they understand that spiders do more good than bad. Like catching and eating flies, or mosquitoes. The only bad we do, and none of it is meant to be bad, is leave old webs around, or leave little piles of dead animal parts or spider poo on the floor. We can't really help that, and we really do try to leave that stuff in dark corners.

Usually, I hide where it's dark, like under the sofa, or on the bottom of a chair seat. But I have to be careful. Some places are just too dangerous. The bottom of a chair seat is a pretty good place to hide, but a spider has to be careful about walking across the seat. And the insides of shoes or socks are really dangerous. One of my cousins hid in a human's sock, and he got mashed flat when the human slid the sock onto his foot.

It's true that some spiders are dangerous. But I'm just an innocent house spider. And that's not just a designation I chose to sound safe. It's the term scientists gave my sub-species. So why won't humans just let us share their houses? We don't bite. And we don't eat their food, unless they leave it out too long. And even then, we're usually not after that food. We're after the other little bugs that do eat that food. So come on. Be nice to us. We live here too.