to not want to make two expectant mothers homeless?

[BalloonSlayer]

I have five, yes FIVE, of those spindly spider things lurking above the door in the back room.

I desperately want to get rid of them, but two of them have webs full of little dots, which I presume are babies.

AIBU to take pity on them and not evict the whole bunch until the babies have flown the nest?

I don't like spiders but these aren't really spiders are they? And they don't scurry, they just sort of exist.

lynx can + lighter. now.

They dont impact on you, so YANBU, they are harmless and very good at catching other insects in their webs.

PMSL @ Lynx can

Do Mummy spiders care for their young? If they do I'd leave them, if not I'd hoof them out on the ear :o

Oh God, it's like Charlotte's Web.

Personally I couldn't live with five big spiders above my head anywhere in the house. I can understand your reluctance to kill 'em though.

I thought spiders' eggs were contained within egg sacs, rather than lots of little individual babies. Could it be that the dots are actually just debris caught in the webs, or even old dead tiny flies?

I think they may eat the mother when they hatch. We had one in a glass. I left it- there were hundreds of little spiders- mother was dead and they had eaten the body- just legs left.

When we were little my brother decided to keep two ants in a tictac box as pets while we were on holiday - he fed them jam. Unfortunately one of the 'ants' turned out to be a small spider - it spun a web, caught the other ant and ate it. My brother was devastated! It was 30 years ago and still makes me laugh! Sorry, your post just reminded me of it.

But they are those whatchacallit spiders, my sister says they aren't actually even spiders. They don't move. If there were five of those things you can actually hear walking across the carpet you wouldn't even get me in the room.

I have just googled and they are called Pholcus phalangioides

It says: "This spider is found mostly in houses in most countries. Its common name is the daddy-longlegs spider or cellar spider as it is often found in damp dark places in houses. The female of the species is often seen carrying eggs in her mouth and when they hatch she takes good care of her young, feeding them from her mouth. Perhaps a better name for this spider would be 'Mummy-longlegs'."

LOL sprogstersmum

Leave them in peace, my MiL tuts about the spiders in our house, and I always tell her they're natures fly paper (which we get a lot of in summer)

That said, I'm quite fond of spiders.

I have the same thing in my house. The spindly ones don't bother me at all (they're a bit untidy, but so are my children). I herad they eat clothes moths too, so that's more than enough rent for me.