To ask why so many people kill spiders

[McNewPants2013]

What is so scary about them.

They make the most amazing webs and these webs catch flys.

I'm scared shitless of them although don't mind them in the room once they keep away from me. Don't like killing them.

I hope the ones saying they never kill living creatures are vegan, just saying .

We always have spiders roaming around and i'm not bothered tbh, they rarely come out to say hello though because the house is too noisy. If I do see one it does freak me out a little, it's just the shock of seeing it running, makes me jump. But I just leave it be and pray that it doesn't crawl on me I like spiders, they eat annoying flies.

Tilly I'm sorry but you need help. You can't pass on that level of fear on to your children. When it affects your whole family in such a severe way enough is enough.

They only eat annoying flies if they've made a web in the right place to catch them!!

I agree.
A spider is a living thing that has a much right to life as we do. Who made us god, to decide when another living thing dies? And this unstable view of 'its me or them' is pathetic...they didn't target YOU personally, so why take it that way?

Just put a glass over them, slide paper under and put them out...or leave them abloodylone.

I cant even be in the house if i see one. I have had my neighbours round at all times of the day and night to rescue me. I can't even kill them.

I am actually sick with fear when I see one. I'm in Scotland so they aren't dangerous and i know this but even the smallest ones make me ill.

I won't pick things up from the floor because I'm terrified a spider will be underneath it or in it - clothing is the worst for me. I used to get DP to pick everything up and do a spider scan for me (he loves them, used to keep them as pets) but he used to get really annoyed with me because i was being so pathetic. We split up so I'm on my own and my neighbours know to expect a knock on the door lol.

It actually is really pathetic but phobias are irrational and trying to explain the fear to someone who doesn't mind them is impossible. There is no reasoning and i wish i could find a way to overcome my fear but it's so expensive for therapy/counselling sessions to overcome phobias.

I saw someone commented about spider repellent. I'm away to Google where to find some.

I try not to kill spiders but if they touch me or threaten to touch me or look at me funny they die.

Firm but fair.

I will stop killing them when they start contributing to the mortgage.

I have to say I agree with YourMa. I would have thought you could get CBT on the NHS for phobias which are affecting your life and children to that extent (and CBT, while not a panacea by any means, is good for phobias).

Neither dh nor I are frightened of spiders, and will happily scoop them up and put them outside etc. But my dc2 is very nervous of them. I don't think he's picked this up from anyone else and so I assume it's a kind of instinctual fear, an evolutionary throwback somehow, which would explain why so many suffer from it.

Thing is Pic I think "hmm few dead insects as a consequence of phobia vs. very good NHS money that could be spent on humans.

Humans win.

And I know the feckers are Arachnids not insects

i kill nothing.
i should become a buddhist. i cant kill anything - im not a huge fan of spiders but i cannot kill them.
they always go out.
i get cross if anyone kills anything in my house. DD thinks im a nutter....i dont care.
nothing gets killed by me.

well just to test me a huge one was just plodding across the floor....

we dont seem to get big ones in this house but this was the biggest ive seen here.

it was ploddy until i tried to sweep him into the dustpan!
but then obviously his survival instinct kicked in and went quiet....

i popped him outside near the garage - he is welcome to live in there!

the other night i found one the cats had been playing with....i thought it was dead - curled up on its back.
they are quite clever....it was pretending! it worked as the cats lost interest the minute it stopped moving.

he went outside too!

bowlingforsoup I completely understand. I am stupidly, irrationally petrified of them to the point I shake and am on the verge of tears if I spot one in the house unexpectedly. I have to kill them (or get my husband to, more accurately) as I can't bear the thought of not knowing where they might end up if left. I wouldn't be able to rest or sleep. I hate doing it as I know rationally they are the good guys in the battle against pests but it's the only way I can cope. If I'm on my own I struggle to get close enough to kill them as I start to feel sick (and would vomit if forced to get too close) so I have to use a thick newspaper at full stretch as that's as close as I can get, and even that makes my heart race with fear. I can't look at pictures of them and certainly can't watch the Aragog sections of the CofS film or Shelob in LOTR.

Last year we stayed in a holiday cottage and a spider ran over my leg while I was sitting on the sofa; after I'd finished shaking and shrieking, I had to go and change my clothes and put the jeans I'd been wearing straight in the wash

They are fucking gross gross gross and must be murdered. MURDERED. I am too scared of them to actually commit said crime though, OH gets sobbed at swoons

i find it sad that anything can be killed on the way it looks.....i think i need to move into a hippy commune or something ....i think im starting to see why i have issues with the job! (im meant to be 'ard and all that....but i cant kill spiders so speaks volumes!)

If the bloody bastard things are in my house, then they'll just have to run the gauntlet and try to get back out before they're spinning webs in spider heaven.

The inside of my house is mine - the bloody bastard things can have everywhere else. That's perfectly fair IMO.

I just think that if they don't want to be squashed then they shouldn't come in my house. It's an easily solvable situation.

Putting house spiders outside will be fine as long as you put them somewhere appropriate, like near bricks or a woody are etc.

I don't think telling perplexity phobias to imagine them in roller skates is remotely helpful, just shows your ignorance of phobias

Cbt or hypnotherapy would be far better advice. I've had both

There horrible things im terrified of them. I make dh kill then rather than put them out as they might come back.

I do genuinely get paralysed with fear even at the small tiny ones

House spiders outside are perfectly happy. My ivy outside is riddled with them, some of them quite enormous.

Because fatally poisonous or not,they can all bite. Even in the UK.

I'm too frightened to actually kill them myself though. My ability to think rationally shuts down completely. I see one and I move away very quickly,without warning. Funnily enough it the moving quickly without warning that I hate most about spiders!

I woke up when I was 2 or 3 with a massive one crawling across my chest. It's one of my earliest memories.

I like spiders as well, in Qatar however we get these little jumping ones which means you never quite know where they have gone. I got bitten on the eye by one a few years ago and was really ill. I don't kill them but the cats absolutely Hoover them up along with the monster ants who have their own shadows.

dh is terrified of spiders, I'm terrified of moths. I would never kill either tho, I deal with the spiders using the cup and paper method, dh deals with the moths.

I don't understand how people can so readily squash creatures :(

( I do consider, wasps, fair game because they'll sting me, mozzies coz they'll bite me, and big fat blue bottles coz they wanna be sick all over my food and lay maggots, but even then I try and tempt them out the door before I'm forced to splat them)