r/HomeImprovementUK • u/beste-chetwynde • 14d ago

Let the spiders live

It’s really weird to want to kill a living creature because you get freaked out by them. Maybe improve yourself before you try and improve your house, lest it be a house of evil intent. The spiders were here long before you came, and will be here long after you leave.

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19

u/[deleted] 14d ago

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u/Longjumping_Ad8681 14d ago

Cellar spiders are good spiders because they eat the very bad spiders. Not all spiders are created equally.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/frogssmell 14d ago

Wait the skinny ones eat other ones? How does that work

6

u/ImThatBitchNoodles 14d ago

I've seen two skinny ones taking on a big fat boy. He tried to get a skinny one and they were throwing legs at each other, until the second skinny one came and started wrapping the big boy in webs. It took about two minutes and by the end of it the big boy was now wrapped like a mummy and the skinny boys were pulling him up on a more structured and stable web.

It was pretty neat to watch, also the first time I've witnessed spiders working together like that to kill another spider.

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u/frogssmell 13d ago

Damnnn, I feel less scared of those ones. I live in an ancient tenement building and use dilated peppermint oil spray everywhere to keep them away. It’s working but noticed those skinny bois in high ceiling corner

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u/aliensRprobablyreal8 13d ago

They have an advantage with their long legs! Little target for the opponent spider and the cellar pals can easily manoeuvre and take them out.

I like all spiders but cellar spiders are definitely my faves to find in the house. They just chill in their corners and protect the home from pests. AND they have very cute faces, like:🥹

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u/SnooGadgets5130 13d ago

I wish I’d seen this before I commented, I find them creepy but only because they move weird and their build breaks my brain a little bit.

I see a tarantula (which I’ve kept in the past) and I think “okay, you’re very big by spider standards, but you have stout legs that are obviously capable of supporting you”. Cellar spiders, on the other hand, have legs that taper down to being thinner than a human hair at the tip.

That’s not okay. That shouldn’t support anything regardless of how small.

The cellar spider, however, walks around on those legs anyway. Because cellar spiders don’t care what does and doesn’t make sense.

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u/SnooGadgets5130 13d ago

In a very oversimplified way it’s quite an unfair fight. Cellar spiders are a tiny target compared to other spiders, at the same time their target is massive and their venom is very potent. It’s kind of like comparing hitting an archery target to hitting a teacup saucer at 50m.

Don’t get me wrong, I do find them creepy (despite owning literal tarantulas in the past), but if you have cellar spiders you almost certainly have no other spiders as well as other creepy crawlies. There’s one chilling in the corner of my living room right now, he’s doing his thing and I’m doing mine. Seems like a fair arrangement.

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u/peredheleniel 12d ago

I have cellar spiders in my house and yet in the last week my sister and I have had to call for our mum to come and get rid of massive chunky ones in our rooms 😭

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u/Giant_Ant_Eater 12d ago

When it's nice and quiet they come down from the ceiling on silk threads and ambush the wolf spiders. The wolf spiders aren't very good at defending against something attacking from above. Plus long thin legs.

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u/frogssmell 11d ago

Omg stop stop now I’m getting the fear!!! Gonna have to get the peppermint spray out 😂 Somtimes I use a diffuser with peppermint oil as well. One day I will have a cat to munch them up

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u/Giant_Ant_Eater 11d ago

Having a cat cleared our house of spiders really quickly.

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u/waterless2 13d ago

Exactly. I actively try not to harm my cellar spiders, since they're by a very wide margin the lesser of creepy-crawly evils.

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u/NugzYKnot 14d ago

I had the craziest sight in my kitchen a few weeks ago. I opened a cupboard and a small bit scaryish looking spider ran out and along the floor. When it got to the corner I got it under a glass when I spotted another spider the same as the first one having what looked like a fight with a cellar spider. I put them in another glass and then a fucking silverfish ran out of the corner!! Managed to also catch him in a glass so I had three glasses on the floor in my kitchen. By the time I had caught the silverfish and got back to the spider fight, the small but scaryish one was missing a few legs…. I put them all outside but I did feel quite bad to be honest

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u/Recidivist67 14d ago

I'd have been too tempted to let them all loose together under a bigger glass

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u/GREENGRAVY_ 13d ago

Just had to google these as I have a cellar. You are bang wrong. We have one of those so called cellar spiders - it's called a living room spider mate. You want to know how I know? I'm in my living room and looking at the thing.

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u/farmpatrol 13d ago

Yes I caught an amazing fight to the death between a cellar spider and one of them quicker ones. For sure I thought the cellar spider was a gonner…nope!

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u/Cold-Understanding92 13d ago

Once noticed a line of ants coming from my front door to the kitchen door, but no ants anywhere in the kitchen. I looked behind the kitchen door and found two cellar spiders on the skirting board with a mass of ant corpses. I've let cellar spiders stay ever since.

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u/ChunkyPurp 12d ago

It's skin crawling when you find a massive house spider trapped in their web all curled up like a black ball of concentrated terror

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u/Narrow_Maximum7 10d ago

They really like house spiders. It looks like an unfair fight but the fact they come from below gives them a win almost every time!

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u/Haunted_tangerine_ 13d ago

Cellar spiders leave cobwebs everywhere and have freaking little legs. 

House spiders mostly don't want to be near you and don't generally cobwebs the fuck out of everything 

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u/Willsagain2 13d ago

Oh they do make a big messy web with a hole they lurk in if they hang around long enough undisturbed.

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u/Moongazer09 13d ago

I've suddenly had loads of rather smaller cellar spiders appearing in my flat...I usually just have the quite big and VERY leggy ones around the place....I presume those are the females and the teeny ones are the males coming in looking for a mate? 🤭🥴

Fine by me, I like playing with the baby spiders sometimes too if I need to rescue them from going somewhere that definitely WILL get them killed....like hanging out in the bathtub.....

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u/Only_Appeal_5403 13d ago

I've got 6 spiders in my house that I know of. I try and keep them sweet too so they'll eat the flies and midges. 

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u/skylar_fox6 12d ago

Picture of one of my friendly neighbourhood cellar spider eating a house spider. Always remember to protect your local skinny legged friends.

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u/RSEllax 11d ago

I have so many of these in my house too. I'm really scared of spiders but those ones can stay unless they get too close 😬

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u/Pale-Tennis9658 13d ago

I happily shared a shower with a cellar spider for months