Calling all Fluther arachnophobes! How do you handle the "missing spider situation?"?

I hunt for it and dispatch it or else I will not sleep.
Good luck!

Find it and make someone else kill it.

Or, I sleep on the couch. That has definitely happened.

I agree with @lucillelucillelucille. If I can’t find it, I will be spending the night somewhere else…

I would probably rent a motel for the night if I was alone.

@ANef_is_Enuf What do you do if you live alone? Then it’s all up to you!

I shit my pants.

@yankeetooter hairspray. Then I sleep on the couch, because my bedroom smells like a noxious chemical cocktail.

I don’t use hairspray so I don’t have any in the house…hmm…might have to buy some…

I find the closest shoe and run after it like a viking gone mad.

Use the vacuum cleaner…one time a few days after moving into my townhome years ago, I’m playing a video game when I think I saw something move across the room (there wasn’t much furniture in the place yet). I got closer and, sure enough, it was a huge spider (it’s never a good sign if you can see them from across the room, lol!). I ended up sucking it up with the vacuum cleaner, but was so paranoid that it was going to crawl back out that I left the vacuum cleaner running for something like 20 minutes.

@KatetheGreat Shoes require that you get too close…

Haha! Vacuums are the only way I feel comfortable dispatching spiders myself. Even using a paper towel is too close for comfort. XD

I went and scoped out my sister’s room but I remembered seeing bugs all over the outside of her window earlier today so I think it may be even more perilous. So it’s head-under-the-covers for me tonight. Wish I had found that little devil!

@yankeetooter 20 minutes in a running vacuum cleaner… if he’s alive, he ain’t happy. lol. That’s not unlike the ones that get flushed down the drain in the sink or the tub. I hear they crawl back out, so now I run the water on the hottest setting for at least 15 minutes after I rinse them down. That way I know that if it hasn’t been flushed through a mile of pipe, it was at least cooked to death.

@ANef_is_Enuf It’s nice to know that there are other spider-phobes around! Lol!

I go out the next day and get a bug bomb.

The thing is more afraid of you for heavens sake! It will not hurt you. I’ve learned to love the things thanks to a fellow flutherite that is no longer here. R.I.P. zeebra man

Please dispose of the little fella outside if you find it.

If you haven’t seen this a million times before (and even if you have, it’s still hilarious and true), this cartoon is something that everyone in this thread should appreciate.

@jonsblond I respect people who do what you suggested, but I don’t have the guts to do so…that would also require me getting too close…

Find it no matter what it takes. If you suck it up a vacuum, know it can crawl back out.

Smash it and give it a viking funeral.

haha i am australian and the spiders are very large. It always bothered me-even when I was little. I have lived in the pacific northwest area of america for the last about 12 years off and on the least buggiest place I have ever been- I am going back however, and I am going to a HYPNOTIST before i go so that’s my answer

I don’t think they are more afraid of me. I won’t even get close enough to kill it, let alone catch it and let it outside. If someone else wants to, I’m okay with that.

Looks like you got one smart spider living (sleeping) with you. I wouldn’t fret too much on it. It is the scorpions that are in the no tolerance group.

One time I sucked another big fellow up with my vacuum cleaner, or at least I was pretty sure I had. I had recently changed the bag, so I opened up the bag and looked, and he was in the bag and fairly shriveled up. I still removed the bag from said vacuum cleaner, laid it flat on the floor, and stomped up and down on it something like 20 times…

@ANef_is_Enuf I loved that cartoon! That was great!

Well, see, you shouldn’t have taken your eyes off it. Now, if you had just cupped it gently in your hands, taking care not to hurt it, and escorted it outside . . .

You know, I used to trust that a vacuum would pull off all its legs or something until I had a vacuum in college that had a clear compartment where the sucked-up stuff goes. I vacuumed up a wasp in my dorm and it was just buzzin’ around inside there. My roommate took the vacuum apart outside and freed it. She is braver than I.

I once had a big ant climb back up a drain after I thought I had drowned it (shiver).

@Jeruba Alternatively, I could have kept my eyes glued to it while screaming for my mother. :D

Oh, for heaven’s sake, leave the poor spiders alone. They do so much more good than harm. Like @Jeruba said, escort them out if necessary, but wholesale arachnocide is pretty unjustifiable. It might just be time for you all to re-read Charlotte’s Web. :>)

@Mariah My mother lives 5 miles away from me…I believe she would hear me!

@crisw Charlotte had the good taste to live in a barn…and I like spiders, just not in my house…

Those of you telling me to leave it or touch it must not have experienced the irrational, instinctual, intense adrenaline rush that happens to me when I see a spider. I know rationally that it won’t harm me! That doesn’t change the fact that all the hair on my arms is now standing straight on end!

@crisw Escort them out? (Here, just give me a leg…)

@Mariah I’ve experienced the feeling. I had a wolf spider larger than the palm of my hand surprise me once when I went to take a shower. I’m sure my neighbors heard me scream. Get the scream out, take a deep breath, then pick the spider up or have someone else do it. They won’t harm you. Promise. =)

A cup and a sheet of paper will do it if you can’t deal with direct contact. Gently, gently.

I never had an issue with spiders until I got bit on my face.
I was trying to be nice and coax the spider to go down the drain, but it wouldn’t. So I grabbed hairspray and a lighter and fried the shit out of it.
That same night, I discovered that spiders are part of a brotherhood and watch each others back.
That was a painful lesson to learn.

People not afraid of spiders also have solutions that sound really easy…

I snuggle with it. ;) Or, get my kitty. He’ll find it. :)

Go to bed. It has been there for quite a while and you are still alive and well….what you don’t want to know is what it has eaten to get so big! Spiders are really your friend…good gate keepers for the other far nastier bugs that want to crawl into bed with you! ;)

I’m a little better than this guy

I used to be very arachnophobic, so I feel your pain, but I encourage you to try to work on your phobia at least a little. I made myself learn about spiders and, in doing so, found them interesting with the added bonus that I’m not paralyzed with fear when I see one anymore.

I also have perfected a method that allows me to take the spider outside without getting too hands-on. I can’t bear to kill things and the resultant mess when squishing is disgusting. I get a big cup (clear, if possible) and a postcard (or piece of stiff paper or card stock). I place the cup over the spider, trapping it, then gently slide the postcard over the opening in the cup. Take it outside, tilt the cup so the spider falls to the bottom, lay the cup down, take away the postcard, and run away!

As for the missing spider situation, I admit that I would suddenly be wide awake with heart pumping, unable to calm down until I’ve completed a thorough spider hunt and found it and/or determined that it really is no longer in the vicinity (and certainly not in my bed or bedding). shudder

I’m the type of girl who gets a sheet of paper and a cup (like Jeruba mentioned), gently scoops the spider up, and puts him outside. I can’t kill him.

My girlfriend on the other hand is petrified. I am the “spider getter” when I’m at her place. She even takes pictures of it using her phone, then sends it to me. She wants to show me how ridiculously mean and HUGE the spider is. It’s always a little yellow house spider. :)

Just be glad that it’s not one of these. I got bit by one last year and my foot swelled up so much, it was unrecognizable as a human body part.

@yankeetooter, using an easy solution is how I got past the ancient fear. In good time the fear evaporated.

@MissAnthrope I was very arachnophobic too, until I met Evelynspetzebra here at Fluther. Of all the users here, he made the greatest impact on me. Because of him I no longer fear spiders, and appreciate the good they can do. =)

There is nothing like a spider as a motivator to clean a room…

I’m not afraid of spiders but if I lived somewhere that there were venomous ones, I would be.

Oh i’m fine with spiders, not an issue at all. I did once wake up to find a wasp sharing my pillow…......I woke from my medically induced coma about….oooh, maybe 4/5 days later :¬(

Eek! I hate spiders! And most bugs, actually. I once called Mr. Fiance (way back when he was Mr. Guy I’m Kinda Dating) at midnight and made him and his friend come over because there was a giant moth in my house.

And @ANef_is_Enuf – Thank you so much for reminding me about Hyperbole and a Half! I had forgotten all about her.

I have a “thing” about spiders too. I can’t touch them or get close enough to squash them. I don’t really want to kill them, I just don’t want to see them or be close to them. On a logical level I know they aren’t going to hurt me and are extremely beneficial creatures. That logic flies out the window when I’m surprised by a spider or, God forbid, have one crawling on me. :( The reaction is uncontrollable, and I actually feel like I’m going to throw up if a spider touches me. This is after years of making progress. I used to not even be able to look at spiders, even on TV, without shaking and feeling sick. My goal is not to pass my irrational fear on to my kids, and so far they are much better with spiders than I am.

Luckily, my husband has no such fears. He will actually squash the spiders. I know we should put them outside, but we get those huge house spiders with the long, long legs and they like to live in our shower. If they’d stay out of sight, like in the basement or attic, they’d be OK. But I cannot shower with spiders. We had so many of them, my husband was getting rid of at least one a day, squishing it and flushing it. The next day, another one would move in! shudder

If my husband isn’t around, I’ll get my 7 year old to catch the spider and put it outside. If it’s any other kind of bug, including wasps or bees, I am perfectly able to gently catch it and put it outside. I only kill houseflies. Spiders are the only creepy-crawlies I can’t stand.

In your case, I would search obsessively for the spider then try to pretend I’d never seen it. I’d certainly have a hard time falling asleep, and would feel like something was crawling on me. Not fun.

By the way, I am so so so glad I am not the only person who worries about spiders surviving the vacuum, the toilet, the squishing, and and the drain. On the rare occasions when I’ve been desperate enough to dispatch a spider on my own, I’ve been so worried that it survived and would seek revenge!

I wouldn’t pick it up with your hand. Made the mistake of doing that one time in the swimming pool. Little bastard bit me and they hurt like hell.

I was driving down a narrow winding road with a cliff on one side and a spider as big as a man’s hand craweld across the windscreen!!! I almost fainted

@trailsillustrated On the outside, I hope!

@Mariah yes I pulled over when I got down from the hill and had my mother try to beat it with a branch- It went into the well where the wipers are and hid!! gag argh I had to drive home not knowing where it was

I had a spider (not nearly as big, mind you) on my windshield one night. I calmly told myself, oh, it’s on the outside, then promptly realized it wasn’t…I was driving down the road trying to hit it with an empty cassette (remember those?) tape box. (It was two in the morning and no one else was around…) I finally managed to kill it, but my heart was racing…!

@MissAusten My favorite line of your post is “I won’t shower with spiders…”! This line has me cracking up everytime I read it. I expect it to be followed by “I do have my standards!” Lol!

I bid it good night, and if I’m feeling particularly benevolent I might re-direct its attention to a part of the house that has more insects, if I know of any. Sometimes I let it outside where I know there are feasts aplenty, and more often I just ignore it.

Spiders are our friends. But I don’t shower with them, either. In the shower I redirect their attention to the drain.

As long as it’s not poisonous, spiders are totally harmless (even beneficial).

The problem is I have no clue how to tell a poisonous spider from a non-poisonous spider.