"Friendly" nocturnal visitors

[lakmiseiru]

Sitting in bed this evening reading Wikipedia, I saw movement on my floor (very sharp peripheral vision, which I keep training to be sharper, and it pays off!). A quick look established the presence of a large spider on my floor, the body perhaps 11mm, the legspan in total about 1.5". I quickly grabbed a glass plate from my bed and got it over

Comments

[alfrecht]

Spiders do bother me a lot, but I've come to the point where I don't freak out enough to not kill them...

"Humane" dealing with...not so much. I've been able to do it with ones that don't look very potentially harmful, but huge ones I just can't handle...

And erynn999 is the same, but I usually end up having to take care of them for her. For the first time ever since I've lived here, I think, she managed to kill one herself yesterday night.

I know, I know, they shouldn't be killed, but anyway...I've had enough spider bites in my life (not poisonous, thankfully) to not appreciate them very much, and if I'd had a black widow encounter like yours, I'd probably be even more contemptuous of them. Bleh...

[balmy_fool]

1.5"? Could it have been a wolf spider? They're a big *fast* night-time hunting spider, and they live everywhere. Did you see its markings well?

[lakmiseiru]

Hmm, he could have been a wolf spider as well. For some reason my mental image of a wolf spider is that of a jumping spider, which is silly. But he very well could have been a wolf spider - they're the other common hobo/house spider mixup.