Dave and Bob

Spiders!  We have spiders living in the house.  I used to live in Basingstoke and had a real problem with spiders.  There were loads of them, big ones, and they were all over the house.  Perhaps  spiders aren't keen on the sea air as we don't get many by the coast.  The ones that we do get are in our bathroom, which is underground.  They live in the corner of the bathroom in a 2 storey web. The spindly one on the first floor web is called Dave and there's Bob on the ground floor web.  They don't bother us.  However, the youngest isn't keen on them watching her when she's on the toilet; sometimes we have to stand in front of them. 

Accepting them means that the children are accepting them too.  They don't panic or freak out when they see spiders.  Recently a big furry one appeared behind the shower unit.  Later that day the youngest pointed him out as he'd fallen into the bath and made his way onto a sponge.  I picked him up on the sponge and introduced him to Dave and Bob.  He hasn't been seen since.

I doubt they catch many flies.  There's no windows into the bathroom.  Occasionally there might be a lost fly in there.  Once they are groggy they are easy to catch and feed to the spiders.  It's easier than swatting them and clearing up the mess afterwards. 

Some people would just clear the web away and swat the spiders, but not us.  They keep themselves to themselves, I clear their web for them when the bathroom gets cleaned so they have to build another one; it gives them something to do.  They don't venture further than their web and after all, they are animals and have just as might right to live on the planet as we do.

They don't carry diseases but they do eat other creatures that might e.g. fleas, mites, flies, earwigs, mosquitoes etc.  They fight each other so you should never have many in one place.  Given the choice between a spider  content to sit in the corner and a host of flying insects, we choose spiders.