Save Our Spiders?

September 4, 2017 2:27 PM

Three or four spiders live in or on the old wooden window frame in our kitchen. We like spiders, so we leave them alone. Tomorrow when we're at work, our landlords are letting themselves in to take a look at the window, which leaks. The odds that they also like spiders are not high. We don't want the spiders to get squished, but putting them outside could also kill them. Can we keep them temporarily in a box instead? What should we put in with them?

(Preemptive follow-up: Yeah, well, I think you're weird for not liking spiders.)

posted by Perodicticus potto to Pets & Animals (9 answers total)

Leave a note for the landlords: please don't hurt our spiders. They're our friends.
posted by stewiethegreat at 2:36 PM on September 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: One day? Put them in separate jars or tupperware, hide in bedroom or other place landlords won't be going. Tight lids or you'll have bedroom spiders instead of kitchen spiders. If you can obtain a small moth or fly for them, I'm sure they'd like that, but spiders are also comfortable not eating for long periods. Afterwards, reintroduce them to their preferred nooks one at a time.
posted by notquitemaryann at 2:53 PM on September 4, 2017 [7 favorites]

Do be careful, though. My husband brought me a black widow he found, and I neglected to put holes in the jar lid and she died very quickly. I was heartbroken. Spiders are the best!
posted by thebrokedown at 3:12 PM on September 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

When I was growing up, my mom would catch spiders in a glass, covered with some light cardboard, to bring outside. If it was late or inconvenient to bring them out, she'd leave them trapped in the overturned glass on the mantle for a day. They seemed to get enough air and were always lively.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:52 PM on September 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: You can put a small, crumpled paper towel in each spider jar. That will give them something to hide in and, I think, make them not so anxious to get out. A spider can use a lot of precious energy repeatedly circling a jar looking for a, way out.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 7:37 PM on September 4, 2017 [11 favorites]

Best answer: Whatever you do don't put them in the same container. We have inadvertently precipitated a spider massacre by doing this in the past (though the winner certainly ate well).

Agree that in my experience they will be happy for a day in containers such as an upside down glass.
posted by bored_now_flay at 10:58 PM on September 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

My husband brought me a black widow he found, and I neglected to put holes in the jar lid and she died very quickly.

Wait. How much air does a spider need?

Spider experts out there: say I catch a garden-variety spider and seal it in a... baby food jar? (I'm trying to think of something small and common.) How long would it take for a nice fat orb spider to exhaust the oxygen in a sealed baby food jar or a pickle jar or whatever?

Because we have temporarily inconvenienced more than our share of spiders and various bugs in the name of taking them inside and looking at them under the microscope. None of them seemed short of breath or anything, but maybe I just couldn't hear them gasping and wheezing when I finally loosened the lid.
posted by pracowity at 5:02 AM on September 5, 2017

So far I've gotten along by asking the cleaners/landlords to not kill the spiders/skip dusting the ceiling (most of mine live there.) But if you don't trust them, or don't want to explain, the separate, ventilated containers idea sounds good. You could even mark the location so that they go back to the correct area.
posted by tavella at 3:18 PM on September 5, 2017

So how did this all work out?
Pictures?

We figure on about one (visible) spider per room is our house's carrying capacity.
More during fruit fly season, of course.
posted by hank at 9:09 AM on September 29, 2017