Squatters

[sasha]

 
daddy-longlegs season is upon us -
evicted three of 'em yesterday:
one from the bathtub
one from the kitchen sink
then one marched out
from behind my desktop speakers
and glared at me
as though I were the intruder...
every year I tell them
"I'll stay out of the hostas
if you stay out of the house" -
and every year they get in -
don't ask me how....
but I guess that's okay
because they make me laugh
and anything that does
has got to be better
than what's going on
between the commercials...

[mnaz]

Same here. One of the great mysteries of the universe. How do they get in!?

[sasha]

I've got an inward-opening front door. My best guess is they're clinging to it, & when I open it, they fall into the entryway. I can't bring myself to dispatch them - how do you justify killing something that looks like a lentil on stilts? So I just grab 'em by a leg & toss 'em back out the same door. We don't compete for food - they're predator/scavengers - they neither sting nor bite - at least not effectively - & even if they did they're nonvenomous (urban legends to the contrary)... and they're just funny-looking enough to be endearing. I evict them for their sake as much as for my own.

[mnaz]

I had a "housemate" who hated those daddy longlegs,
but I always thought they were kinda cool and I just
left them alone

[winddance]

always called them "not-a-spiders"