This is a tale of Sing in Can killing a spider; the Dragon Conjurer who wanted world peace had to kill an 8-legged creature. Indeed, after living with spiders since coming to Canada, the time still came for me to do the unthinkable.
When I first came to Canada, living with spiders was never on my mind. I read about having to be on the alert for bears when walking around in North Vancouver where my school was located, and the locals warned me about running into cougars if I were to stay in school late. Never had I expected that I would be roommates with a spider.
And a humongous one.
But before I talk about how I killed a spider, let’s talk about how I met it.
How I Met Your Spider, Canada Version
I first noticed it chilling out at a corner of my main door, on a quiet Sunday morning 2 weeks after moving into my new house. I wondered if it would run away when I open the door to get my Ubereats?
The creepiest aspect about it was how long its legs were. The body was like the size of a bottle cap, but the legs were sprawled out to 10cm across, starkly against the white paint of the door.
Now, in Singapore, spiders that appear in our homes are no bigger than the size of a thumb nail. But no, my roommate was not a cute little thing. Not with those ultra long and lanky legs!
For the rest of the day, Spidey remained motionless in its spot. Even when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, I noticed it was still there.
Until the next morning.
It was gone and I had no idea where it was.
There was a possibility it went to take a walk outside, or decided that it was warmer deeper into the house.
What if…? What if it went into my bedroom?
My worst fear transpired before me when, just an hour before I went to bed, I saw Spidey scurrying across the floor of my bedroom.
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It scurried under the bed and disappeared.
That was when I decided I needed to know more about spiders in the house.
Do Spiders Climb Onto Beds?
The last thing I wanted was for Spidey to share the bed with me. And considering our size difference, I might accidentally squash it. And in defense, it would bite me.
I really didn’t want Spidey’s life to be endangered!
The first question to Google was thus: “Do spiders climb onto beds?”
Lucky for me, Google said the chances were low for bedroom accidents with spiders. Spiders, despite what was depicted in horror movies, avoid human beings due to our differences in size.
Even sleeping giants have a chance of waking up or tossing around, so Spidey wouldn’t take the chance to venture into human’s space. Our breathing would be sufficient to send the message that we’re still dangerous to spiders.
That being said, there was advice to minimise the chances of both of us rolling together in bed.
First, bed sheets or blankets touching walls or floors provide an avenue for spiders to accidentally crawl onto our beds. So, nope, my oversized duvet was folded into half so that it won’t drape over the sides of the bed.
Secondly, beds that are directly in contact with the wall, spiders’ main medium of movement, also increase the chance of non-intentional trespassing. So 2 inches from walls my bed went.
Lastly, spiders loved dark corners. I changed my shelf bought on Taobao into one that had no backing.
Edit in 2020: In early summer, the spiders were out from their hiding again, most of them were little spiders. One small spider the size of a loony, actually climbed onto my bed and my face at night! I felt ticklish on my neck and instead of brushing away hair, I caught the spider with my bare hands >.<
How Likely Will They Bite Humans?
LIke a typical Singaporean, despite having done up all first layer defenses, I still wanted to play safe.
Yes, Spidey will be reluctant to come near me. I have also proactively limited our chance encounters. What if…? What if we still ended up as unlikely partners in bed?
Google said that spiders, and whatever insects with venom, will not bite indiscriminately. For venomous spiders, their venoms are made of special proteins that are hard to produce; they will incur XP value in order to produce venom. An analogy is giving birth.
Therefore, whatever that drives spiders to bite and use their venoms must have a high ROI – like killing of prey.
Most spider venoms are not sufficient to kill a human and spiders are not interested to kill a big prey that is too big to eat.
In the unfortunate event that we do end up on the bed where I crushed it, their fangs are on the underside, so it will be difficult for it to bite when being crushed from the top, which is the likely scenario.
Known spider bites also occurred when spiders were hiding in shoes (dark and warm) and humans unknowingly stuffed their fat feet in. Therefore, I started the habit of knocking my shoes on the ground and flailing my socks before I wear them.
I then also grew to appreciate why the small shoe rack I bought had bars instead of boards for the horizontal platforms. It reduces the chances of spiders hiding on the underside and me brushing against it as I reached for my shoes.
Here’s a very informative page that assured me that Spidey won’t bite me unprovoked:
How Do We Repel Spiders?
I don’t like the idea of killing. It’s not like I’m holier than thou. I just am not keen on the idea of cleaning up after dead bodies. Therefore, if I can make my place as unwelcome for spiders as possible, so be it.
I read that eucalyptus/pine smell repel spiders. The information was not from a scientific website, so I took it with a pinch of salt.
However, when I saw a pine-flavoured air freshener gel in Miniso that cost only $3.99, I thought to myself, why not?
That air freshener was meant for a car, so I decided to keep it on my bedside table – nearest to the place I least wanted to find Spidey. The story went that despite seeing Spidey (and its descendants) around again in the house, I no longer see them in the bedroom anymore.
When it comes to repelling spiders, there are tonnes of resources. Here is one that recommends repellents using natural ingredients rather than an insect spray:
https://commonsensehome.com/natural-spider-repellents/
Why Do Spiders Come Into Homes?
Every time Spidey made its appearance around the house, I couldn’t help but think, “Why me? Why this house?” I also wondered if it was possible to drive it out of the house. Or what exactly attracted it here in the first place?
The first thing I found out was that there are house spiders and outdoor varieties. Yes, they’re called house spiders because they don’t venture outdoors.
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Outdoor spiders never come into a house, and neither would a house spider leave a house. The house spider is specially adapted to the low-food and low-water environment of a human abode, so it will be unwilling to leave.
So how do they appear in the house in the first place?
It appears that house spiders are introduced into a new home when an old piece of furniture containing a spider sac is moved into the house.
Therefore, it was possible that Spidey came in when my landlord bought the dining table set (which didn’t look new) from a second hand store.
Remind me never to buy a second hand furniture. NEVER.
Here’s the link that informed me about spiders being the homey type:
Are Spiders Cold Blooded?
Along with wondering whether spiders move into and out of the house, I wondered if they were warm blooded or cold blooded? Before I knew spiders never venture out of a house, I thought that Spidey came in because it summer was ending and it was trying to hide from the cold.
Just like the swarms of ants running around when Fall came around and it started raining for days on end.
Amazingly, I found out that spiders are indeed cold blooded, and because of that nature, they are not attracted to warmth.
Not only was that consistent with my discovery that indoor and outdoor spiders are distinct and do not cross boundaries, it also allayed my fear that Spidey would find it so cold at night that it would come huddle with me on my bed.
https://www.geek.com/news/how-do-spiders-survive-the-winter-1757264
What Are The Venomous Spiders In Vancouver, Canada?
This question arose when I wondered if Spidey, and his house spider comrades, was poisonous. That was also when I found out that the notorious Black Widow spider can be found in Canada…
Thankfully, most poisonous spiders are outdoor spiders.
That being said, I always walk into spider webs when I’m outside, so I’m pretty worried that I might bump into a Black Widow one fine day…
And guess what, nowadays, I walk with one hand in front of me so that when I walk into spider webs, at least it won’t be my face that will get entangled (because it happened a number of times).
Death of A Spider
Now that I’ve made you read through a whole list of spider facts, here’s the topic of the post.
1 month after meeting Spidey for the first time, I started to see it scurrying around the house more often. One day, it started pacing up and down the bottom of the wall where my study desk was.
Finally, it settled near the door, among the wires of my electronics.
For a few days, it stayed there. Since it stayed motionless for one day when I first met Spidey, I thought that was normal. Until I realised it had been in the same spot for almost a week.
I finally disturbed the wires – usually, it will scurry away when I get near or moved a piece of furniture it was hiding.
Not today.
That was when I found out that Spidey was dead!
In fact, quite a number of ants was feeding on its carcass! With great sadness, I cleared its carcass and brought it out together with my garbage.
But Spidey died by itself, not killed by you! I can hear you say.
Yes… That was a click bait. The real story of my killing a spider is below.
To Kill A Spider
It happened a few weeks after Spidey died. I was washing the dishes when I knocked into the detergent bottle, and a spider the size of a red bean scurried from under it.
Somehow, it slipped off the edge and into the other compartment of the sink I was not using.
For all sorts of reasons, it just could not climb its way out. The sink was dry and yet it kept slipping back to the bottom of the sink.
I wondered if I could wash it down the drain and drown it – and so I did.
Instead of twisting the tap over, I used my hand to collect some water to wash over the spider.
The first time I succeeded in washing the spider down the side of the sink, it ran in the opposite direction, where it met another waterfall thanks to me.
As I was only using water collected from my hand, there was not enough water to fully flush it to the drain. Just as I was contemplating if I should twist the tap over, the spider curled its legs turned itself into a ball. A usual black bean.
With that, I dumped more water to wash it to the drain. However, it was too big, so it ended up resting just on top of the strainer. I didn’t really want to kill the spider – so I left it there.
Perhaps, when it sensed that I left, it would uncurl itself and scurry out of the sink without my knowledge.
Much to my surprise, it was still in the same position when I returned home in the evening. I drizzled water onto it. If it were to be still alive, it would definitely react by trying to run away. But it didn’t. It just stayed as a black bean. That was when I knew it was dead.
With that, I took out the strainer and tossed the dead spider into the drain.
I later tried to read up how I managed to kill the spider without water, but not drowning it. The water was just flowing over it most of the time!
However, there was no information on why it happened. They explained that we could drown spider – which was not the case for me – and the best way to kill a spider is to freeze it.
That Was How I Killed A Spider in Canada
There it is… the story of how a Singaporean lived with a spider in Canada and eventually killed one. Unlike the story of the Dragon Conjurer, this is an anti-climax tale of life and death. Hopefully, you gained some knowledge about spiders and how to live with them.
If you enjoyed this post of life and death, Like and Share it! Even better, Follow Sing in Can for more ridiculous tales of a Singaporean living in Canada!
Till then, sing while you can!
p/s: Between the time of writing and publishing of this post, I have killed another spider. This time, purposefully. It appeared in my bathtub and I flushed it down the drain. Let’s see how many spiders I’ll kill this Fall!
Edit 2020: As I grew more accustomed to having spiders in my living environment, and seeing more of them around the house over the year, I got more daring. There was once in summer when I killed 2 spiders in the span of 24 hours! lol Apparently, a parent spider was hiding under the toilet brush holder and I assumed the whole family was housed there. I saw a speck of a tiny spider scurry across the bathroom floor and quickly tore out a piece of toilet paper to catch it and flushed it down the toilet. Barely 20 hours later, I saw a larger spider, the size of a fingernail right beside the toilet and it met the fate of its smaller sibling. I was a bit apprehensive about the 2nd one, though, because it was very near the toilet brush holder a.k.a. their hideout. I was so afraid that its parent would jump out of its hiding and attack me as I bent over to kill its offspring!!
p/s: On second thoughts, before the incident mentioned in the last paragraph, I had 2 spiders, also the size of a section of a finger, that were somehow having a field day in the bath tub. I simply turned on the shower and flushed them down the drain wheee~~~
Editor’s Note: This article was first posted on Sing in Can blog in 2019. It is now re-posted on Live.Life.Love as SiC has closed down.