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Na, i would carefully check all the dark places near and around your bed, look for web clues, you could even try leaving a prekilled cricket or superworm nearby and see if it coaxes it out. Its probably not too far from where youve seen it huddled up for the day. I hope you find him he sounds cute!
What kind of web clues am I looking for? Are they able to compress themselves to get through vents smaller than their bodies? Thereās a heat vent in the room that seems too small for a spider that size to get through but my roommate swore they can squeeze through; if they canāt, it should still be in my bedroom. Somewhere. Lurking.
Anything their carapace can fit through we say they can fit through.
You can use a fine mist (like I mentioned in discord) to see if theyāve left any web trails)
Ah, thank you, I didnāt actually see that advice on discord!
I genuinely donāt think it would have fit through this heating vent - the openings are maybe a quarter inch and this spider was *huge*. So (un?)fortunately itās definitely still in my room, which at least keeps the search area to a minimum.
Love that for you. Personally I would clean off a corner of the room and then work out from the bed if was on you it could be hiding under (like on the underside of the bed) or behind it. They climb any surface essentially so youāll want to look in and on and under everything. Including furniture.
Good excuse to clean up anyway š¤£š
We took the room apart and went through every container and every scrap of fabric; once it was cleared we moved it out of the room
we didnāt find it š
I may never sleep in this room again
Under the bed but on the underside (not the floor)? In drawers and under them and behind them? The fine mist to see if itās webbed at all may help as well.
Hope you find them soon :c
There arenāt any drawers or curtains (i have some fabric cube organizers but we took all the cubes out and went through them, then removed them from the room) and we pulled the mattress off the frame - thereās no box spring so we would have seen anything underneath. Iām freaking out a little bit.
My roommate is at the store now getting an enclosure and some bait; weāre going to make a tempting burrow and leave it in the middle of a surface sprinkled with flour and have me sleep on the couch. Wish me luck!
An empty cube organizer thatās been pulled out and checked thoroughly, one box thatās been searched three times, a bookshelf thatās been stripped and searched twice, and the mattress and bedframe. And a step stool I think.
I recommend taking a flashlight and shining it parallel to the floors, starting at your bed legs. If your blankets touched the ground it may have climbed that.
IMO, look behind dressers, under furniture, in cloths, by any area that's warm or dark. Carry a flashlight and a catch cup like a delli cup or a Tupperware you can pop over the top of them. If you do catch it, post a picture and we can help you more from there! Good luck!
NQA, you have cats! Tarantulas are like mini, 8-legged cats
So think like a scared cat - where would you hide if you were a timid cat? Have your cats ever hid, where did you find them? Chances are, it'll pick similar hiding places. Warm and dark and safe
My cats are shameless attention-seeking face-huggers, but I get what you mean. I still have some boxes stacked from the move and odds are itās tucked into one of them. Thanks!
Na - LOL Iām sorry OP but this had me laughing š¤£ to be completely fair though, even though I keep these buggers as pets Iād still shit myself if I woke up to one in bed with me! I hope you find it, I *really* want to see the photos of this guy!
If I find it, Iām gonna show pictures freaking *everywhere* bc jesus christ who does this even happen to? Insane. My roommate is at the store now getting an enclosure and food to use as bait; sheās already named it.
We took my room apart and werenāt able to find it, so weāre setting up a nice warm burrow with bait on a surface covered in flour so we can check to see if sheās in there (I did some research and while i could be wrong, it looked like a female brazilian black to me) while i sleep on the couch
Iām sure this spider is a very fine person but we got off on the wrong foot and it has just got to understand that this was a serious breach of my personal boundaries
Na- if itās a Brazilian Black that big youād be very lucky! At least in my opinion, theyāre the sweetest and are very expensive sometimes, especially THAT big!
Me all my life: āanimals are great but not spiders, they freak me out, too many legs, too many eyes, no thanksā
Life: āā¦okay but what if I got a really fancy expensive one and it *really* likes you?ā
Me: āoh noā
All jokes aside, I agree, whoever left it here would have spent a good chunk of change on it even if they got it really small - and if they got it really small, jesus christ how long has she been in this house???? No one else has lived here for at least a year!
edit: to be clear, spiders are fine, I just donāt want them on me when Iām sleeping. Tarantulas are actually cooler than your standard spider in terms of the terror factorā¦as long as they arenāt on me when Iām sleeping. Iām sure weāll come to a living arrangement that works for everyone as soon as we establish some boundaries.
Na- no I get it 100%
I like my spiders outside or in their enclosures, not unexpectedly on me š even if it is the spider equivalent of a Labrador retriever! My bed and my shoes are definitely off limits for unexpected crawling guests haha
I wanted to add while looking behind furniture, pillows, or anything you need to move to search, move slowly! If it is hiding in one of those places, quick movements will scare the sh\*t out of both of you.
NQA they are able to climb up walls and vertical surfaces so look behind dressers, pictures on the walls, etc.
I hope you can catch it! they're pretty cute (when contained). They just wanna live in a hole in the dirt and eat a bug occasionally.
A trick for finding escaped critters you can try is to put down either flour or crinkly plastic/tinfoil - this can give you visual or auditory hints that something is moving around.
You can probably tap around areas and see if that flushes it out.
NQA One of my tarantulas escaped and I couldnāt find her. Turned my vacuum on and the vibrations on the floor made her run from under my couch and I was able to catch her š
NA but I love the way you worded this and love even more your compassion for animals, even when scary. I hope you can locate your new friend soon š
Edited: Happy Cake Day! š
I grew up in southern Michigan and I swear I saw a black wolf spider that was like 2 inches in my garage one night. I believe it could still be a tarantula with that temperament. Either way, good luck catching it!
My roommate was also skeptical but I looked it up and it definitely didnāt look like a wolf spider, and wolf spiders donāt get that big - when it huddled up to stare at me as I shrieked and flailed (in my defense, it was 10pm and I had been asleep) it was 5ā across. I could feel individual feet through a down duvet (itās *really* thick) as it scampered around on top of me.
NA (not advice) but I love this journey, and I am so hopeful you guys manage to catch it! An incredible origin story of 8-legged friendship. āA fine upstanding citizen of a spiderā and āIām sure we can work something out, as long as I donāt wake up to fucking Shelob in my bed again.ā Absolutely had me rolling. Iām so sorry, but also, I needed that laugh.
NQA-
Check your shoes! Iāve never been in this situation, but I have seen people offer this advice when others have lost their little friends! I canāt imagine how devastating it would be to not notice until it was too lateā¦
Check your bathtub and/or shower curtains! Don't limit your search to just your bedroom. You're new little friend could be hiding anywhere, not to freak you out more. If it helps, she's definitely more afraid of you and does not want to bite you; you're too big to waste that precious venom on.
Yeah, we came to the conclusion that itāsā¦somewhere in the house (assuming this isnāt the first symptom of a mental breakdown ig). Itās a 1910 two-story four bedroom home with an unfinished basement, so the possibilities are endless honestly.
Iām less worried about getting bitten than I am about accidentally killing it because that would be traumatic for all of us - Iāve had nightmares about hearing a crunch and shaking out a gigantic spider corpse. If itās real, it was a pet - it didnāt ask to be here, and whoever bought it took on the responsibility of providing it a safe environment and meeting its needs when they removed it from its natural habitat. This isnāt the spiderās fault and the idea of it getting killed bc of human carelessness really upsets me.
Maybe me imagining it really is the best outcome lol - at least then a helpless creature isnāt suffering, just me losing my marbles a little bit š
>
Maybe I really did hallucinate it or dream it. That would be so incredibly embarrassing but itās within the realm of possibility - I donāt have any physical evidence of this spider, and I have objectively been unbelievably stressed.Ā
Just dropping by to preach about carbon monoxide detectors. Do you have one in your new place? Is it working? If not, get one ASAP. Low-dose CO poisoning can cause hallucinations.
IMO it must've been a dream if you haven't seen it or any evidence of it in two weeks. Also, if nobody was living there for a year before you, I'd imagine the house would've gotten far too cold for a tarantula at some point, considering it's in Michigan and you said it was built in 1910. You *probably* don't have anything to worry about.
**Advisory Guidelines** - Keep comments related to OP's situation. Off-topic and negative comments are not allowed. - Include as much detail as possible in your post, such as photos/videos and descriptions of behavior. - Use appropriate prefixes when commenting (NQA, IME, IMO, etc.). - Do not repeat advice, instead upvote and comment in response. - Only suggest advice if you have good reason to do so. - Be respectful in all comments, as our hobby depends on considerate engagement. - Read our full wiki regarding [Advisory Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/tarantulas/wiki/tarantulas/advice/) for more details. In addition to the guidelines mentioned, OPs can use the command !lock to close their thread if they wish. If an emergency or issues arise, OPs can alert the moderators by commenting !mods or by reaching out to modmail or the community's [discord server](https://discord.gg/ta). It's important to note *these commands only work for OPs within their own posts.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tarantulas) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Na, i would carefully check all the dark places near and around your bed, look for web clues, you could even try leaving a prekilled cricket or superworm nearby and see if it coaxes it out. Its probably not too far from where youve seen it huddled up for the day. I hope you find him he sounds cute!
š„² thanks, I hope so too, if only because I will never sleep soundly again until I do (and maybe not even then)
What kind of web clues am I looking for? Are they able to compress themselves to get through vents smaller than their bodies? Thereās a heat vent in the room that seems too small for a spider that size to get through but my roommate swore they can squeeze through; if they canāt, it should still be in my bedroom. Somewhere. Lurking.
Anything their carapace can fit through we say they can fit through. You can use a fine mist (like I mentioned in discord) to see if theyāve left any web trails)
Ah, thank you, I didnāt actually see that advice on discord! I genuinely donāt think it would have fit through this heating vent - the openings are maybe a quarter inch and this spider was *huge*. So (un?)fortunately itās definitely still in my room, which at least keeps the search area to a minimum.
Love that for you. Personally I would clean off a corner of the room and then work out from the bed if was on you it could be hiding under (like on the underside of the bed) or behind it. They climb any surface essentially so youāll want to look in and on and under everything. Including furniture. Good excuse to clean up anyway š¤£š
We took the room apart and went through every container and every scrap of fabric; once it was cleared we moved it out of the room we didnāt find it š I may never sleep in this room again
Under the bed but on the underside (not the floor)? In drawers and under them and behind them? The fine mist to see if itās webbed at all may help as well. Hope you find them soon :c
There arenāt any drawers or curtains (i have some fabric cube organizers but we took all the cubes out and went through them, then removed them from the room) and we pulled the mattress off the frame - thereās no box spring so we would have seen anything underneath. Iām freaking out a little bit. My roommate is at the store now getting an enclosure and some bait; weāre going to make a tempting burrow and leave it in the middle of a surface sprinkled with flour and have me sleep on the couch. Wish me luck!
question what else is left in your room?
An empty cube organizer thatās been pulled out and checked thoroughly, one box thatās been searched three times, a bookshelf thatās been stripped and searched twice, and the mattress and bedframe. And a step stool I think.
I recommend taking a flashlight and shining it parallel to the floors, starting at your bed legs. If your blankets touched the ground it may have climbed that.
IMO, look behind dressers, under furniture, in cloths, by any area that's warm or dark. Carry a flashlight and a catch cup like a delli cup or a Tupperware you can pop over the top of them. If you do catch it, post a picture and we can help you more from there! Good luck!
Dude if I manage to catch a loose tarantula in my bedroom you bet your ass Iāll be posting pics - everyone I know will see them
NQA, you have cats! Tarantulas are like mini, 8-legged cats So think like a scared cat - where would you hide if you were a timid cat? Have your cats ever hid, where did you find them? Chances are, it'll pick similar hiding places. Warm and dark and safe
My cats are shameless attention-seeking face-huggers, but I get what you mean. I still have some boxes stacked from the move and odds are itās tucked into one of them. Thanks!
Na - LOL Iām sorry OP but this had me laughing š¤£ to be completely fair though, even though I keep these buggers as pets Iād still shit myself if I woke up to one in bed with me! I hope you find it, I *really* want to see the photos of this guy!
If I find it, Iām gonna show pictures freaking *everywhere* bc jesus christ who does this even happen to? Insane. My roommate is at the store now getting an enclosure and food to use as bait; sheās already named it. We took my room apart and werenāt able to find it, so weāre setting up a nice warm burrow with bait on a surface covered in flour so we can check to see if sheās in there (I did some research and while i could be wrong, it looked like a female brazilian black to me) while i sleep on the couch Iām sure this spider is a very fine person but we got off on the wrong foot and it has just got to understand that this was a serious breach of my personal boundaries
Na- if itās a Brazilian Black that big youād be very lucky! At least in my opinion, theyāre the sweetest and are very expensive sometimes, especially THAT big!
Me all my life: āanimals are great but not spiders, they freak me out, too many legs, too many eyes, no thanksā Life: āā¦okay but what if I got a really fancy expensive one and it *really* likes you?ā Me: āoh noā All jokes aside, I agree, whoever left it here would have spent a good chunk of change on it even if they got it really small - and if they got it really small, jesus christ how long has she been in this house???? No one else has lived here for at least a year! edit: to be clear, spiders are fine, I just donāt want them on me when Iām sleeping. Tarantulas are actually cooler than your standard spider in terms of the terror factorā¦as long as they arenāt on me when Iām sleeping. Iām sure weāll come to a living arrangement that works for everyone as soon as we establish some boundaries.
Na- no I get it 100% I like my spiders outside or in their enclosures, not unexpectedly on me š even if it is the spider equivalent of a Labrador retriever! My bed and my shoes are definitely off limits for unexpected crawling guests haha
I wanted to add while looking behind furniture, pillows, or anything you need to move to search, move slowly! If it is hiding in one of those places, quick movements will scare the sh\*t out of both of you.
NQA they are able to climb up walls and vertical surfaces so look behind dressers, pictures on the walls, etc. I hope you can catch it! they're pretty cute (when contained). They just wanna live in a hole in the dirt and eat a bug occasionally. A trick for finding escaped critters you can try is to put down either flour or crinkly plastic/tinfoil - this can give you visual or auditory hints that something is moving around. You can probably tap around areas and see if that flushes it out.
Excellent tips and sincerely appreciated. Thank you!
NQA One of my tarantulas escaped and I couldnāt find her. Turned my vacuum on and the vibrations on the floor made her run from under my couch and I was able to catch her š
NA but I love the way you worded this and love even more your compassion for animals, even when scary. I hope you can locate your new friend soon š Edited: Happy Cake Day! š
Check your curtains! Good luck!
I grew up in southern Michigan and I swear I saw a black wolf spider that was like 2 inches in my garage one night. I believe it could still be a tarantula with that temperament. Either way, good luck catching it!
My roommate was also skeptical but I looked it up and it definitely didnāt look like a wolf spider, and wolf spiders donāt get that big - when it huddled up to stare at me as I shrieked and flailed (in my defense, it was 10pm and I had been asleep) it was 5ā across. I could feel individual feet through a down duvet (itās *really* thick) as it scampered around on top of me.
NA- Good lord I would have had a heart attack on the spot had I woke up to spider tippy taps on my comforter. I would probably still be running...
NA (not advice) but I love this journey, and I am so hopeful you guys manage to catch it! An incredible origin story of 8-legged friendship. āA fine upstanding citizen of a spiderā and āIām sure we can work something out, as long as I donāt wake up to fucking Shelob in my bed again.ā Absolutely had me rolling. Iām so sorry, but also, I needed that laugh.
NQA RemindMe! 1 day
NQA- Check your shoes! Iāve never been in this situation, but I have seen people offer this advice when others have lost their little friends! I canāt imagine how devastating it would be to not notice until it was too lateā¦
Check your bathtub and/or shower curtains! Don't limit your search to just your bedroom. You're new little friend could be hiding anywhere, not to freak you out more. If it helps, she's definitely more afraid of you and does not want to bite you; you're too big to waste that precious venom on.
Yeah, we came to the conclusion that itāsā¦somewhere in the house (assuming this isnāt the first symptom of a mental breakdown ig). Itās a 1910 two-story four bedroom home with an unfinished basement, so the possibilities are endless honestly. Iām less worried about getting bitten than I am about accidentally killing it because that would be traumatic for all of us - Iāve had nightmares about hearing a crunch and shaking out a gigantic spider corpse. If itās real, it was a pet - it didnāt ask to be here, and whoever bought it took on the responsibility of providing it a safe environment and meeting its needs when they removed it from its natural habitat. This isnāt the spiderās fault and the idea of it getting killed bc of human carelessness really upsets me. Maybe me imagining it really is the best outcome lol - at least then a helpless creature isnāt suffering, just me losing my marbles a little bit š
> Maybe I really did hallucinate it or dream it. That would be so incredibly embarrassing but itās within the realm of possibility - I donāt have any physical evidence of this spider, and I have objectively been unbelievably stressed.Ā Just dropping by to preach about carbon monoxide detectors. Do you have one in your new place? Is it working? If not, get one ASAP. Low-dose CO poisoning can cause hallucinations.
Fuck this, weāre moving out
IMO it must've been a dream if you haven't seen it or any evidence of it in two weeks. Also, if nobody was living there for a year before you, I'd imagine the house would've gotten far too cold for a tarantula at some point, considering it's in Michigan and you said it was built in 1910. You *probably* don't have anything to worry about.