Built sometime in the 1940s, our house looks wonderful despite its age: the original hardwood floors are in superb condition, and recent remodels have given the interior a fresh and spacious feel. As college students whose housing expectations aren’t too high to begin with, my roommate and I would go so far as to say that we have the perfect home – if it wasn’t for the preexisting residents who were living here long before we arrived.

Our unexpected housemates are not from the human species, but the arachnid.

For most of my life, I’ve been fearful of spiders. Being afraid of spiders seems to be the standard; you don’t see many people who are indifferent or even welcoming of the many-legged creatures. But recently, due to my daily encounters with the spider people, I’ve begun to question this normalized fear that we accept in our society. What is it about spiders that we’re afraid of? Is there any legitimate basis upon which we build this common phobia?

Yes, some spiders are poisonous, but very few are. And no spider is out to harm you intentionally. Can you imagine being, at largest, the size of a coin, and being within proximity to a giant infinitely larger than yourself? If we think that we’re scared of spiders, can you imagine how utterly terrified they are of us? That being said, the resident spiders in our house have certainly startled me more than once. They frequently will scuttle out from things I go to use, such as a hand towel or my backpack. But rather than attributing these negative reactions to the spiders themselves, I tried changing my mindset.

Since I’ve started viewing spiders more as friends than foes, I’ve been witness to, what are in my opinion, miraculous events. One of which where I had momentarily gone outside to water the plants, and come back in to find that a spider had constructed, in the five or so minutes that I had been outside, a grandiose silk web designed with architectural perfection; a bridge connected our reading chair to the door opposite it. I was overcome with such awe that it never once occurred to me to relocate it outdoors or even kill it, like I usually would have. Instead, my (human) roommate and I just sat by and watched it do its thing. Not too long after this, the spider thought twice about its current location, and disassembled the elaborate web in mere minutes. I then opted to release it outside where I hoped it would find more amenable housing.

I was startled by a second miracle when pulling my bedroom curtains open to find myself face to face with a pumpkin spider, who was thankfully on the exterior side of the window. I was overjoyed to see that the orange and black colored arachnid had chosen to hang his web here, where I could easily marvel at it and its web from the comfort of my own room. When the first heavy rain arrived after a couple weeks of the spider residing there, I watched with worry as it hurriedly worked to reinforce its web amidst the downpour. It eventually sought shelter under the window ledge, curling its legs tightly around itself while waiting out the storm.

I have, in the span of a month, started seeing spiders as companions of sort. In doing so, they’ve become less the symbols of repulsion and fear I’ve always seen them as and more fascinating examples of how cool nature is. In all actuality, though, this is just my way of coping with a spider-infested house. But keep in mind that the alternative would be to flee in terror at every sight of a spider, in which case, I don’t think I’d be spending much time at home.