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Comment by aflukasz | Hacker News Reader

I love spiders!

Just kidding.

I block them by putting a transparent cup over them, slide an open book cover beneath where they stand, so that they must enter on top of it, close the book, and off we go - I, the book, the cup that I press with all my force, and the spider trapped inside - to the nearest opening in the building, wishing them the very best on their new way of life, outside, and for me to live and thrive.

In my apartment, and I swear this is not a joke, most of the time I use "NoSQL - A Brief Guide to the Emerging World of Polyglot Persistence - Distilled", as my main transport mechanism.

Anyway, to the point. Similarly interesting behaviors of spiders include using web vibrations for communication and sensing, apparently even including tuning. You can easily google (is this still a cool way of saying "search"?) related articles, just ignore the web apps Vibrations API article on the MDN.

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I admire your dedication to preserving life in the face of discomfort! I personally use a two-tiered approach: if the spider inhabits the DMZ, they may persist unmolested. This includes most parts of the house where we aren't likely to come into physical contact. However, protected territories include my bed, my clothes, and pantry. Venturing into protected territory as an arachnid is, unfortunately, a capital crime.

Any semi-stiff plane would do, the thinner the better so as not accidentally injure the little critter's legs and what-not. These days keep an unpeeled decal that has just the right thinness/stiffness properties.

Haha, wasn't expecting such a tip!

The problem is that if this plane is semi-stiff, it's hard to put your hand under it without making an opening between it and the glass. And that is not a risk I'm willing to take.

So the trick is that I slide something thin (the cover itself), but then can, as a second stage, put the rest of the book there, by closing it. But true, no reason those two layers must be a part of the same thing.

Today someone posted Show HN for a catalog of problems looking for better solutions. Maybe I should submit there?

> it's hard to put your hand under it without making an opening between it and the glass. And that is not a risk I'm willing to take.

TBF, for most of the spiders that we find in our homes, the risk is only psychological, not physical. That said, I prefer not to make physical contact. My nephew though, he plays with them like they are puppies.

Well, this is not even 1 mm thick. It's just 2 glossy papers that are held by the adhesive so the gap while I slip it under the glass is pretty minimal.

I use a cardboard coaster (e.g., from your local pub), which is necessarily cup-sized.

I feel like you guys need to discover the purpose-built tool for this: https://a.co/d/ixJoPRE

We keep these under every sink because they tend to appear in tubs for us. Only problem is spiders that run fast, it’s hard to capture them without injuring them.

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