Spiders coming into your home are 'looking for love, basically'

If you're experiencing some creepy, crawly guests in your home these days, you're not alone.

It's spider season in much of B.C., but don't worry: the spiders coming into your home are lovers, not fighters.

"Spiders aren't trying to come in from the cold many spiders molt into their final stage, whether they're adult males or adult females, where they're going to mate and probably die," Claudia Copley, entomology collection Manager at the Royal B.C. Museum, told All Points West host Robyn Burns.

"So a lot of them are on one-year life cycles. And male spiders that do their final molt walk away from a web and go wandering, looking for love, basically."

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Copley says giant house spiders, hobo spiders and the house spider are coming into homes across the province. People may call all of them "wolf spiders," but that's incorrect.

And while spiders may give some people the creeps, Copley is calling for a bit more sympathy for them.They rarely bite, and none of the three that commonly come into homes are venomous.

If nothing else, Copley says, just remember they won't hang around long. They're quite mature at this stage and the clock is ticking for spider heaven.

"Any female spider might eat the male when he approaches, because she might be super hungry and not that interested in lovemaking," she said.

"But she may mate with him and then eat him."

With files from CBC Radio One's All Points West

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