Here's a little request. Please don't kill spiders the next time you see them in your home. I know it’s difficult to not kill them, given the fact that they are creepy and dangerous but they are also a part of nature and our indoor ecosystem – as well as being fellow organisms is their own right.

Spiders are creepy. They have eight legs and a bunch of messed-up looking eyes. They shoot webs out of their hinders and have crazy, bitey mandibles. The kicker: Some spiders are poisonous and can kill you, paralyze you or rot your flesh. That's horrible. No wonder everyone is against spiders. But maybe you shouldn't be.

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In an article posted in The Conversation, Matt Bertone, Extension Associate in Entomology, North Carolina State University, along with his colleagues conducted a visual survey of 50 North Carolina homes to inventory just which arthropods live under their roofs. Every single house they visited was home to spiders. The most common species they encountered were cobweb spiders and cellar spiders.

Both build webs where they lie in wait for prey to get caught. Cellar spiders sometimes leave their webs to hunt other spiders on their turf, mimicking prey to catch their cousins for dinner. Although they are generalist predators, apt to eat anything they can catch, spiders regularly capture nuisance pests and even disease-carrying insects – for example, mosquitoes. There’s even a species of jumping spider that prefers to eat blood-filled mosquitoes in African homes. So killing a spider doesn’t just cost the arachnid its life, it may take an important predator out of our homes.

Most spiders don't harm humans. In fact, they help us. Spiders are beneficial inhabitants of any garden, ecosystem or home because of their important contributions to biological control of pest insects. They are considered to be the most important terrestrial predators, eating tons of pest insects or other small arthropods every year.

As mentioned above, spiders are generalist predators that are willing to eat almost any insect they can catch. They are abundant and found in most habitats and only need to be left alone!

If you are scared of spiders, which you probably are, and can't stand them in your house, apartment, garage or wherever, instead of smashing it, try to capture it and release it outside. It’ll find somewhere else to go, and both parties will be happier with the outcome.

Or better – just leave them wherever they are in your house. It's very normal to have spiders in a house. So consider a live-and-let-live approach to the next spider you encounter.