Math Teacher likes spiders. He took me to museums to show me spiders are afraid of humans, too. They run away, hide, and generally don't want to be bothered by humans. Additionally, spiders eat the bugs that humans don't like, such as gnats. I still have my doubts.
After the move, we currently live in a decrepit apartment complex. There are cracks on the walls, and door and windows don't seal well. Everyday my skin was itchy and scratchy. We figured it was because the place was filthy. Who knows what is inside the walls? Who knows how much dust is in this place? For the first two months, every week we swept, mopped, wiped, and vacuumed the entire place. I bought smelling-good things for the apartment. Gradually my skin itches less, and the place smells better.
Then a spider moved in. It's hanging from the ceiling in a corner, at an angle difficult to reach. Of course Math Teacher wants to keep the spider. I was willing to give it a try as long as the web doesn't get on me. One day a gnat was flying around; the next day the gnat disappeared. One day a fly was going around; the next day the fly disappeared. There were many days that something was flying around, but the next day we didn't see it anymore. Math Teacher said the spider hangs around because it is well-fed. Who knows what tiny, microscopic mites are in this place? The spider might be eating a lot more things than we can see.
My skin has stopped itching; I maybe scratch once a day.
We have a killer in the apartment.
I am convinced, at least with this current spider. So we're keeping the spider. We named it Galadriel.
09 November 2023 Update: There were always at least 2 ~ 5 gnats flying outside of the front door at any given point in time. A new spider built a web on top of the front door. We saw the web growing bigger and bigger. We had to tilt our heads going in and out so as not to break the web. Amazingly, no more gnats flying outside of the front door. We saw some gnats flying about five meters away, as if they were keeping their distance. We named the new spider Elrond.