My online friend, prolific writer Barbara Avon, showed us all her pet’s new terrarium. Now, I’m not much of an arachnid lover, but boy did that remind me of a good story.

You see, I have relatives in Florida. One of them related this to me, so it’s 2nd hand, but they swore it was a true story.

A friend found a way to keep their house free of Palmetto bugs (a polite thing to call the huge, enormous cockroaches Florida is famous for). She was not afraid of spiders, so at night they gave their pet tarantula the run of the house. In the daytime it reposed in the bathtub of an unused bathroom, and they just closed the door. Her mother hated spiders, and would always have a broom with her to keep the thing at bay when it went on its nightly rounds. Not how I’d’ve kept the bugs at bay, but it was organic, natural, and it worked.

The only time it did not work was when they had a party and some poor guest, looking for an empty bathroom, was sitting there doing her business when this monstrous spider came crawling up over the edge of the tub. I understand they discovered this when the woman came running down the hall while pulling up her pants and screaming. (I know I would have screamed!)

Fast forward to a few years later when they were selling the house. They were moving up north and no longer needed the spider. A combination of not finding a new home for it and very nasty house buyers made them decide to just leave it in the house for the new owners to find. Ouch.

Barbara will take better care of her Betsy, I just know she will. In fact, here’s Betsy’s new terrarium.

There’s no place like home.