[Kitsa]

There are tarantulas in the southwest, but where she is it was probably an escaped pet. The biggest we usually have around here are some of the larger wolf spiders and some fishing spiders. My parents' australian coworkers are always asking us to send them glue traps for various spiders they have around- I'm guessing glue traps aren't widely available there?

Our harmful-to-pets-and-humans species here are mainly black widow (rare around here, usually dusty corners of garages), brown recluse (woodpiles and such, although everyone seems to mistake harmless wolf spiders for them) and the annoying-as-all-hell yellow sac spiders, which have really been bad the past couple of years. They like to tuck themselves up into corners mainly, although I've been startled by a couple scrambling down walls and surprising me in the shower. I can't stand those things.