My wife had "Kill on sight" policy for spiders. Lots of screaming included. I have negotiated for them "safe escort to backyard" policy some time ago. Feel much better about them now.
Even after a brown recluse bite, I still will not harm spiders and generally let them be, unless they keep trying to drown themselves in my shower, in which case it is Spider Rescue Time.
One spider took up residence in an upper corner of my shower during a time when I had a bizarrely intractable issue with drain flies. All well and good. We developed a routine: I had a series of taps on the stall I would deliver, which was Shower Spider's cue to retreat to the web. I then showered and left multiple large drops of water on the nearby ledge to drink. At all times I would fling drain flies (and other randomly encountered bugs) into the web for devouring.
Shower Spider died one day and I was never able to determine why. Water and bugs were delivered by me on the regular. We had a really good working relationship. Other Shower Spiders have come and gone, but the first one was a real trooper.
Probably killed itself out of boredom at having such an easy-going life. Alternatively, there was something toxic in the water which they were drinking.
In a sense spiders are part of the problem - insect killers. I keep one in the kitchen window, and a little jumping one lives on the bedroom roof, migrates across to the windows a couple of times a day, but all others strictly belong outside.
Jumping spiders make for great pets. Watching them hunt is fascinating, they'll crawl all over anything you put in the terrarium, and they can go without food for weeks at a time. Very low maintenance. And they're usually comfortable with climbing into your palm. I don't do it, because I worry about injuring or stressing them, but my wife loves it. We've never been bitten by a jumping spider.
If you don't like the idea of catching and caging spiders, keep one by a window. The small amount of webbing they leave isn't prominent, unless they have trouble climbing (like in glass terrariums).
Sadly they aren't wild here in the UK, but I've read a lot about them and enjoy the local spiders we get here. Spiders and octopus definitely would be ruling the world if they wanted to.
My wife and I are apparently both in the subset of the population for whom Charlotte's Web made a big impression. We leave spiders alone and let them (or the cat) do most of our dirty work. Other arthropods get a paper-towel ride to the yard.
I allow non-web-making spiders to stay inside, and I escort non-venomous web-making spiders outside. Anything venomous that can come back around and hurt me or my family gets a quick warrior's death.
One spider took up residence in an upper corner of my shower during a time when I had a bizarrely intractable issue with drain flies. All well and good. We developed a routine: I had a series of taps on the stall I would deliver, which was Shower Spider's cue to retreat to the web. I then showered and left multiple large drops of water on the nearby ledge to drink. At all times I would fling drain flies (and other randomly encountered bugs) into the web for devouring.
Shower Spider died one day and I was never able to determine why. Water and bugs were delivered by me on the regular. We had a really good working relationship. Other Shower Spiders have come and gone, but the first one was a real trooper.