I only own one 'token' pet tarantula now. Life moved me in a different direction some time ago, but I'll always love them. It is a very common reaction by most people to be put off by them however. I think most peoples fears of them is very deep rooted...like fear of the dark, but by and large it is mostly unfounded. No doubt, there are some spiders that fall into the straight out 'nasty' category (the Sydney Funnel Web Spider comes to mind...very poisonous, very aggressive) that even experienced 'spider folk' take extreme caution in working with but most spiders are fairly harmless. An average bee sting is far more painful for far longer than 90% of all spider bites.
Here in the US, the spiders that can be a REAL problem (ie., life threatening) are...
Latrodectus mactans (Black Widow)
and
Loxosceles reclusa (Brown Recluse)
It was thought that the Hobo spider (Tegenaria agrestis) also caused Recluse-like bites, but recent evidence suggests that this is not the case.
