Radium
Outlaw Valkyrie
- Joined
- May 20, 2015
- Messages
- 128
For the record, it was about 1.5" and living in a locking-lid GladWare container.
I live in an apartment by myself. Before this incident, I was paying one of my great aunts $75 to come clean my apartment once a month. When I first started keeping tarantulas, I mentioned the fact to her, and told her I'd be storing them in my bedroom closet with the door shut when she came to clean so she wouldn't have to see them (and also to protect them from any cleaning product fumes - I tightly stuff a bunch of old towels under the full length of the door).
A couple of weeks ago, she came to clean, and this time she brought along my five-year-old cousin. While she was cleaning my bathroom, for reasons the universe itself can't fathom, she opened the door and let my cousin play in the closet. Again, don't ask me why - it's a tiny space taken up by the laundry basket, bag of coir substrate, shoes, telescope, etc. - he could have played in the bedroom and been within ten feet of her, but I guess she really felt like she had to be able to see him directly.
In any case, he was fooling around, trying to use the wire shelf slightly above his head as monkey bars or something, and he pulled the LV enclosure down onto himself. My aunt heard the noise, saw the enclosure fall onto his head, freaked out about "the spider hurting him," grabbed it, and threw it across the room. It hit the bathroom wall hard enough to slightly dent the enclosure.
She called me at work to let me know what happened. I don't know whether the sling died instantly or lingered for a while, but when I came home I found it in its burrow with a very much smashed and leaking abdomen.
I fired my aunt from her cleaning lady job, and have installed a lock on my closet door. I asked her to reimburse me the $45 I originally paid for the sling, which she refused, and I really have no way to contest it. She's broken other stuff, and I really wish I'd have fired her over one of those incidents rather than letting it get to this point. It really bothers me that a fierce predator like L. violaceopes died with absolutely no chance to defend itself. It was a voracious eater and heavy webber, and yet always very cooperative during rehousings/enclosure maintenance.
For those of you who weren't too keen on me getting an L. violaceopes while I was new to the hobby...I'm probably not going to replace it, mostly because my heart isn't in it anyway.
I live in an apartment by myself. Before this incident, I was paying one of my great aunts $75 to come clean my apartment once a month. When I first started keeping tarantulas, I mentioned the fact to her, and told her I'd be storing them in my bedroom closet with the door shut when she came to clean so she wouldn't have to see them (and also to protect them from any cleaning product fumes - I tightly stuff a bunch of old towels under the full length of the door).
A couple of weeks ago, she came to clean, and this time she brought along my five-year-old cousin. While she was cleaning my bathroom, for reasons the universe itself can't fathom, she opened the door and let my cousin play in the closet. Again, don't ask me why - it's a tiny space taken up by the laundry basket, bag of coir substrate, shoes, telescope, etc. - he could have played in the bedroom and been within ten feet of her, but I guess she really felt like she had to be able to see him directly.
In any case, he was fooling around, trying to use the wire shelf slightly above his head as monkey bars or something, and he pulled the LV enclosure down onto himself. My aunt heard the noise, saw the enclosure fall onto his head, freaked out about "the spider hurting him," grabbed it, and threw it across the room. It hit the bathroom wall hard enough to slightly dent the enclosure.
She called me at work to let me know what happened. I don't know whether the sling died instantly or lingered for a while, but when I came home I found it in its burrow with a very much smashed and leaking abdomen.
I fired my aunt from her cleaning lady job, and have installed a lock on my closet door. I asked her to reimburse me the $45 I originally paid for the sling, which she refused, and I really have no way to contest it. She's broken other stuff, and I really wish I'd have fired her over one of those incidents rather than letting it get to this point. It really bothers me that a fierce predator like L. violaceopes died with absolutely no chance to defend itself. It was a voracious eater and heavy webber, and yet always very cooperative during rehousings/enclosure maintenance.
For those of you who weren't too keen on me getting an L. violaceopes while I was new to the hobby...I'm probably not going to replace it, mostly because my heart isn't in it anyway.
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