Hello! I've been keeping black widow spiders (Latrodectus mactans) for about a year and a half, and what awesome creatures they are! I live with my mom and we have a small population of widows in our garage. She likes spiders, but she doesn't really want this species hanging out in our garage, because we do a lot of work out there, and even though widows are docile, accidents could still happen. So, I decided to try keeping one as a pet because neither of us wanted to kill it, and there's nowhere around to relocate her to safely. The one we have now is named Bella, and we've had her since mid May of this year. She is a very low maintenance creature, requiring only a large critter keeper and a few quarter inch crickets per week. Anyways, here are some pictures: