Man, I'm glad, after reading through this thread, that we don't have brown recluse spiders here, though people are so paranoid about them that they often mistake other spiders for brown recluses (this is very common elsewhere too). We do, however, have black widows and hobo spiders. We're coming up on the hobo spider's active season. Usually they stick to crawlspaces and don't venture out into the house, because we also have these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_house_spider They're fucking huge and look scary, but they're not, and a hobo spider population cannot coexist with a population of giant house spiders--the giant house spider will eat hobos for breakfast.
Spiders scare the bejesus out of me, but I also really appreciate spiders like the giant house spider and I wouldn't ever squish one--they eat all the other creepy crawlies I really don't like. Last week a giant house spider skittered across our living room floor--it was easily the size of a half-dollar coin. I captured it and released it outside. It took all of my willpower to do so. Yuck. But then I think of all the bugs it will eat, and I feel better.