Researchers are looking into how many arthropods may be living in US homes. Arthropods include insects, spiders and centipedes. Initial findings were based on searches of 50 free-standing houses in Raleigh.
Entomologist Matt Bertone worked on the study. He says they found more than 500 different kinds of arthropods living in the homes.
"A lot of these things were accidental visitors that wandered into homes and died. But we did find a good thriving community of arthropods that were living in homes, dwell in homes and reproduce there."
Bertone says the houses and apartments varied in age, size and location. He adds that cobweb spiders and carpet beetles were found in all the homes.
"I was surprised to find that several homes had spitting spiders in them and these do exist and dwell in homes and they're just one of my favorite groups of arthropods because a spider that spits is pretty interesting."
He says his colleagues are investigating other locations.
"They've already sampled in San Francisco and Peru and Sweden, they're going to try and go to a few different continents and sample some homes in these places to see if there's any similarities or differences."