A 3-inch spider sits on the table in front of Jack DeAngelis at the Corvallis Farmers’ Market.

“Is that alive?” a woman asks from a safe distance.

“It was,” DeAngelis replies mildly.

A long pin fixes the spider to a box, so it’s not likely to attack. Another woman gets a little closer and DeAngelis tells her it’s a giant house spider, the most common in this part of Oregon. They have a lifespan of about two years.

“A house spider!” she says, adding dryly, “Great.”

DeAngelis is used to the continuum of human responses to bugs n from fascination to repulsion and fear.

He is a retired entomologist and emeritus professor at Oregon State University. He also has a Web site called livingwithbugs.com that’s dedicated to helping people find less toxic ways to deal with insects than the traditional chemical remedies.

Every two weeks he sets up a table with displays at the Saturday Farmers’ Market in Corvallis to answer people’s questions about bugs.

“We’ve got some yellowjackets or wasps,” a man tells DeAngelis.

The nest is up under the eaves of the house. What should he do? DeAngelis asks the man to describe the nest.

“That’s going to be a paper wasp,” DeAngelis says. “They’re not as aggressive as the yellowjacket. I’d leave ‘em.”

But they’re right on the back deck. Makes you kind of uneasy when you’re trying to relax.

“Just knock ‘em down with a broom,” DeAngelis says.

What about fleas? A woman says her daughter has them in her house. She uses Frontline on her pets. But there are still fleas in one room of the house. Should she bomb it?

“Don’t do that,” DeAngelis urges.

Fleas live on animals but they can survive for about a year without them. He suggests keeping the room free of animals and vacuuming very thoroughly.

If there’s one message DeAngelis wants people to get, it’s that there are no brown recluse spiders in Oregon. At least not ones that were born here. The giant house spider has a smaller cousin, the hobo, that might or might not be poisonous.

“I’m beginning to think that it’s not poisonous,” DeAngelis says. “But not so convinced that I’d let one bite me.”

(The bite of the house spider, by the way, poses no threat to humans or pets.)

Kids have an affinity for bugs that somehow vanishes with age. Austin Zuschlag, 13, who is visiting from Baltimore, Md., coolly observes the spider specimen.

“I like some spiders,” he says, “but not all.”

His cousin Christopher Tsuneyoshi, 10, walks right up and examines the spider almost nose-to-nose.

What do you think? we ask.

“Big,” he says.