Painful bites may be incurred from species such as C. punctorium in Europe, C. mildei in Europe and North America, C. inclusum in the Americas, C. lawrencei in South Africa and C. japonicum in Japan.

[6] A study of twenty confirmed Cheiracanthium bites in the United States and Australia found that none resulted in necrosis, and a review of the international literature on 39 verified Cheiracanthium bites found only one case of mild necrosis in the European species C.

[6] A theory that these spiders were attracted to the smell of gasoline was involved in a series of consumer vehicle callbacks in which spiderwebs had blocked fuel lines, but it has since been disproven by a study which found that the juvenile yellow sac spiders were attracted to the hose material itself.

[7] Cheiracanthium is primarily an Old World genus, with many species found from northern Europe to Japan, from Southern Africa to India and Australia.

The genus is quite diverse in Africa and at least three or four species are known to occur in Egyptian cotton fields alone.