As of April 2020[update], the three species view was accepted by the World Spider Catalog.

On its sternum is a lighter marking, with three light spots on each side that form an arrow-like shape pointing toward the head of the spider.

[citation needed] The first description of a spider now assigned to this species was by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1843, under the name Tegenaria atrica.

[6] Others consider these three as part of a single morphologically variable species, for which the oldest name, and hence the senior synonym, is T.

[2] A phylogenetic study in 2013 concluded that Tegenaria, as then defined, was not monophyletic, and split off some species, including T. atrica, into the newly created segregate genus Eratigena.

It was unwittingly introduced to the Pacific Northwest of North America circa 1900 due to human activity and has strongly increased in numbers for the last century.

[7] The spider has been found in several European countries in which it was previously not recorded, like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

[4] The webs built by the giant house spider are flat and messy with a funnel at one end.

They usually build their webs in corners (on both the floor and ceiling), between boxes in basements, behind cupboards, in attics, or any other area that is rarely disturbed by large animals or humans.

While the female only leaves its nest to feed, males can often be seen wandering around houses during the late summer and early autumn looking for a mate.

Unusual for spiders, they are subsocial at this stage: They remain together for about a month, but do not cooperate in prey-capture.