Meet the man who lives with over 1,000 tarantulas — and travels up and down England helping people overcome their fears of creepy crawlies. Aaron Phoenix, 37, began accumulating them in the summer of 2021 to help with his mental health and believes he was “born to save spiders.”He keeps the spiders across two locations — his “tarantula cave” in his house and a separate premises used for breeding — and says the biggest is the size of a dinner plate.After hitting the papers last year for his incredible collection, Phoenix has added a further 300 of the arachnids to his spider home.Thanks to the exposure, Phoenix has now traveled England helping people who may have previously been scared of the animals take an interest in them.Phoenix, a house removals specialist, from Yate, South Gloucestershire, said: “It’s easily over 1000 now. “It sounds like a lot but in the spider-world, it’s not. “When you’re breeding spiders they can have anything from 20 babies to a few thousand.“I rescued well over 200 spiders last year — I get messages all the time from people who’ve had large collections who want to downsize or fallen out of love with the hobby.”Phoenix first started collecting when doctors told him a hobby could help his mental health following a bipolar diagnosis. The inspiration came from a pet tarantula he had as a teen but tragically had to give up. His collection quickly grew – and now he rescues abandoned arachnids from around the country, as well as working towards being able to sell the animals to other collectors and spider-lovers. Phoenix said helping people overcome their spider fears has been “rewarding.”He added: “After the last story went out I had so many people message me showing interest in the different colors and species and a lot of people asked me to help them get over their fears. “So I’ve been traveling around to people more or less all over the country.“It’s quite a fun one to do.“A lot ...