Hello! I work at a pet store & animal shelter and have experience with just about any animal under 300lb.
Personally, I hate spiders. I have cared for tarantula's where I work and they are very boring creatures. The life span.. I'm not positive. I'm saying the minimum of a year but probably closer to 3-4 years. I can't be totally sure.
They don't require much care at all. They eat about 3-4 live crickets at a time.. usually just about 2 or 3 days a week. You can offer them other insects as well such as mealworms and waxworms but they don't always take them.
Their terrarium can be fairly small. Ideally anything around the size of a 5 gallon fish tank would be great. Most people either go big and get a full on glass terrarium for about 100$ but usually people get the plastic Kritter Keeper type containers, which would be my recommendation.
They need mulch as a substrate.. any kind of reptile bark will do. A bit of spaghnum moss.. a few sticks, a water dish and you are set. They require regular misting.
Overall that is about it. Clean the cage every once and a while. They shed their skins too!! I had someone bring over a skin shed to me before and I thought it was the actual spider and ran away screaming.
I would NEVER keep one as a pet.. I refused to even take care of the ones where I work after I got scared by one xD But hey, people would probably think I'm nuts for having 2 bearded dragons, a snake, a turtle, a leopard gecko, a tank of hermit crabs and a ton of cats. BTW- would very much recommend any of the above over a spider! :P
http://zoomed.com/cm/resources-stuff...Tarantula.html