Spiders are one of the most beneficial yet feared creatures on earth. Eliminating them from our homes is hard enough for pros and almost impossible for homeowners. Still, positive control can be achieved if you’re willing to put in the work and apply some time tested techniques. The following article should help you a great deal for getting rid of spiders in your home.
Whenever you’re applying insecticides you need to be careful and wear the proper safety equipment such as gloves, mask, long sleeve shirts or anything else the label recommends. Take a minute to read the label to make sure you understand where to and not to spray or treat as well as find any information that you might not have considered.
One of the common mistakes that people make when trying to treat the spiders in general is to use insecticides that are sold in the grocery or big box stores and believing that this in and of itself will be enough. Insecticide can kill a spider with direct contact but it is difficult to give a mortal dose of insecticide to a spider when it is running along the ceiling. Spraying baseboards and the like seems like a good idea and one would think when the arachnid runs across the barrier they’ll soon after die. The problem is spiders run on all sorts of surfaces and it would be unsafe to just hose everything down not to mention staining on ceilings and walls. Also general insecticides can be picked up very well by insects such as roaches or earwigs but spiders are not insects so their metabolism is not affected the same way and their feet are completely different than most insects and do not come in contact with near enough residual of liquid sprays to do any good.
The best way to control the infestation of spiders in your home is to use professionally made wettable powder insecticides, dry dust applications or even sticky traps. The main reason is that these powders or dusts are picked up much easier by the spider and although still slower than with other bugs, death will result. These forms of insecticide can be put in many of the hard to reach places that spiders lurk and hunt and their residual life far outlasts other types that break down quickly. While there is no ‘full proof’ strategy for using sticky pads or glue boards. You can improve your success by putting them near water sources taking advantage of the need of most spiders to drink h2o. An upside down cap of water placed in the middle of the sticky board actually works quite well to draw them in and trap them.
Another great strategy for reducing spiders is to spray the exterior of the home using your powder based solution. Webs are often
easy to see so you can target those areas with good success. Sweep the webs down to ensure you are destroying any egg sacs and so you’ll be able to see when new spiders move in. Spiders go where bugs go so treating around lighting is also beneficial. Dusts can work very well in voids to not only kill spiders but to also ‘block’ them off from possible future access points since the residual is so long lived.
Any good pest control program will always include pest proofing steps as this helps keep the spiders out long before they become a problem. Spiders are surprisingly good at fitting through some tight spots so a survey of the home should be done noting any place that could be used for a spiders access. These areas should include but are not limited to; doors, windows, screens, thresh holds, cable or phone lines coming into the house, soffits, garage doors, dryer vents, recessed lighting in the ceiling, cracks in foundation, window sills and plumbing entries. Tightening up these areas goes a long way to reducing spiders from getting in and will help your pest control efforts out tremendously.
As a general rule, spiders are our allies and live on the front lines of our constant battle with bugs. Some people can tolerate more than others so your boundary may be different than others. For most people however the lines are pretty clear, one spider is one too many. So it’s probably best to keep them where they do their beneficial work best, out and away from our homes.
This article and other valuable spider information can be found in my free e-book The Truth About Americas Most Deadly Spiders
