How do I get rid of spiders without spraying?
Question:My house is slowly being overun by spiders. I love the little guys the webs are getting too prolific! I have kids and pets so any idea about how to deter them without using chemicals would be great, thanks!
Answers:
Get rid of all the cardboard boxes around. Spiders love cardboard since it is a wood product and they also love wood.
Steps to Natural Spider Control
1. Find out how they are entering your home. Find and seal all cracks in basement walls and in window casings and doorways. If there is just a tiny crack in your house, spiders will crawl through.
2. Clean any places there are lots of spider webs, clean both inside and outside. Use a broom to sweep down if inside or use water to remove them outside.
3. Keep clutter picked up inside the house so spiders won't have a place to hide. They won't stay in an area that is completely smooth and clutter free.
4. Make your house unfriendly to other bugs. Spiders eat bugs, if their dinner isn't handy, there's no reason for them to hang around.
5. Inside the house, look under beds, couches, and other furniture for hiding places and clean out with a broom. Any spiders can be sprayed with an indoor spray formula (described below).
6. Essential oils:
Rose oil
Citronella Oil
Lavender Oil
Cinnamon Oil
Peppermint Oil
Citrus Oil
Tea Tree Oil
any of the above oils will kill spiders and other insects on contact!
A Natural Spider Spray Formula for inside the house: To get Immediate Relief from spiders inside the house buy 8 oz bottle of Peppermint or Lavender Soap, or any other natural soap. Go to your local drug store (I've found a great supplier at the local arts and crafts store) and buy 1 oz of Essential oil.
Add 5 tablespoons of the soap per quart water. Add 5 tablespoons of any natural citrus oil to the quart water which you added the soap and label it spider control spray. Add to sprayer and spray inside house where spiders are seen. Should be done as often as needed. This is not a long term solution but will provide you immediate help.
You can also add 1 drop of any of the above (depending on preference to you) to 1 quart of water:
Test for strength.
7. Spray outside the house: Spray outdoor trash and recycling bins with any natural soap. Use the same formula as in #4 to spray the containers and the area around it with. You can also use any natural citrus based cleaner at 1 oz per quart water. Spray around the outside of the house and along any places that you see too many of them.
8. Wear long sleeved shirt and long pants when cleaning up in areas you know have brown recluse spiders. Have spray bottle ready with spray formula.
9. Clean up around the outside of the house and garden. Less trash, less spiders. Less places for them to hide in. Do spring cleaning every year and get rid of piles of wood etc that you are not using. You will be glad you did.
10. Keep your trash bins away from the house because spiders will stay around them, hoping to catch the bugs that are attracted to them.
11. Remove old vegetation or wood from against the house foundations. Spiders like to hide in these things and often find entrance from there.
12. Trim back trees, bushes and other vegetation from touching the house walls.
13. Keep pet food tightly covered to keep from attracting bugs which attract spiders. (Don't leave pet food in a dish all day.)
Some Additional Suggestions:
Put oil of pennyroyal on a cotton ball or scrap of cloth and place where you see spiders. (Use this with caution it is said that pennyroyal can be harmful to humans and pets. Personally I've never had a problem with it and actually love the smell.)
Borax in shallow lids or just sprinkle on the floor under couches or beds or wherever the problem area is.
Baking soda... same as borax.
Kerosene. Use it on window screens and sills as well as doorways. (Kerosene is flammable until it evaporates, so keep it away from flame or heat.)
Eucalyptus leaves in closets, drawers and under large pieces of furniture
Use osage orange (also called hedgeballs or mock oranges).
Chestnuts Proved Effective: Put chestnuts around the exterior walls of every room in the house as well as on all the windowsills.
A Good Use for Tobacco:
1) Get a package of pipe or chewing tobacco, soak it in a gallon of boiling water until it cools. Strain the liquid into a clean container. Put a cup of tobacco juice and 1/2 cup lemon dish soap into a hose-end sprayer and spray. This works on all kinds of bugs.
2) Put a package of chewing tobacco in a quart jar of water, and let the jar sit out in the hot sun for a day so that the tobacco has a chance to steep slowly. Then strain the mixture into a sprayer. This mixture is poisonous and can actually be absorbed by the skin, so be careful. It can also be absorbed by the leaves of plants, so don't use it on food crops.
Spiders and Lemons: I don't know if this is true or not but someone said that spiders have their taste buds on the tips of their legs and that they hate the taste of lemon pledge. Dust your windowsills and doorframes with lemon pledge, both inside and out, and any areas where they accumulate.
I hope this was useful,Good Luck! :)
you could use ammonia of just simply leave the house for awhile and use a bug bomb
I have said that I like the osage oranges. I place them around my basement and haven't seen any since. Seems to keep them out of the upstairs this way as well. Just remove them and replace when rotten. (they dry up, don't worry). :) Good luck!
Depending on where you live, you might love the "little guys" a little less if any of them are of the Brown Recluse family, or to a lesser extent, Black Widow's. My sainted grandmother detested spiders, and used an old trick to get rid of them. Get some yellow powdered sulphur, place a mound of it in a non-flammable plate and light it. It will slowly smolder, giving off a smoke that spiders hate.
Trim away all tree branches that are close to your house.
Check for any cracks/holes that spiders could crawl in through, and fill them.
Put screens on all your windows and doors. Repair any existing screens that are damaged.
Fit the bottoms of any outside doors with weather stripping so they can't crawl under them.
Vacuum up any existing spiders and webs. Their bodies are very fragile so the force of the suction will kill them.
whenever you see one of their nests vacuum it up.
if you have a cat put it where there is a lot of them.
it'll pounce them
it's fun to watch and the cat will kill some, but the spiders will usually leave.
lol
my cat...toast... has a blast with it!
I had the same problem 2yrs ago and didn't want to use chemicals. I did a little research online. What I found is this. Have you ever heard of Borax laundary soap. It is a really old laundary soap in which our local Walmart now puts in the chemical isle because it's also a good cleaner. Buy several boxes of Borax (it's only like $3.00 a box). Sprinkle this around your foundation of your home. Don't be to skimpy. I know it's not to appealing either, however it's pretty natural stuff and not harmful to kids or other animals. We put ours about and inch wide and a finger nail deep. We have only had about 5 spiders in our house in the past 2yrs. If this doesn't work for you or interest you then the best of luck to you finding something. You could also go to www.ask.com and type in your question. Maybe put the word naturally in there and you are bound to get some answers that way as well. Good luck
get the hoover out, once you get rid off the spiders eggs you should have less problem. Check around the house for small crack´s, fill them up, give a good hoover around, do the same if you have a basement.
Spiders hate lemon. Use lemon furniture polishes and cleaners. You can also just spray some lemon scent around areas they converge.
nuke the house with a bug bomb .
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