General Chat

Eight tips to Spider-proof your home

Fill a spray bottle with a mixture of white vinegar and water, about half and half, and spray in corners and cracks to ward off spiders. Avoid varnished surfaces.
Spiders are deterred by strong scents – but ones which we like. Try mixing natural oils like peppermint into spray bottles and follow the same method as with vinegar. Alternatively cinnamon, tea-tree, lavender and rose oils mixed with water can be used.
Spiders like to hide so keep your house tidy and de-clutter. Use plastic storage containers rather than cardboard boxes. Also dust and vacuum regularly to get rid of webs.
Make your house more spider proof by moving anything from around exterior walls like leaves, weeds, or wood. Try to seal up cracks and crevices around doors and windows that spiders could crawl through
Plant mint or lavender (or both) underneath or near windows as spiders don’t like the strong smell.
Spiders apparently dislike citrus, so rub peel from lemons or limes along skirting boards and window sills. Try lemon-scented cleaners and furniture polish.
Spiders aren’t attracted to light but their prey is like insects and moths. Turn off lights outside doors and windows and stop indoor lights shining through outdoors by using blinds and shades.
Spiders are said to hate garlic. Place crushed cloves into a spray bottle filled with water and spritz in corners, floors and skirting boards.

:-D :-D

Leave 'em alone. They ain't doing any harm.

I love my spiders.

I love spiders too - they eat flies! <3

Me too, love spiders that is, not eat flies!

Yuk,Yuk I have a major phobia about them :-P :-P :-P

Last night there was a big spider near the bedroom door on the carpet when I opened the door it went straight under the bed .looked for it but no sign so I slept in the spare bedroom ..still haven't found the B G .don't kill them but don't like um :-D :-D

Sharron, Maggie and Sheila - you're welcome to mine!!!

I've not seen our Huntsman for a couple of years :-S

It's probably the size of my hand by now :-D

Spiders are fine, even the red backs and white tips, but just don't let me even suspect that a snake may be in the vicinity :-0

O.h. is always paranoid about spiders setting off the alarm while we are away so I put conkers on ledges near each alarm. Although we still have spiders, there are never webs near the alarms as there used to be. O.h. bought of those vacuum spider catchers but he uses it to clean cobwebs away lol

Lizx

Old Mother Hubbard had a spot of bother with a spider.

As long as spiders keep their distance, we can live in harmony.
I refer to them as natures fly catchers. It’s a good excuse for ignoring cobwebs indoors :-D

I spray all my doors and window frames with Indrodex
Which I bought off Amazon twice a year

and have never had a spider in the house since doing so :-D :-D

Think it was Little Miss Muffet' who had the trouble with spiders, not Mother Hubbard!!

Spiders are great for eating other insects in your house!

I don't like them, but I tolerate small ones in out-of-the-way places for that reason.

Just be careful that you don't get an increase in others insects that are not that good ............. like moths, silverfish, gnats, mosquitoes, etc.

I've seen reports that more mosquitoes are appearing in the UK now as the climate warms up. Nothing quite like getting bitten in the middle of the night, while you're sleeping. Itches like mad.

Spiders love them :-D

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider;
That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her!
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly;
I don't know why she swallowed a fly - Perhaps she'll die! :-0

Any tips for dealing with people who throw a fit at the sight of a spider?

Age out of it???


I'm NOT being sarcastic or joking.

I used to scream and run when I saw a spider, especially a large one.

But then I had a child, and decided that I really should try not to pass my fear on to her. It was hard!

I stopped screaming ............ but would still go to OH, and say "Get rid of that spider in the bath/on the curtain/ etc"

Now in my late 70s .............. I can ignore the small ones, and have been known to get a paper towel or hankie and either squish a large one or carry it to the door (hoping I haven't squished it!), but still shuddering.

I HATE having to go out of our frond door or down the garden path when the young spiders are "flying" on those threads as they emerge from wherever the "nest" has been.

It's worse than walking through a spider web stretching across the path!

It happens at least once a year for us.

I went through a phase of not liking spiders once.
I was stood alone, aged 6, in the marram grass on a very windy Lossiemouth beach.
when I felt a thump on my chest.
I looked down - a huge spider had exploded, and I was covered in hundreds of baby spiders :-0
I couldn't get them off.

I took a few years before I 'reasoned' that the wind had blown the wolf spider; she hadn't wanted to land on me, and I expect it didn't do her babies any favours.

Remember when I went outside one evening and walked into a spider's web? I came back in not thinking much about it when I felt a tickle in my ear, I thought a small moth had flown in. I couldn't get it out with a cotton bud or water so had to wake o.h. to help, in the end we flicked out a spider - eeek!

Lizx

Ooo - yuk!

But it's not done through malice :-D