The beasts are back - help!

zcrat41

We moved house last year and so far I love the house. Till this week that is where I have come across 2 MAHOOSIVE spiders.

I have a ridiculously irrational fear of them. Mice or rats I can quite happily deal with but spiders bring out the worst in me. Dh despatched of them for me but he won't be around during peak season. I've tried those spider catchers before and even those are too close for comfort for me.

Please can someone tell me that since my last Google someone clever has invented a spider kill spray?! What can I do in the house to help reduce them?

On a serious note I think I'm going to try and do some sort of overcome my phobia course as I don't want my 2 kids to pick up and develop these spider issues.

GreyQueen

I read something in an Australian housekeeping book (where they have really naasty spiders btw) that you can dissuade them from entering the home by wiping the door and window frames with lemon oil, which they don't like.

I'd be wary about using this on uPVC frames as it could possibly cause them damage, but thought I'd mention it anyway.

If you have plants growing up the outside of your house, such as creepers, or shrubs very close to your walls, this will encourage spiders to enter your home. When we cut back the ivy growing up a house I used to live in, the amount of spiders and other creepies indoors went down by 90% as soon as the ivy was dead (we severed it at them stem and left it on the building to die and dry for a year before pulling it off). HTH.

rosie383

Zcrat I think you are thinking along the right lines about doing something to overcome your phobia. It is so easy to pass a fear like that on to your kids. I absolutely hate and am pretty terrified of wasps (being somewhat allergic to them doesn't help) but I knew that I couldn't pass that terror on to my kids. It ruined many summers for me. Now I can be the one to go into a room and get rid of the wasp buzzing around the curtain. I didn't have any kind of cognitive behaviour therapy, just sheer willpower. But mine was not a true phobia. I knew that the wasp could do me damage so I'm not sure that it is the same for you. I just knew that once I had children that I couldn't run off down the road screaming and thinking only of my own fear.
I hope you can find something to help you cope.

PasturesNew

The way I get rid of them is by cutting the top off a milk bottle (plastic) so it's square/even and the handle part is still fully intact. I then take the vacuum extension tube and shove that in the handle hole.

When I see a spider I get the milk bottle and extension, shove the pole through the hole, open the door ready - and then scoop it up from a distance..... keep jiggling it and he never gets a chance to get a foothold.

Then walk out of the (already opened) door - as far as you can - and lob him. I've heard house spiders die pretty instantly once lobbed outside. I like to walk them at least 30-50' away.

Butterfly_Brain

They don't like peppermint oil either. Spiders feet contain their taste buds and they do not like peppermint,lemon, citronella, lavender, tea tree oil or cloves.

I used to have a real problem with spiders in the kitchen, but since I started wiping down with peppermint oil in a 10 drop solution with hot water, they have gone looking elsewhere to live

oldhaggis

I have one of those small rechargeable hand held vacuum cleaners. I vacuum up the beast, rush out into the garden, holding the vacuum upright and jiggling it, so that the beast does not escape. I then find a bush as far away from the house as possible, press the open button and shake the beast out onto it.

his_missus

Placing conkers in the corners of room is supposed to deter spiders. My MIL does it and recommended it to me. I've not seen any spiders in my house since.


I don't know though if you need fresh conkers each year or whether the effect lasts forever. I also wonder whether my female cat (the male cats are wusses) actually catches any spiders before I have chance to see them.

pollypenny

We collect conkers every Autumn. The effect does wear off as they dry out, losing their oil.

However, Autumn is prime time for spiders taking shelter in houses so it works for us.

MamaJo

We've got an insect repelling plug in that for me is well worth the pennies, I hardly ever get spiders in the house anymore, nor any other insects.

Aries

Lakeland used to sell a Spider deterrant spray based on Horse chestnut, I don't know if they still sell it.

Brambleberry

Similar thing happened when we moved (about 200m) to new house - big scary house spiders and wolf spiders behind the fireplace.

I have two things to help, both are available in Lakeland (not the most MSE I know).

1. Horse chestnut-based spray around windows and doors - fine on upvc as far as I can tell, have used it for a couple of years.

2. Perspex pyramid with trapdoor on a looonnngg stick. I use an old fashioned long handled shoe horn to gently tap the trap door shut so I don't actually hurt the spiders, then I pop them out in the garden.