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Spiders In The Home

If you are looking for ways to deal with spiders in the home, you have come to the right place. The following articles will guide you.

Spots To Check
Spiders come in all sizes and can find their way into your home. When they are outside they are beneficial because they eat other insects. Spiders are always on the lookout for food sources. When they enter the home and remain, it is because they are finding find food sources such as other insects or crumbs and food that are left around. A good vacuuming twice a week does wonders to help control pests in the home. Spiders love untidy rooms that provide all kinds of places to hide. Check to make sure outside doors close properly, check that no windows are left open and windows have screens. Make sure the screens fit properly and have no holes. Check around the foundation of the house for entery spots, check around vents making sure they are sealed, with no spaces are left open for insects to enter into the home. Before bringing boxed items into the house from the outside or garage, check to make sure no spiders are inside. Cardboard is a wood product and spiders love cardboard.

Trapping Spiders
Rather than go the poison route, you might want to try using sticky spider traps. You can buy these flat sticky cardboard traps and place them out of the way under furniture. Spiders seem to travel near the walls, so a good location to place traps is along the walls. I hear that Mice glue traps also works. When the mice walk on it, they get stuck. So do spiders! You can also staple them (they are white and blend in) to ceilings and walls. You can even lay a few in the attic, crawlspaces or under cupboards. Remember that the spiders may still be alive when you do the cleanup. You can find these cardboard traps at garden centers and hardware stores.

Spiders In The Kitchen Cupboards
To keep spiders out of kitchen cupboards place whole cloves in a small container like a bottle cap and place towards back of shelf. All insects hate the smell of cloves. This also keeps your cupboards nice and spicy.

Spider Trap That You Can Build
Here is a spider trap of my own design. I built one years ago and was amazed at how well it trapped the spiders. Spiders like to venture into cracks and dark cave like places. The spiders enter the can and eventually head downhill to explore further, once its legs touch the oil at the back of the can it is quickly pulled into the oil, drowning the spider. The oil doesn't evaporate and will stay workable for a long time. I recommend empting the can (and spiders) once a year or sooner, if you have a big problem with spiders. Then all you have to do is add some new oil, (any oil will do) four or five tablespoons will do.

To build one of these traps you will need a can, small board, block and some nails. One nail at the top of the can will do. Center the can on the board, (the block makes the one end higher than the other) see picture and tack in place, Add the oil and place in some secluded place in the basement. This trap presents no threat to pets. Place it where children will not be playing with it, as they could dump out the oil and make a mess.

Spider Trap

There are four species in the USA which are poisonous, black widow, brown recluse, hobo, and yellow sac spiders.
Note: Not all spiders have venom; some are "dry" and will not cause a serious bite.

This spider had necrotizing venom, and is the cause of medically significant bites in the United States. Its bite rarely results in death. It is distributed in the United States from central Iowa, south to eastern Texas and east to western Georgia and the Florida panhandle.

Understanding Spiders

Spiders like to hide. Spiders love wood and cardboard boxes, made of wood, come in abundance. Replace cardboard boxes with plastic containers. Cardboard boxes and paper bags have glue that roaches and spiders thrive on and are often infested with eggs, ready to hatch. Spiders do not like heat, spiders are cold blooded and as it gets hot outside, they will try to find ways to enter into your house. Spiders have taste buds on the tips of their legs and because they hate the taste of lemon it makes sense to dust your window sills and door-frames with Lemon Pledge. Bathrooms seem to be a favorite spot for spiders because a water source is available.
Remove unwanted vegetation and clutter away from the foundation of the house, you don't want to encourage them to live near the home.
If you like pets, get a cat, they love catching spiders and eating them, it’s natural for them.

Remember to shake out seldom used sweaters, shoes and winter coats before putting them on as this may be the home of the spider. Most spiders' life cycle see them live through the spring and summer and then die off in the fall. Their eggs will hatch in the spring and the life cycle will repeat, although some spiders can live for a couple of years.

Spiders are attracted to places where food is in abundance. Spiders feed on other insects. Remove these insects and the spider cannot stay. Lighted outside porch lights attract all kinds of insects and inturn attract spiders. As the season become colder, the spiders next step is to enter the house under doors, open doors and open windows with no screens. A regular light bulb is in the blue light spectrum and will attracts bugs. Changing the light bulb to a sodium type bulb will help keep bugs away. Sodium type bulbs also use less power.

Spider Bites

Most spiders are not aggressive and bite only when they are protecting their eggs or when hurt such as being trapped against the skin inside clothing. If you are bitten, follow these first aid steps.

1. Use an antiseptic to treat the site of the bite to prevent infection.
2. Apply ice to the site of the bite to reduce pain and swelling.
3. If serious symptoms develop such as increasing pain or swelling from bites of dangerous spiders, consult a physician.

If at all possible, bring the spider to the physician’s office. Effective antivenins are available, but most can only be used if the spider that inflicted the bite is positively identified.

Other Spider Solutions
To immobilize a spider is too spray it with extra strength hairspray or Windex window cleaner. A vacuum cleaner works very well to suck them away.
Fresh chestnuts work to repel spiders as well, if you are able to find them. The pungent orange scent of hedge apples also repels the spiders. Also worth while to know is spiders hate furniture spray.

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