Orgainc Method at Deterring Spiders

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Every year when it first starts getting cold at night, it happens, the large blackish colored "dirt" spiders try to come in the house where it's warm and cozy. I don't like "sharing" our living space with the behemoths ( I'm not kidding, they are 3 or 4 inches across), and it's not just a few, but as many as three or four every evening, and that's just the ones I see!!!

Any ideas that I might use to discourage their entry in the first place? I am fairly sure they are coming in around the door jambs, despite having tight-fitting storm doors and well sealed doors.

Even had baby black snakes appear the same way in the fall, two years in a row, now THAT gets your attention!!! I carefully took them back outside where they live under the old cement foyer patio on the south side of the house.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

Answers

Annie, You carefully moved the black snakes back outside! Oh Annie you are one brave lady!the thought gives me the shivers.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

Make a threshold barrier of a nylon stocking filled with cedar chips to lay across the doorway as you would a draft barrier.

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2001

I was thinking maybe they came in tiny and grew very large!

Hey Jay thats a good idea about the cedar chips. Does that work for most bugs? ...Kirk

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001


I read somewhere that osage oranges would deter spiders.......anyone else heard that or is a another myth???

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

Kirk,

I have found ceder to be so effective against most bugs, I'll use them most everywhere except around the garden and the orchard where I want the spiders and bugs. I have even used ceder to eradicate redmites from my vermicompost bins with minimal effect on the worms until removal of the chips after a couple of days outside.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001



Thanks Jay, about the cedar chips idea, I get the big bales of them at Wal-mart (5.49 I think) to use in the chicken house nest boxes, keeps the northern fowl mites away. I never thought they would also work at deterring spiders, I guess I just wasn't thinking :-) !!!

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001

Boy, Annie... I have so many spider webs in the house, I have begun to wonder if I should move out...

my basement is the worst... and we use it all the time...

let me know on the cedar and ridding of spiders... thanks

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001


Yarrow,

You can deter the making of spider webs by spraying rubbing alcohol or rub down areas with a little perfumed soap on the places where they normally start their webs (windowsills, etc.). I learned this from a Jerry Baker Garden Secrets book I was given.

-- Anonymous, September 19, 2001


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