Pucadinga’s Blog

Many people dislike spiders, whether it is the hairy ones, the small ones or ones with long legs. The reality is, they have probably been around longer than us, and it wouldn’t be right to say that the spiders are evading “our home”, because chances are, they were there long before us, so technically we are evading their home.

But having spiders all around your house can be messy, annoying and sometimes hazardous to children as they may be poisonous. Below are a few ways which I have found helps with keeping the spiders away.

Before I get down to the nitty gritties, here are a few facts which you should consider and know:

• Spiders need food (duh!), so if you have A LOT of spiders around your house, then it means there’s a lot of food around for them to survive, not exactly rocket science? In other words, if you have a lot of spiders around, then you should seriously think about insect/pest control, as this will cut the spiders’ food supply and they will probably decrease in numbers by themselves as there is a shortage in their food supplies.
• Did you know that Daddy Long Legs are actually good spiders? Some species actually eat bird poo and fungi as food, and others get rid of pest insects and even the horrible and dangerous Redback Spiders!
• Daddy Long Legs are not dangerous, and it is proven that they actually do not have poison/venom (common myth), so are actually not dangerous at all to humans.
• Spiders taste through their feet. Yep…
• In general, spiders like damp and dark conditions. They also love corners of rooms, yep you probably realized already…

I am not a big fan of “killing” stuff, I am not religious or anything, but I do think that every thing has the right to live. Sure, you can probably go get some chemical insect spray and spray it all around the house, the worse thing is you’d probably poison yourself as well as everything else around you.

The way I prefer to go about it is to keep spiders away if possible, without killing them and using any potentially dangerous or hazardous chemicals. Below are some common ways used to achieve this, using mostly natural ingredients to create repellents:

1. Chestnuts serves as a natural repellent to spiders. Try to place a few chestnuts around windowsills, under sliding doors or where spiders normally manifest. This has proven to be effective for a lot of people.
2. Spiders do not like the taste of lemons (on their legs). A common way is to use lemon pledges to dust common spider hideouts, and they probably won’t return for a while!
3. A fruit from a tree called osage orange tree is also known to be natural repellents to spiders. These fruits are commonly called horse apples.
4. Spiders dislike the lavender smell. Here is a method commonly used to produce a spray to keep spiders away. You will need:
   - Water
   - Liquid Natural Soap or something similar
   - Little bit of neem oil (optional)
   - Some kind of natural oil, I prefer lavender essential oil.
   Mix all these together and spray! Adjust accordingly for strength, as I have concentrate lavender oil, I only needed to put a few drops in!

Hope some of the above ways help someone out there keep these creepy crawlies away, but just remember, some are there for the good and will do little harm.

Here is an interesting video experiment of spiders on drugs, highly recommended