Seeing spiders in your home? There’s a reason.

Are you seeing more spiders in your home?

You see more spiders in the home, on porch lights, more spiders on the walkway, even more spiders in the nooks and crannies of the patio this time of year. When you least expect it, you can find yourself walking into a web. It seems as if you cannot get away from them anywhere in the Northwest this time of year. Actually, some of the spiders you are seeing now were very busy during the course of the summer with chores of their own.

Typical months for increased spider activity

Summer and autumn are the working seasons for most spiders. Spiders in and around homes help maintain the size of other insect populations. They are valuable predators whose ability to control the bug populations in and around homes is better than most bird species. People typically underestimate their usefulness. Most spiders are quite harmless and are most interested in bugs than in harming humans contrary to popular belief.

The classic order of the spider’s life

During the month of May, most spiders are born, thus during the summer months spiders are much smaller and not fully-grown. They are not as noticeable to most people. Spiders in the home or garden hide, keeping themselves busy feasting on the various insects in bushes, on the ground, in the grass and around the house. Spiders maintain a customary seasonal timetable. They hatch in the spring, and then procreate and die in the fall. In autumn, spiders who have made it through the summer develop into adults to begin spinning their artful yet durable silken webs. As the weather cools the adult female spider’s need to lay their eggs increases along with the adult male spider’s need to mate for the continuation the species.

The majority of spiders that you will see in the fall are males looking for mates, while the females busy themselves in obscure places building nests and preparing their egg sacs. The house spider species have specifically adapted themselves to indoor climates.

House spiders have adapted to…

• A climate that is stable
• Food supplies that are meager
• Water supplies that are inadequate

The establishment of spiders in your house originated with hidden egg sacs being brought into the home by several means. They are easily hidden on items brought into the home that have been stored in garage areas. Spiders hide their egg sacs on furniture, baskets, or decorative items that we carry inside into living areas inside the home. It is worthwhile to examine anything, which has been stored outside that is brought indoors for spider egg sacs. The most prevalent time of year to find large numbers of spiders is usually towards the end of the summer, but rarely in the cooler months. If you want to control large amounts of spiders in your home during their busy season, it is advisable to locate and remove their egg sacs from your home before the spring season.

Look for spider egg sacs in…

• Surplus building materials
• The beams of crawlspaces
• The rafters of attics
• Abandoned rooms, closets and cabinets
• Floor and wall voids
• The back furniture, the underside of chairs, and appliances
• Storage areas and garages

Outdoor spiders prefer the open-air life

Spider species found outdoors in most cases do not have the survival skills to adapt to indoor conditions. Typically, spiders are not attracted to warmth due to their cold-blooded nature. They cannot thrive in warmer environments like their indoor counterparts. They slow down, cease breeding, and go inactive typically dying away. Outdoor spiders have survival mechanisms to help them survive in temperatures that dip below 23 degrees, way below freezing. Consequently, if you catch an outdoor spider in your home, if it cannot get back outside it will most likely die in time.

Spiders in the home hunt for insects. It is rare that spiders will bite a human, and it is usually the human that will attack first. Spiders found in a home environment usually do not have enough venom, or the ability to bite humans or pets, rendering them near harmless. Most species of spiders found in the northwest and parts of the U.S. area are fairly harmless and outnumber their toxic relatives. Spiders are unaware of humans, but unfortunately many ignore their value as natural pest exterminators. They actually assist us in maintaining the local insect population wherever they are found.

Spiders in your home

Finding spiders in your home can be unnerving for many homeowners. For many, the first instinct is to use do-it-yourself methods such as spider bombs and sprays. At times, these types of treatments can work for small areas, but in most cases this will not solve the problem long term. Many homes in the Pacific Northwest have crawlspaces, and attics which are both places that common house spiders can lay egg sacs, which come spring will reintroduce sometimes hundreds of new spiders with each egg sac. For homeowners that continually find themselves battling indoor spider problems, we recommend enlisting the help of a professional pest control company to formulate a long term plan to keep these pests out of the home. PURCOR can help; call us today!