Spider-Proofing Your Durham Home: Tips And Tricks

Spider Behavior: How They Hunt, Feed, And Mate

Spiders in Durham are yucky, creepy, and scary. Learning how they hunt, feed, and mate won't help you feel better about having them around, but knowing how spiders behave can provide insight into how you can reduce spiders and prevent them from entering your home. It is a topic worth discussing. 

How Spiders Hunt: Some spiders catch their prey in sticky webs. These webs are often noticeable as they appear on your exterior walls, inside your garage, and sometimes inside the common areas of your home. Those webs aren't just unsightly. They are also a source for your spider infestation. Some spiders create egg sacs in their webs, and these can contain hundreds of tiny spiderlings. Other spiders hunt for their food. They don't create webs to catch their prey. These hunter-spiders leap onto their prey and subdue their food using venom from their fangs. Hunter spiders are deterred with pest-proofing.

What Spiders Eat: You may already know that spiders eat flying insects, crawling insects, multi-legged bugs, and small animals. What you may not know is that insects, bugs, and small animals are often pests themselves. A high-quality pest control service plan reduces pest activity and removes the food that invites spider activity. When we discuss prevention, we'll tell you how to naturally reduce these general pests to help you get better control of spiders.

Why Spider Mating Is A Problem:  The time you are most likely to see spiders is when they're looking for mates. Seeing a spider crawling around in your home isn't a good sign. It means you have an active population of spiders. The best way to address an active population (and to reset the population of spiders in your home to zero) is to contact a licensed pest control service provider. Most of the time, you'll see spiders in their webs. Seeing webs is sometimes an early sign of spider activity, not a sign of a mature infestation. Remove the webs when you see them, and you may prevent a larger problem. 

Now that you know a bit about how spiders behave and what you can do to deal with spiders, let's turn our attention to why it is a good idea to get rid of spiders. Sure, they're gross and a bit scary; that may be all you need to inspire you to roll your sleeves up and take steps to deal with those eight-legged pests. But, if you need more convincing, here are a few things you should know about the dangers that spiders present.

Spiders In The House: Danger Or Nuisance?

There are basically three kinds of spiders. There are outside spiders that never get inside. There are outside spiders that sometimes get in but don't stay long. And then there is the worst kind of spiders, the kind that gets inside and prefers to stay permanently. We call these common house spiders. In this group, the worst is the brown recluse spider—but not every brown spider that enters your home is a recluse. We recommend taking a look at images of brown spiders on the internet and learning the difference. Brown recluse spiders have a venom that has the potential to present a danger. If conditions are right, their venom can cause spreading necrosis, which may result in a disfiguring wound. When brown recluse spiders enter a home, they can take up permanent residency. They do well indoors when conditions are favorable.

In our Durham service area, there is another dangerous spider to consider. It is the black widow. This is an outdoor spider that only gets into homes temporarily. But, though they only stay inside for a short time, it is still wise to contact a licensed pest control service provider if you detect black widows or their webs inside your home. A bite from one of these spiders can result in a hospital visit.

All other spiders are considered a nuisance. In this category is everything from spiders that cause a wound that hurts like a bee sting to spiders that are unable to bite humans at all. These are the spiders you can deal with in and around your home using smart, all-natural spider management methods. Let's take a look at these now.

Preventing Spiders In Your Home: Tips And Tricks

Spider prevention falls into two basic categories: Population reduction and exclusion. Population reduction reduces the number of spiders around your home and makes it less likely that one of these eight-legged, creepy crawlies will find their way indoors. On the inside of your home, population reduction helps to reduce the food source spiders eat, namely, other spiders. Exclusion is the application of pest-proofing to keep spiders and other pests out of your home. Directly keeping spiders out is the primary reason to apply pest proofing for spider control, but it is also important to recognize other pests as a food source spiders desire to find in your home. If a spider gets into your home and your home is pest free, it will go back outside or die trying. 

How To Reduce Spiders: There are a few key ways to reduce spiders. We talked about a few of them and hinted at others. Here are a few of our best tips and tricks.

• Reduce flies. Flies are attracted to the scent of garbage. Put a cover on your trash receptacle, keep it closed, and refrain from overfilling your receptacle. 
• Reduce other flying insects. Most insects are attracted to light. To be more specific, they're attracted to light other than yellow light sources. If you replace exterior white lights with bulbs that cast yellow light, you can reduce insect populations. You may also install motion-detecting bulbs or fixtures to keep lights off when you don't need them.
• Reduce bugs. Many bugs are attracted to damp habitats. One way you make your exterior inviting to them is by having clogged gutters. Clogged gutters allow rainwater to dampen your perimeter. Clean out clogs and repair damaged portions of your system to prevent perimeter saturation.
• Reduce plant-damaging insects. When unhealthy plants attract insects, spiders aren't far behind. Keep your plants healthy and use smart, eco-friendly insect management tools, such as yellow sticky traps. A quality insect control plan for the exterior of your home is also a great way to reduce insects.
• Remove leaves and sticks. Insects and other critters love to hide under organic debris. Removing debris gets rid of these ideal habitats.
• Remove webs. Doing this will directly reduce spider populations.
• Clean surfaces. Spiders prefer to create their webs on dirty or rough surfaces. 

These tips will get you headed in the right direction. We're sure you can come up with many more that are similar. 

How To Exclude Spiders: A spider can't get into your home if it can't find an entry point. These tips and tricks will help you stop spiders in their tracks:

• Use a caulking gun to patch gaps around window and door frames or to fill in wood holes. 
• Use expanding foam to fill in wood holes, gaps between wood members, joist voids, gaps around plumbing, and other larger entry points.
• Replace or repair any damaged screens on doors, windows, and other openings.
• Get damaged window panes repaired, and have window or door frames repaired.
• Install door sweeps on exterior doors that don't have them, or replace worn-out sweeps. Don't forget your garage door.

If you don't mind getting outside and doing some work in your yard, and if you have the skills to do minor patches and repairs, you can stop spiders from getting into your home. When you also keep indoor areas clean, you'll have even more protection.