All The Ways You Are Inviting Spiders Into Your Hartford Home

Spiders Are Everywhere!

It can be unpleasant and somewhat unnerving to have spiders crawling around inside your home. They make webs that you have to clean up. They surprise you when you turn on a light and find one clinging to the wall just above the light switch. And they are definitely an unwelcome sight when they're sitting on top of the drain in your tub or shower. Why do these spiders get into your home? It might be because you're inviting them in. Here are a few ways you might be putting out the welcome mat for spiders.

Why Spiders Come Into Your Yard

Long before a spider gets inside your home, it will enter your yard. Whether or not a spider will enter your yard is linked to what a spider is looking for. While each spider species is slightly different in the way it behaves and where it will establish itself (if it established itself at all) they're all looking for food and water resources. They know that these will be found in areas of vegetation. You can reduce spiders by managing the habitat that attracts them. Here are some tips:

• Keep your grass trimmed.
• Remove weeds and unwanted vegetation in your landscaping.
• Keep leaves raked up.
• Remove sticks and keep brush piles away from your home.

Why Spiders Come Near To Your Home

As a spider explores your yard, it can be attracted to your exterior by conditions that promote insect and bug activity. Altering these conditions can reduce spiders. Here are some tips:

• Make sure your exterior trash is in containers with a cover. This will keep flies away and reduce the spiders that subsist on flies.
• Keep lights off at night and keep curtains drawn. Many insects are attracted to light. Spiders will establish webs near windows and light fixtures to capture a meal.
• Reduce moist conditions around your home. This will help to reduce the population of moisture pests around your home and the wolf spiders and jumping spiders that eat them.
• Move woodpiles and yard clutter away from your exterior walls. This eliminates hiding spots for spiders and a potential hunting ground for food.

Why Spiders Get Inside Your Home

Spiders find a way into your home by accident. As they establish webs on your exterior, or as they hunt for food in your landscaping, they can find a gap, crack, or hole to gain entrance to your home. Here are a few tips for sealing entry points:

• Repair or replace any screens that have holes or tears.
• Fix gaps in the rubber seal around your exterior doors.
• Make sure your exterior doors have door sweeps, and that they are in good repair.
• Inspect pipes that pass through your foundation walls, and seal any gaps you see.
• Repair cracks in cement or chips in brick mortar.
• Use a caulking gun to fill in holes created by wood-destroying pests like carpenter ants, mice, and rats. If you see this kind of damage, you should also contact a licensed pest control professional to have a look and see what is causing that damage. Spiders are the least of your problems.

Why Spiders Are Active Inside Your Home

Many spiders can get into your home and never show themselves in your common areas. They'll stay in your wall voids, attic, basement, or secluded storage rooms. Spiders usually come out when they find food. This might be a house fly here and there. It might be a dozen fruit flies. It could be fungus flies that were brought inside with a potted plant. It could be cluster flies that got inside to hide from the cold. This will cause some spiders to establish webs around your home.

There are spiders that will explore your home at night and hunt for food without ever creating a web. These spiders feed on beetles, cockroaches, silverfish, centipedes, and a wide range of other pests.

It is difficult to control spiders once they've gotten into your home. You can have limited success by keeping things squeaky clean and by reducing humidity in your home. But the best way to make your home a spider-free environment is to invest in year-round pest control service. We can help you with this. American Pest Solutions offers interior and exterior pest control that will get pests out and keep them out. We'd love the opportunity to talk with you about what we offer. Reach out to us anytime for assistance.