Why do they have to live in my basement? What do they eat anyway, all that's down here is my computer and dust!

I know that they are God's creatures, but it makes my hair stand on end just thinking about them. I get so upset about deforestation and the ruining of habitat yet I still cannot tolerate spiders living in my house. I don't kill them anymore I just try to ignore them, however, that said, if I find one in my bedroom it's toast!

I didn't buy grapes for nearly a year. There was a report on televion that grapes coming in from Chili had poisonous spiders like Black Widows in them. They mentioned that more grapes had spiders because they were cutting down on pesticides - which is a good thing, but I just could not bare the thought of finding a poisonous spider in my grapes. I bought some grapes the other day, DH was teasing me about spiders as I washed them.

Does anyone know how they sustain themselves living in my basement? Please don't tell me they eat other bugs, I'll lose my mind .

By Cat on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 04:42 pm:

Okay, you don't want to know what they eat. You could bomb your basement, but they'd probably come right back because no home is absolutey air tight and they don't need much of a hole to get in. I really don't mind spiders. Snakes on the other hand... If I find one in the house I usually just kill it. We did bomb our bathroom last year because it was obvious one had given birth somewhere in there. They were EVERYWHERE!!! We'd kill a dozen TINY little spiders and an hour later there'd be a dozen more. Since bombing we haven't seen any. I hope someone has some good advise for you. Good luck.

By Reds9298 on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 04:54 pm:

We live in the country with LOTS of corn fields, etc. around us and had a terrible time with large spiders the first year or so we lived here. We have had a LOT of success with Ortho Home Defense bug/spider spray. We spray the perimeter of the house, right up against it, about 4 times a year and we've seen probably 3 spiders indoors in the last 3 years. When we first sprayed, the next day it was like a spider warzone outside the house! Dead ones everywhere. We found Ortho because they were IN OUR BED one night and we were killing like 6 a day throughout the house. (No basement) It's worth a try. If you keep up on it, like I said every 3-4mths, takes about 20 min., I think you'll see an improvement. In your case I would do the inside of your basement around the perimeter (doesn't damage carpet, etc.) and also outside the house.

By Palmbchprincess on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 07:03 pm:

A lot of people I know swear by the little sonic things you plug in, they emit an undetectable noise that scares bugs and spiders and rodents away. You can buy a set for fairly cheap at Sam's Club, though I'll have to search for the name. I hate spiders, and Nate is just as phobic, so it's never fun when we find one. We had a brown recluse in our house the other day, they are poisonous, so it got squashed.

By Sue3 on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 10:06 pm:

EEWWW ! I don`t like spiders either.I am terrified of them ! Crystal ,I can`t believe you found a brown recluse in your house !
Yikes ! I would have freaked out and called the exterminator.
I know when we lived in our old house ,they were tearing up the street to put in some sewer pipes and the fleas we got because of that were just terrible.
We could not get rid of them , so I called an exterminator and not only did they get rid of the fleas , we never seemed to get visits from spiders anymore.
We had some nasty ones in our basement too !
They were big and fast.
They looked like a smaller version of a tarantula.
Maybe you could try google and see what you could find? Good luck !