UNLESS you’re committing to remarkably realistic Halloween decor, you probably want to reduce the number of spiderwebs in and around your house.
Luckily, a spider expert knows just how to do it, and how to “read” the cobwebs in your basement or attic.
The team at Cubby spoke to Rod Crawford, an arachnology expert, to better understand the behavior of the little critters who leave their mark in corners of the home.
When you see a web in your house, the first thing to do is check for dust.
No, you’re not going to tidy the spider’s home for them – but the dust provides useful info. When a web is dusty, the spider has moved on.
That’s because dust renders the webbing useless, and a spider won’t stay where it can’t catch prey.
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“If the web looks neat and clean with little to no dust on the surface, then you may be displacing a spider or at least making a problem for it,” Crawford said.
Before you destroy the web outright, do a little detective work to see if you can spot the spider in your home.
Though it may seem scary or gross, moving the spider is actually your best bet for preventing cobwebs in high-traffic areas.
If you destroy the web, the spider will build a new one nearby. But if you move the spider to a different part of your house, it should take the hint.
“If the spider itself is moved, they’ll probably try to make a new web,” Crawford said.
For example, try relocating a spider that builds a web in your doorframe to a windowsill in a back storage room, and you won’t risk walking through its sticky silk.
This is where knowing your webs will come in handy. Not all webs are the same.
Funnel webs, which look like large sheets of fabric, are made by a different type of spider than cobwebs, which look more like stringy snowflakes.
And orb webs, which are complicated, geometric constructions, aren’t typically made by house spiders.
If you see an orb web in the home, move that spider outside where it belongs.
Remember that destroying a cobweb doesn’t mean the spider is gone.
In fact, you probably have lots of spiders in the house you can’t even see.
Crawford said that many spiders “live in spaces such as in the wall or floor or crawl spaces.” That’s good, since they can capture and eat insects that pass through.
In other words, don’t waste time trying to clear every single web from your home – just try moving any spiders you can see out of sight.
