Spiders
Spiders and the Hendon Let House
A house empty for most of the summer is a quiet one. Webs go up in corners nobody sweeps, behind the wardrobe, above the curtain rail and around the window frames, and nobody disturbs them. By the time the new tenants arrive, a room that looked clean on the viewing may have a good few spiders in it. Why there are so many spiders in a house covers the reasons.
The September arrival
From late summer into autumn, male house spiders wander in search of females, and they turn up in baths, on landings and across bedroom floors. Their timing lines up with the start of the academic year, which is why so many new tenants meet them in their first week. A few each autumn is normal and is not an infestation.
Box rooms and ground-floor bedrooms
In Hendon's interwar houses the box room over the front door and the ground-floor room turned into a bedroom both tend to collect spiders. The box room is small, with stored things often pushed into its corners, and the ground-floor room faces the garden and its insects. Why spiders keep appearing in the same rooms explains the pattern.
When It Is More Than Autumn Visitors
A build-up looks different from a few wanderers: webs back within days of clearing, egg sacs in corners, and the same spiders in the same room week after week. Lots of spiders can also point to a food supply, meaning another insect. In a let where the last tenant left boxes of old bedding or clothes, that may be carpet beetles; in a room with an old wool rug, carpet moths. Whether lots of spiders mean another pest goes into this.
False widows
The noble false widow is a dark, glossy, round-bodied spider often found round window frames, in sheds and under sills. Bites are unusual. If a bite becomes very swollen or looks infected, speak to a pharmacist or GP, and call 999 for signs of a severe allergic reaction. Whether there are dangerous spiders in Barnet homes has more.
What Treatment Can Do in a Shared House
Treatment is aimed at the rooms where spiders have built up and can bring numbers down there. It will not stop spiders coming in from the garden each autumn, and it cannot change what they find to eat. In a shared house the rooms counted are the ones with the problem, so one tenant's box room does not mean paying for the whole house. Whether pest control reduces spider problems is honest about the limits.
- Tell us which rooms are affected, and whether they are bedrooms, a box room or a shared lounge
- Clear the floor along the walls and pull furniture a little away from corners
- Say whether the room opens onto the garden
- Mention any false widows you have seen and where
In a shared lounge, the corners behind the sofa and the television are where webs gather, because nobody sees them as theirs to clean. Counting the lounge as a room only makes sense if spiders have really built up there.
Fewer Spiders Next Term
Sweeping corners and window frames once a week, keeping stored boxes off the floor and closing ground-floor windows at night with the light on all help. Landlords can clear webs and old storage at the summer changeover so new tenants start with a clean room. How to stop spiders coming back has more. For spiders in Barnet's garages, sheds and lofts generally, see Spider Control Barnet.
