Why Spiders Appear Indoors in Autumn
The large house spiders that turn up in a bath or run across a carpet in early autumn are almost always males. They have spent the summer outdoors and, as the season turns, they leave cover to find a female. It is a few weeks of movement rather than an infestation, which is worth knowing before anyone panics.
The green belt edge
Properties at Totteridge, Arkley, the top of Mill Hill and the edges of Finchley back onto fields, golf courses and woodland. There is simply more spider habitat immediately outside those houses than in the middle of the borough, and the autumn traffic indoors reflects it.
Garages, sheds and summerhouses
Barnet's detached garages, workshops and garden buildings are dry, quiet and full of clutter, which is ideal. They hold the largest populations, and the connecting door into a house is a short walk for a spider already inside the garage.
Are any of them dangerous?
The spiders in a Barnet house are the ordinary British species. They are not aggressive and do not seek people out. Most of what we are asked to treat is a nuisance and a fear problem rather than a risk one, and we would rather say that plainly than oversell a treatment.
What reduces them
- Brushing webs down regularly, inside and in the porch, and keeping it up
- Fitting brush strips or seals under external and garage doors
- Clearing clutter in garages, sheds and summerhouses where they harbour
- Moving log piles, bins and dense planting away from the walls of the house
- Cutting back what touches an external wall or a window frame
