Food comes first
Every spider in your home is a predator, and it will only settle where prey keeps turning up. Flies, midges, moths, woodlice, silverfish and even other spiders are all on the menu. A property that supports plenty of small insects will support more spiders; one that does not will struggle to keep them, even when they wander in.
Outside lights
A porch lamp, a security light or a lit window after dark pulls in moths and other night-flying insects from across the garden. The frame around that light becomes a well-stocked place for a web, and garden orb-weavers and false widows are often found right beside outdoor fittings. Warmer-coloured bulbs, and lights on a motion sensor, tend to draw fewer insects than a bright white lamp left on all night. Small moths that live indoors are another matter — the signs of carpet moths explains how to tell.
Gaps around windows, doors and pipes
A spider needs very little room. Worn draught strips, a gap under a back door, cracked sealant round a window frame, air bricks, and the holes where waste pipes and cables pass through a wall all let spiders and their prey walk straight in. The guide to reducing spiders around windows and doors deals with each one.
Clutter and storage
Stacks of cardboard boxes, piles of newspapers, bags of clothes and seldom-moved furniture shelter spiders and give insects somewhere to breed. Cardboard is a particular favourite, because its folds and corrugations are full of hiding places. Lidded plastic crates are far less inviting. Storage also means fewer disturbances: a web in a room you walk through every day gets broken by accident, while one behind stacked boxes can last all year. That is why garages, box rooms and the space under the stairs so often hold the most webs in a house. The favourite spots are mapped in where spiders hide inside homes.
Damp
Damp does not attract spiders directly, but it supports the insects they eat. Silverfish, booklice, springtails and woodlice thrive in humid bathrooms, leaky kitchens, cellars and rooms with condensation. Homes close to water, like the canal-side properties in Alperton, may also see more midges on summer evenings, which keeps webs by the windows busy.
Plants, ivy and garden clutter against the walls
Climbing plants, overgrown shrubs, log piles, compost bins and stacked pots right up against the house form a bridge from garden to wall. Spiders and insects live in them and step straight onto window frames and air bricks. Cutting growth back from the walls and moving log piles a little way off removes that bridge.
Sheds, decking and outbuildings
Undisturbed garden structures close to the house act as nurseries. Gaps under decking, the corners of a shed roof and stored garden furniture shelter a lot of spiders, and when the males wander in autumn, the nearest open door is often the kitchen. Homes with raised decking and extensions, such as many in Queensbury, have more of these spaces right beside the back door.
What does not attract them
Spiders are not a sign of a dirty house. They are not interested in crumbs or food waste, which draw flies and ants instead, and they do not come up through plugholes. A tidy home with a bright outdoor light and ivy round the windows can easily have more spiders than an untidy one without.
What to do with this
Pick the two or three attractants that fit your home and deal with those first; how to stop spiders coming back turns them into a routine. Where a garage, cellar or room keeps building up spiders regardless, spider control in Brent is £180 for the first room plus £60 for each additional room. Book spider control with a note of the rooms involved.
