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How to Get Rid of Spiny Orb Spiders

| Updated September 26, 2017

Things You'll Need

  • Clippers

  • Rake

  • Trashcan

  • Broom

  • Spider spray

  • Lemon Pledge

Spiny orb spiders are wonderful for munching away on your local mosquito and fly populations. Unfortunately, they love rose bushes and make unsightly webs right in these bushes. Additionally, in some cases they make webs that span a good distance, causing people to run into them. For many this is one of the worst experiences and prompts the urge to learn how to get rid of spiny orb spiders altogether.

Trim your bushes and remove dead leaves, branches and other garden debris that has built up. Spiny orb spiders often use these as hiding places during the heat of the day and by reducing little hiding spots you will make your garden a lot less attractive to the spiders.

Remove any cardboard boxes or wood stacks you keep in your yard or home. Spiders in general are drawn to them. By replacing cardboard boxes with plastic totes and storing the wood for your fireplace either inside the fireplace or outside your home wrapped in plastic, you are reducing the chance of inviting these arachnids into your home.

Reduce insects in your yard. If you have a fly problem, hang flytraps to decrease the meals spiny orb spiders may expect to get around your home. If you have other insects that you see caught in their webs, find out how you can get rid of them as well. When there is little food to be had in your yard, the spiders oftentimes move on.

Destroy the webs you see with a broom and take the spiders clinging to the broom away from your yard. Let them off the broom down the street. If you must kill them, do so quickly.

Clean all around the windowsills and door jambs of your house. Remove all spider webs. The odds are good that you might be getting quite a few different kinds of spiders to move when you do this, so pay attention that you do not inadvertently get bitten by one. Although most spiders are not poisonous to humans, they are all venomous and those people allergic to them might actually suffer some swelling if bitten.

Purchase spider spray from your local hardware store and spray all around your windows and doors now that they have been cleared of webs. Spray also in areas of your yard where you notice an accumulation of webs. Keep in mind that most of these sprays are only a temporary solution since the residual action that makes them work great for ants and bugs does not truly work for spiny orb spiders.

Spray some Lemon Pledge—the kind you would use for dusting—in the areas most commonly prone to infestation by spiny orb spiders. They hate the oily residue and will not want to stay there. Granted, they will set up their webs in other areas of your yard, but when you remember that they are very beneficial pests, it might not be a bad idea to keep them around.

Tips

  • If you are not able to make a dent into your indoor or outdoor spiny orb spider population, call in a professional exterminator.

Warnings

  • Do not mix and match a variety of bug sprays to get rid of these spiders. The odds are good that you will do more harm to yourself, your family, pets, and outdoor animals you would like to have in your yard than you will do to the spiders.