How do you handle bug control in the basement?


M

Mattchu60

Member
Hey All,

My basement is invaded by spiders and millipedes all year, but its really bad in the summer. How do you guys deal with these pests? Or do you just ignore them? I am in the midwest, so the winter usually kills most of them off, but they come back in force in the spring. Spiders build webs all over. Anyone else deal with this and what do you do to handle them?

Thanks
 
You are not alone.

I live in the mid-Atlantic region and they are a problem here too. It seem this year was worse then years past I think because we have had some mild winters.

I caulked everything, but I think they get in trough my sump pump.

I don't get the ones that build webs or I kill them before they do, I don't know. I sweep up daily because I have beagles and they shed big time!

I find one or two every week. I have found spiders as big as a half dollar including the legs and not those long legged spiders, nasty looking things!

I don't want to use chemical sprays because I have grandchildren, dogs and a cat. My only solution has been to kill them as I find them.

I am interested to hear what others are doing as well.
 
Best I can do (Black Widows are prolific here at the edge of the desert) is that I use the sprays from HD or Lowes in the gallon with hand spray size. I have pets and grand kids as well, but a spray a couple times a year is not as dangerous as a spider bite.

I vacuum good, then spray around the baseboards and door/window openings both in and out and the underneath of any benches and tables. I Let it dry for a day before letting any of the kids and pets back in. My garage looks like something from Storage Wars, but it keeps them away.

And stop calling me Surely!
 
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I have a pest control spray everything every three months. No critters in the basement or house. Outside now, that's a different story. I have all kinds of spiders, i.e. Virginia Wolf Spider, Grass Spiders, Black Widows and the Daddy Long Legged Spiders. When I put up the drywall in the basement, I included a piece that angles from the wall to the ceiling which is supposed to thwart spider webs. So far, its working great. Not a single cob web for the time its been in place.
 
Dehumidifier, than spray inside base of wall and outside base of wallin spring and late summer.
Wayne
 
We had an article in our local newspaper recently about the spider "invasion" that is extremely bad this year. The paper said it was due to the amount of rain we've had this year. Not only are the more dangerous spiders here worse, like Black Widows, Brown widows, & Recluse, but we're even seeing an invasion of a spider from Florida that while not venomous, still delivers a nasty bite.

The most dangerous spider here is the Brown Recluse. Their bites are dangerous due to what the venom does to the victim. The bite starts dissolving the flesh around the bite, and if this occurs, hospitalization, IV antibiotics, etc is the treatment. While most victims get what's called a dry bite, where like in some snakes, no venom is injected, the ones who do get the venom can be in for a long painful course of recovery, sometimes involving skin grafts, and amputation. My daughter got bit by one a couple of years ago, and she was extremely lucky that it was a dry bite, but the site remained inflamed and very swollen for almost 3 weeks. Lots of oral antibiotics, and pain killers.

The way I deal with the spiders since then has been this. I spray around all entrances to the house , and esp. the garage, then I set off several bombs off in the basement, and then spray the walls and ceilings. I stay out until the spray drys, then start vacuuming up the bodies.

Its almost time to do this again.
 
I leave the 'daddy long legs' alone. They make a lot of webs which need to be swept away, but they also eat the other spiders. They are harmless to humans and pets. So I think the webs these guys make are the cost of having natural pet control. Just to make sure we are talking about the same spider, this is what we call 'daddy long legs' in my country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholcidae


The wiki article states they eat 'redbacks' (black widow) and 'huntsman'. I have seen them take 'funnel webs' too. The common spider names used in the article makes me think a fellow Australia wrote that wiki article. It might be that you have a different species of 'daddy long legs' in the US that doesn't eat other spiders, so maybe best to check up on my claim before accepting it.
 
This is what I always referred ti as a Daddy Long Legs ...
 

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Louis I had a good chuckle where you typed: "I sweep up daily because I have beagles and they shed big time! I find one or two every week."

We had a HUGE ant problem a while back, you could actually hear them when they fell off the walls and hit the layout! Nasty biting things they were!
Only get the odd spider, and not any nasty ones at that, but a regular vacuuming and a dehumidifier keeps them at bay.
There's a spray called "Home Defence" that we use all around the outside base of the house.
You didn't mention if you had a dirt basement, cement, or finished walls?
 
A couple of points:

Daddy long legs are garden/outdoors spiders, and are correctly identified in the image above. The ones you find indoors and in the rafters of the barn or tool shed, with a longer body, are cellar spiders. The cellar spiders' defense is that they use their spindly legs to pump up and down furiously on their web, confusing the 'enemy', which is confounded and can't nail it. Meanwhile, it spins silk around its confused victim and the rest you know.

Spiders are generally more an emotional nuisance than a real one. In fact, if you do have numerous spiders, two things...they can get in, and it's worth their while!! They have a place to breed and to succeed. They find and eat prey. You should be grateful.

Where I live, in the PNW, it's sowbugs...the tiny armadillo like grey bugs that curl up like...well...an armadillo. They're everywhere, and found in numbers in any basement cobwebs we find. My wife learned a few years ago from a commercial fumigator that ye olde baking soda, cheap like borchst, sprinkled at the edge of the basement, where wall meets pad, will do a fine job of stopping most bugs. More expensive, but at the very least as efficient is diatomaceous earth....really diatoms crushed up finely and sold to you. It makes insects 'sweat' to death. Arachnids, too.

Another nifty method is smoke bombs. Raid makes them in Canada, but they can't be sold here. My dad, a snowbird, brings a couple boxes back for me every spring when he returns to Canada. They are in a blue box, three canisters in each box. You only need to add a tablespoon of tap water to the bottom of the cup, insert the canister, and leave the room. It's a bit more involved....you must open all drawers and cupboards, spread stuff out, set some ceiling tiles aside if you have the typical rafter-slung suspended ceiling, and you must not enter the space for four hours. Go shopping or to see your mom...not hers, you'll be back too soon.

If you do use the insect bombs, you MUST repeat between 10 days and one month later. Those critters lay eggs, you know? A new army will invade within three or four months if you don't.

Wife and I are visiting youngest in Calgary, AB, as I type. Last thing I did before driving away five days ago was to set off three bombs distributed around the basement and close the basement door.
 
Hey Rico,

I can see how my confusing sentence could be funny or scary depending on how you look at. Obviously and thankfully I don't find one or two beagles every week. That would be scary to me. I have 2 beagles and they are more then enough for me! Don't get me wrong I love them like family, but beagles can be a real pain in the butt! Beagles are howlers and the puppy will chew on anything. She even destroyed 2 of my Lionel boxes. It was my fault because I left them where she could reach them. Thank God the boxcars were ok, they were 6464 series boxcars. puppies do what puppies do and you can't be mad at them.

One other thing about the dogs, Frontline is a great product. I have no flea or tick problem, thank God.

My basement has a level concrete floor with ceramic tile laid on top. The walls are cinder block painted white. I have 2 window air conditioners and they are sealed good on the outsides, but I would imagine the bugs can find a way in through the air conditioners. I have a new steel door for the basement exit. The only place I can think they would get in is through the sump pump or air conditioners. I do have a drainage system around the perimeter of the basement that drains in the sump pump. That could be spider highway I suppose. I sweep most of it everyday but there is a few places where the furniture is that I only get once a month. I even keep my corner desk away from the wall just enough to get a broom along the wall. At my desk is where I will see the occasional spider from hell climbing the wall. I take great joy in smacking those $#^&@&s then I have to get a Clorox wipe to clean the wall and wash my hands, I don't like to use the word hate, but I hate spiders in my house.

Maybe it is the humidity, my basement never gets above 55% in the summer and I keep it air conditioned. Baltimore summers are very humid. Winters are not as humid and I don't have a spider problem then.

Some of these posts have made me worry. I don't want my boys to get bitten. I need to identify what kind of spiders I am finding and see If they are dangerous. I may have no choice but to spray. I know the long legged ones are harmless, but I rarely see them. Its the ones like something from the Spiderman movies that worry me.

I have never seen so many insects outside like I have this year. I guess I should be happy I am only finding a few spiders.

Two weeks ago I was outside doing my morning dog clean up and on top of one of the "lump dumps" was a brown spider, same color as the waste and the S.O.B. jumped at me when I went to pick up the waste. Fortunately he landed in the bag I had over my hand and was trapped with the waste and I disposed of him in the trash. I had never seen an attack spider before!

Thanks for your post Rico, I appreciate your recommendation of "Home Defense" I will look into that and I am glad my silly sentence gave you a chuckle :)

Rico said:
Louis I had a good chuckle where you typed: "I sweep up daily because I have beagles and they shed big time! I find one or two every week."

We had a HUGE ant problem a while back, you could actually hear them when they fell off the walls and hit the layout! Nasty biting things they were!
Only get the odd spider, and not any nasty ones at that, but a regular vacuuming and a dehumidifier keeps them at bay.
There's a spray called "Home Defence" that we use all around the outside base of the house.
You didn't mention if you had a dirt basement, cement, or finished walls?
Click to expand...
 
Jumped at you?
The little spiders ya find around the house that look like tiny taurantulas will jump but they are totaly harmless. Actually, if ya sweep one off the wall onto your hand they will scramble to get off.
 
Bruette said:
Some of these posts have made me worry. I don't want my boys to get bitten. I need to identify what kind of spiders I am finding and see If they are dangerous. I may have no choice but to spray. I know the long legged ones are harmless, but I rarely see them. Its the ones like something from the Spiderman movies that worry me.
Click to expand...



Yes, you need to know your spiders. I have become curious about spiders in the USA now and I have started reading up on the species mentioned. Actually it seems you are too badly off. Most are harmless. For example the 'wolf spiders' and 'grass spiders' could be ignored. The main problem with them is they are creepy. We have already discussed the 'cellar spider' (daddy long legs to some).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_spider

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_spider


The sort of dangerous, certainly enough to be worth getting rid of them, are things like the brown recluse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider



This one seems to be analogous to what we call the huntsman here in Oz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider


Apparently their range includes at least the warmer parts of the USA so you might see them around. It can be hard to pick brown recluse, huntsman, and wolf spiders from each other. The bites don't seem to be dangerously venomous, but as mentioned, they can inject digestive enzymes and the bacteria on their fangs is nasty, so wounds from their bites can take a long time to heal and suffer serious infections. A friend got a huntsman bite on his hand and had that hand wrapped up for weeks before it started to heal.



OK, so now the ones that must be eradicated on site. These ones can be lethal.


The widow spiders. In Oz we call them 'red backs'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus



Just to show how easy you have it in the US, here is the Sydney funnel web:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_funnel-web_spider


Apparently it is the most dangerous spider in the world. They are reasonable large, up to 2 inches, they are very aggression and will jump at you, and they have very lethal venom. About 30 minutes and your dead. The good news is dogs are immune. It seems their venom is particularly nasty for primates, but dogs just eat them.
 
Okay now I'm getting a little creped out!
I actually have had arachnophobia since childhood and find that letting them crawl across my hand helps to alleviate that.
Here's a guest on my garage that I named "Georgina", she eats her weight in bugs every night so we have a deal.
She is a "Cat Faced Spider" as you'll see when you zoom in:
Georgina 2.jpg
 
Yes, jumped up at me, 3 or 4 inches! It seemed it was blending in and waiting for a fly or some other prey to come along. I have never seen anything like it.

I don't know anything about what kind it was, it did not look like a tarantula nor have I ever seen a spider that did look like a tarantula. I am far from an expert on arachnids or any other insect for that matter. I don't even know what kind of spiders we have here in Baltimore. I have no idea if we have any dangerous spiders here. I have never been bitten and I don't know anyone that has been bitten.

Being a life long dog owner I have never seen one on a pile of crap either.

It was an unusual event.

I don't bother with insects outside. I even tell my grandson not to kill them just leave them be, but in my house is another story. If one should land on my hand or come into reach I would kill it before it had a chance to get away. My wife says "ewwww get a paper towel or something" I tell her that is another good use of hand soap.
 
Thank you PaulB!

I appreciate you sharing your research.

I think the most common one I am seeing is that wolf spider. They can be pretty big, but its good to know the are relatively harmless.

The one I had jump at me, I really did not see very good because it happened so fast. It jumped I grabbed, game over.

I don't recall seeing any with bright colors on any of the spiders I am seeing.

thank you again!

Rico that is one strange looking spider and it looks like it is doing its job from the size of that body! You and Georgiana have a mutually beneficial arrangement. I like that, work with nature, not against it.

I don't see any other insects in my house so my spiders are squatters and have to go! They stay outside and we can get along just fine.
 
Try TERRO Spider and insect traps. They work here on spiders and almost everything else. The traps are non-toxic and easy to trash once full of spiders. Home Depot and lowes have em.
 
The Wolf Spiders I find in my yard are kind of pale green with a single thin yellow line running between the eyes back to the joint before the abdomin. The back of the abdomin appears opaque at first but looking close you can see faint, dark spots on it.
I took a picture of one of them earlier this year, taunting it with a pencil.

WSpider_zps03ea2bb2.png
 
I think the scorpions follow the crickets. There is a chemical that ya lay out where the crickets and scorpions hang out and it dries them out. I can't remember the name of it though.
 
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