How to Keep Spiders Away in Fort Lauderdale
So, you’re dealing with spiders in your house. Yeah, we know. It’s no fun seeing even one spider in your home. If you don’t know how to keep spiders away, well, you’ve come to the right place.
Keeping spiders away in Fort Lauderdale isn’t straightforward - the truth is, there’s no magic spray for spiders. There’s no bait or product you can set out that will get spiders to walk out your door and not come back.
Effective spider control involves targeting all kinds of pests that may be attracting spiders to your home. Read this guide to learn all the tips and tricks when it comes to spider control in Fort Lauderdale, from distinguishing the different species to taking the best course of action, and finally how to go about hiring a professional.
Types of Spiders in Fort Lauderdale
If you want to get rid of spiders, it’s important to understand the most common spiders in Fort Lauderdale so you can identify them. When you see a spider in your house, it’s most likely a brown recluse spider, a banana spider, a black widow spider, or a wolf spider.
Brown Recluse Spider
The brown recluse spider is about ¼ to ½ inches in length (not including their legs). It’s also one of the few venomous spiders in Fort Lauderdale (we’ll go over the other one in a bit!).
They can easily be distinguished by a violin-shaped marking on its back. If you do see a brown recluse, it’s important to not panic and not try to kill it. This will only cause it to try and bite you in defense.
Banana Spider
The banana spider is a large black and yellow spider commonly found outdoors and is also harmless. They’re 1-3 inches long and these spiders are known for eating up insects, creating webs, and not much else. Since they don’t bite, you don’t have to worry about them if you see one.
Black Widow Spider
The black widow is another venomous spider in Fort Lauderdale. It’s a small black spider known for its distinguishable red hourglass marking on its abdomen.
Similar to brown recluse spiders, black widows don’t want to hurt you - they’re more interested in catching prey.
They’re also known for their irregular webs - black widows spin webs known as tangle webs, meaning their webs look like a bundle of tangles.
Wolf Spider
Wolf spiders are large, hairy spiders that can be various shades of brown, gray, or tan. While these spiders are scary looking, they aren’t venomous. They can bite if provoked, but the bite doesn’t have any effects.
Wolf spiders can be easily confused with brown recluse spiders; however, wolf spiders are much more likely to be seen out in the open and are fast-moving. Brown recluse spiders prefer to hide.
How Do I Get Rid of Spiders in Fort Lauderdale?
To get rid of spiders, it’s important to understand how spiders work. At the beginning of this post, we talked about how there is no magic cure for spiders - no spray or bait that’s effective.
The most effective way to get rid of spiders is to remove their food sources. Because they’re in your home to find food, getting rid of their food will keep spiders away.
These food sources include small insects like ants, flies, arthropods, caterpillars, beetles, and roaches. Because of the wide variety of food sources, it’s important to start pest-proofing your home completely when you start seeing spiders in your home.
How to Pest-Proof Your Home For Spiders
Control Ants
If you’re seeing spiders in your home, ants are likely hanging around too. To get rid of ants, start by removing entry points.
Common Entry Points For Ants
- Cracks and crevices in your foundation.
- Gaps around doors and windows.
- Vents, power outlets, and pipes
The next thing you’ll want to do is eliminate insects producing honeydew. Whiteflies, mealybugs, and other scale insects commonly on plants and shrubs will excrete sugary honeydew, which will attract ants to your yard.
Getting rid of these lawn insects will significantly decrease the population of ants in your and inside your home.
Call us for a free lawn inspection!
Control Flies
Flies are another common prey of all kinds of spiders. To eliminate flies, make sure you’re practicing good cleaning habits in your home, specifically in the kitchen.
Ways to Clean to Prevent Flies
- Clean up dishes daily.
- Keep food stored in airtight containers.
- Take out the trash each night, and keep your trash can covered.
- Avoid putting food down the drain.
- Clean with vinegar.
Cleaning is the key to fly control, and staying consistent is even better. Drain flies are a common problem in Fort Lauderdale, and Native Pest Management can help.
Control Cockroaches
Spiders are known for keeping roaches away, which is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because roaches are gross, and it’s a curse because roaches attract spiders to your home.
Palmetto bugs are the most common roaches in Florida and usually get inside your home in search of a warm, humid, and dark environment.
Control Mosquitoes
Spiders feed on mosquitoes, which you have to admit that you can’t complain TOO much about. Mosquitoes are far more harmful than spiders, and more of a nuisance in general.
However, if you try to get rid of mosquitoes yourself, you’ll see fewer mosquitoes and fewer spiders, which is a win.
How to Get Rid of Standing Water
- Replace birth bath water regularly
- Remove objects like bottles, toys, and empty
- Fix low-lying spots in your turf
- Inspect your soil to ensure it’s draining properly
- Clear gutters for debris like leaves and twigs.
Professional Spider Control in Fort Lauderdale, FL
Spiders are a pest no one wants to deal with, and we get it. While they rarely harm humans, they’re scary looking, fast-moving, and it’s unsettling to have them in your living space.
There’s also a lot to do when it comes to spider control in Fort Lauderdale. From the number of pests to control in your home, to the number of spiders in Fort Lauderdale to begin with. The best solution is professional pest control.
While you can get rid of spiders yourself, it can be difficult because of the number of food sources attracting them to your home. While you may think that getting rid of ants is the solution because you see them in your home, there could be American roaches that you don’t see or mosquitoes that you tend to ignore.
Native Pest Management can implement a pest control plan that will target all kinds of pests - including spiders and their food sources.
Our quarterly home pest control plan can target spiders, ants, American roaches, silverfish, millipedes, centipedes, pantry pests, drain flies, and earwigs.
With our monthly mosquito control, we will use a combination of Insect Growth Regulators and mist applications to get rid of mosquitoes, and at the same time, you’ll notice a reduction of spiders around your home.
We service the entire Fort Lauderdale area, as well as Miami, West Palm Beach, Port St. Lucie, and Tallahassee.
We can get rid of any house spider, whether you’re dealing with a brown recluse spider, banana spider, black widow spider, wolf spider, or a spider you can’t identify.
Native Pest Management doesn’t want you to have to deal with a spider infestation by yourself - let us help restore your peace of mind!
For information about our expert spider control, call us today!