We live in a newly built development so we share our land with all the bugs that resided here. i am deathly afraid of spiders! We seem to have so many! You step on the ground and 10 spiders come scattering...
We just bought our 2 year old a playset and she will be spending a lot of time outside on it. It has a little house on top and i am scared spiders will make a home out of it.
What can i use to help rid my YARD of Spiders.
When we moved into our new house I also found a lot of bugs. I tried "natural" and it worked a little - but we finally went with a pest control company. Contact your local Chamber of Commerce and interview the people. Who you feel comfortable with is the one to go with: if they try scare tactics and make you feel fearful --- DONT! Natural: to 1 qt / 1 gal add mint mouthwash - dish soap - ammonia and spray ground where you will be. Remember also: spiders eat nasty bugs like ticks, fleas, flies, etc... get rid of them and you deny spider of food source.
Oh girl! I know where you are coming from (shiver). My husband has told me that bugs are just part of life and I need to learn to deal with it. In the meantime, I do have him spray the inside of the house to at least keep those critters on the outside! We live in the country so wasps and spiders are becoming the norm for me...yes, I stay inside as much as possible LOL. The spiders are so bad in the summer we actually have a "spider whacking stick" by the front door. We (kids and I) wave it in front of us as we walk out to the car to knock down the webs the spiders built up overnight across the door frames and sidewalk. I even saw a web once going from the telephone line down to the top of our truck then down to the ground again..CREEPY!!
I will have to try that natural remedy mentioned earlier and see if that helps but my husband will probably laugh at me and tell me to deal with it. He does loves me, don't get me wrong..he just does not fear anything.
Julie
Yikes!! The "S" word. I refer to them as "creatures" b/c it makes me nervous if I say the word! I can't even look at photographs of them, so I feel your pain! Charlotte's Web was a scary movie to me - all those children!! Aaarrrgh!
My dad, loved to see creatures spinning a big, wide, web. He had the big garden that produced, eggplants, several types of tomatoes, 4 kinds of squash, and several varieties of peas, beans, potatoes, corn, as well as okra and peanuts, … sheesh, there was so much…anyway, Daddy always told me how good "creatures" are for the plant world, as they eat other harmful bugs. So, I guess there's that... but when you are truly scared of them, it makes no difference if they actually spin gold.
Trish, sadly there will be no way to rid your yard of them unless you are allowed to have chickens. Seriously. Chickens eat bugs. You can see them all over in Hawaii. They aren't kept for the eggs; they are natural predators of bugs of all sorts. You just need the little bandies, not the big . But I'm thinking you can't have those…so…think of natural, un-scary, predators. Birds, frogs, lizards, turtles, etc.
If you spray for them, you will be spraying toxins into your child's environment. Also, you know how tippy-toe those creatures walk anyway, so they don't get much of the toxin on them. In other words they are hard to kill. But your child will be crawling all over her play equipment so I would advise against any sprays.
You'll need to sweep out the corners of the little play house every day. Every day. Frankly, I'd remove the enclosed part and have it replaced with one that has a little tent-topper. That way the creatures don't have as many hidey-holes but your child has some shade.
You can also caulk &/or tape closed lots of little nooks and crannies that will be home to not only creatures but also bees!
Good luck with your new home and if you need someone who understands…feel free to contact me.
Meri
I hate to tell you this....there is no possible way to rid anything of all bugs....much less your yard. If you did you would also not be able to let your daughter play, because it would be so TOXIC that she would not be able to interact outside. The pesticides you could use are not permanent. There would be a constant amount of re-application. They would indeed build up in your soil, and would not be safe for your daughter or anyone else. Those chemicals and long term exposure cause things like 3-eyed frogs and birds with no beaks.
Now, I could tell you about all the ecological ramifications. I could tell you about all the beneficial bugs etc. But I doubt that would make a difference, because you are being ruled by fear not common sense and caution.
If you are truly afraid to that degree of spiders, I would say you may need some help (asking how to remove ALL bugs from your yard counts as unrealistic). There are doctors that help patients with unrealistic amounts of fear and help them cope with things like that. They have programs to also desensitize your fear to just a healthy amount of concern.
I would also be aware that you may be teaching your daughter an unrealistic fear. When she should be being taught concern and caution. Not necessarily a phobia of any and all spiders or bugs.
I did not mean any disrespect about suggesting help. There are legitimate concerns about spiders and Texas does have two poisonous species. A good degree of caution should be utilized. But to exterminate all bugs due to fear is a bit unrealistic.
Good luck,
Laura
I really don't care for the eight legged types either, but I don't actully fear them. I once worked with a lady who would take off at a full sprint if you even mention seeing one. She would turn white and break out in a sweat, that was very real fear. I do fear my now crawling 8 month old coming into contact with them. I have a problem in and around my home as well. I dust and vaccuum 2ce a week sounds extreem but it helps. They move on anyway. I have yet to try it but I have been recently given a natural recipe of white vinigar and coconut oil, the same source gave my husband a wasp solution that was all natural, not sure of that exact recipe, but it works! Best of luck. Oh, and I think we all have our little fears, not all of them require professional help. You know if you really have an extensive problem I'm sure. No one I know actually likes these creatures. Call me cynical.
Heather
Here is what we do....I live in the woods....YES, woods in the DFW area. We have bobcats, copperhead snakes, critters of all kinds. We have 3 dogs no fleas or tick problem either.
To keep snakes at bay as well as other things I hate such as spiders here is what we do.
On a routine basis, about every 3-4 months, we use the Raid foggers and bomb our house. We set them off and leave for about 3 hrs with pets in tow. We buy 10 packs of 3/pack and spread all through the house, garage and 2 attic areas.
As the fogs clear and we air out the house, we use a hand spray house and yard bug killer all around the foundation of our house. After that we treat the yard with bug killer.
Our theory is to take the food away from the varmits. I know a lot of people are anti-bug killing and anti-chemicals in the yard but this is what works best for us on our 1+ acre lot. We back up to an 85 acre park and it is imperative to keep the snakes and varmits away. I don't have spiders and bugs. Our cue for treatment is when we see a few stray spiders here and there close to the door.
GOod luck
1/2 water and 1/2 apple cidar vinegar mixture
my friend had a serious problem in her apt w/spiders they were spraying at least once a month but they were still being bitten by spiders and she is allergic to them.
She sprayed and hasn't had any problems since. My mom used to has used it for years for cleaning the whole house espc wiping her walls down.
I have recently implemented it into my cleaning routine. I also drink a little to cleanse the body and pour it in my bath water.
My dad works at a farm store and he suggested I go to a local tractor supply or other sort of livestock store and ask for permethrin. per-meth-rin. or I just checked and you can even purchase on amazon.com
We have used this on our yard twice now and it does the trick. It is a kill all but safe for grass, kids, and pets. This stuff is actually used on animals to help with flees, mites, ect so it is obviously safe for animals.
Mix as instructed on the bottle and you won't have bugs or spiders for that matter for quite some time. We sprayed in September after moving into a new house and we had ants coming in as well as huge spiders. Soon after nothing was crawling in our back yard. When my husband sprayed he said it was as if our yard was alive. He could just see all the insects trying to get away from the stuff but they couldn't.
Good luck - hope this helps.
I understand your fear of spiders in your yard when a little one will be playing. We have a 3 1/2 year old, and last summer it felt like both our yard and our house was overrun with very large wolf spiders, the kind that build large webs in the trees that sometimes reach all the way to the ground. Well, this year I vowed not to let them freak me out, and I've done a lot of research on how to reduce their numbers without using pesticides. The most interesting and important thing I've learned is that spiders' taste buds are in their feet, and they will avoid areas like the plague that taste the least little bit of something they don't like.
Spiders had already started coming in our house just a few weeks ago when I decided to take action, and I sprayed all around our window and door frames, and along the baseboards and anywhere else I could think of with lemon Pledge, believe it or not. And I wasn't using the name brand stuff, either. Just the cheapie one, but I did make sure it had real lemon oil in it. And I kid you not, the spiders have disappeared from inside our house. I have also read that Dr. Bronner's peppermint and lavender soaps work great in a diluted solution of water, mixed with a few drops of essential oil (think strongly scented, like citrus, lavender, cinnamon, citronella, tea tree oil, etc.) I plan on using this on my son's playset outside, because it won't harm him to get it on his hands and eventually in his mouth.
I also sweep down the underside of my porch roof and underneath any overhangs about once a week to discourage them from forming webs. Also remember that birds, especially hummingbirds, eat spiders. Hummingbirds even use spider webs to help build their nests. I've put 2 hummingbird feeders and a regular birdseed feeder out hanging in the trees where I saw spiders nesting last year, and so far this year we have a lot of beautiful hummers, robins, and cardinals in our yard, but very few spiders.
There's no way to get rid of all of them, and you wouldn't really want to, because they are such beneficial insects, even though they are kind of creepy. But I think you can keep them at bay and out of your daughter's playset relatively easy with a little maintenance.
I hope this helped!
Erin
Hi, I wanted to add that to get rid of the spiders its best to go after their food source... (that is what the spiders are benifical for) but, you can order online, good bugs, like lady bugs and also lizzards to pur in your garden and lawn and that should help get rid of the spiders.
While it would be hard to rid them completely from your yard, this works for around the exterior of your house when you see them or the webs. Mix 1/2c borax (found in the laundry detergent aisle) in a spray bottle filled with water. My lawn care guy recommended that last year when we had a black widow infestation. It worked really fast. An exterminator told me unless you spray the spider, you can't kill it. Well, this worked even when I sprayed the webs. Took only two days, and this was after two visits from the bug man that didn't get them. HTH.
I would like to note for those who read the reply’s that PERMETHRIN IS NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN (TOXIN)!