Spiders are a common pest in Australia, and most homes will struggle with cobwebs and eight-legged visitors. Many spiders prefer to forage in gardens, such as wolf spiders and huntsman spiders, without building webs and actively hunting insects. Wet weather urges spiders indoors, where many people feel uncomfortable living with them. Huntsman spiders can be very large and also agile, even jumping short distances once disturbed.
Spiders that do build nests are often found around the home’s exterior. Webbing spiders are usually tucked away into gutters, eaves, weep holes in bricks, hot water systems, the underside or railings of stairs, playground equipment, and toys. Indoors, webbing spiders like to build their webs in the corners of rooms and around down lights, which can damage a room’s aesthetic as well as make the inhabitants of the house feel unwelcome.
The most common household spider that is found high in the corners of rooms is the harvestman, fondly nicknamed the ‘daddy longlegs’. Daddy longlegs are webbing spiders and are well-known for being ‘useful’ spiders. This is because they are known to fend off venomous redback spiders, which are also very common in Australian homes. Despite the web nests left behind, daddy longlegs are not a bad spider to tolerate inside your home, granted you are not arachnophobic.
The treatment for a spider infestation will usually involve the use of chemicals that come into direct contact with the spiders. Spiders do not have veins in their legs, and thus will not absorb the chemical by walking through it. They do not clean their feet like a cockroach, meaning that they will not ingest the chemical either. The only way to overwhelm a spider with a chemical is to coat its environment in the substance so that it stays in contact with it for a prolonged period. Some chemicals will also crystallise in spider webs, where they can come into contact with the spider’s body and begin working.
In general, for webbing spiders, three months is the average warranty. Spider treatments will need to be repeated at this time for the most effective results.
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