Selfsufficientish.com

Hi,
The past few weeks we have had a number of rather large wasps in our house!

I know your not ment to kill them but i was wondering if anyone knew how to prevent them from getting in in the first place?
Also since moving to the countryside we keep getting really HUGE spiders is there anyway you can prevent them, only i dont think my heart will stand having meny more run in with spiders the size of the one that ran over my hand on monday!!

i know its a hazard of living in the country but is there anyway of detering them from coming indoors

Cheers
Vicky x

Wasps - I think the only thing you can do is not open any windows or doors, or alternatively put mossie screens over your windows or doors. Try to have a few wasp traps out in the garden so they are less interested in coming in. Do they come in at night when the lights are on like hornets do? (We've had hornets coming in and buzzing around the light like a moth - very noisy and irritating!).

Spiders - I don't think there is anything you can do to stop them coming in as they'll come in any old crack, not thru the open windows and house spiders like living indoors anyway! They are a fact of life in buildings but there are many ways to repel them, although I don't know whether they work or not as I live quite happily with them. But the other members of the forum will tell you about the things they do I'm sure!

You need to find out if you have a wasp nest somewhere. We get them every year in the loft (they come in under the eaves). Unfortunately, we have to destroy them because we have some sort of fan thing (no idea what it is) in the loft which has a vent in the landing ceiling. The wasps come into the upstairs from there and we keep finding them in the bathroom and bedrooms - this year we've been finding them in my grandson's cot. And one was walking along the top of the tap handle when I went to turn the tap on. Thankfully I noticed, but if it had been my little girl she could have been badly stung.

Go outside and look around to see if you can see lots of them constantly going in and out of anywhere. Once you've located the wasp nest you can work out how they are getting into your house. Hopefully, as MMM says it will be a simple case of keeping your windows shut, or putting netting over the opening. But if the wasp nest is in the house you may need to have it removed. This can cost quite a bit, but if you try to do it yourself you risk been attacked by them. Not nice.

With wasps it's just a window thing I'm afraid but spiders, awe - just look upon them as pets and useful ones at that as they eat a lot of the nuisance bugs in a house but cause no damage themselves. Love your spiders .

I LOATHE spiders! Yes I know they are our friends and eat pests and all that but they're bl***y scary! Betterware sell a product called Spiderspray which smells of cloves. Spiders apparently dislike it and you spray it round where they might get in. A kid at school says she places conkers in each corner of the room at home and that puts them off but I haven't tried it yet.
My mum has invented a device to stop them coming through the airbricks. It is a piece of old net curtain, cut to size and stuck across the airbrick with velcro. It stops spiders but still lets the air circulate. Good luck!!

spider8 wrote:Love your spiders .

And your cobwebs.

Oh yes, those too (can't see any - poor eyesight..........can't see them so they don't exist ha!).

We have loads of cobwebs across the kitchen windows. I leave them there because they're doing a good job. In fact, sometimes I try to encourage flies in the direction of the webs . I don't want to turn into my parents and get rid of all the cobwebs then go chasing flies around the house with a big spray-can of stinky chemicals. My choice is 1) cobwebs, 2) flies, or 3) fly spray. I choose option 1.

According to my eldest the conker idea does work, but only 'till the conkers go mouldy! (She even had me contacting NZ folks for fresh supplies out-of-season!!!)

MW

Even Little Miss Arachnaphobe here appreciates that cobwebs are quite useful apart from when I don't notice them suspended across the garden and get all tangled up in them (this happened yesterday, I still feel like things are crawling on me!)
I have already scoped out a good horse chesnut tree to go gathering anti-spider conkers. I wonder why they don't like them, they don't smell strong or anything!

Thanks for all the advice, sicne the incident with the monster running over my hand the spiders seem to be staying out of my way !!

I don't think we have a Wasps nest in the loft as we've not long had all the facer boards replaced, we've also started making wasp traps and leaving them outside which do seem to be working (mainly Coke and Lemonade)

Sue Hates spiders, I hate Wasps. So I get rid of the spiders, Sue gets rid of the wasps.......................

Got spiders, get a kitten. Soon you won't have any spiders, just odd legs lying around.

Zoe

Urgh.. not sure I like the idea of random legs lying about!

We keep an old glass on hand, espeically in September which seems to be the worst spider month, so the OH can swiftly remove them and carry them far far away from the house to release them. Bless him he puts up with a lot!

A few years ago I bought a ''bug-buddy''.
A fairly simple plastic contraption that one can use to catch all kinds of crawly little buggers and release them alive and well back into the wild where they belong.

I, however,feed the big juicy ones to my tarantula's.
No need to buy crickets in August and September, some years well into October.
Isn't the food-chain a true marvel?