The Ultimate Spider Prevention Guide For Katy Homes

Spiders are creepy house guests, and we're sure you want to keep them out if possible. The secret to keeping spiders out is understanding why they get inside and what it means when you're routinely seeing spiders indoors. What does seeing spiders mean? It means your home has another pest problem. Spiders don't eat the food you eat. They eat other pests that eat your food. But what if you don't routinely see spiders and only find one every once in a while? Does that mean you have other pests? No. But you definitely have an entry point. Spiders don't create holes to climb through. Your home has to have a gap, crack, or hole that already exists in order for a spider to enter. Spider prevention is centered on dealing with the conditions, like food and entry points, that promote spider problems.

Today, we're going to give you the basic facts you need if you want to stop spiders from getting inside. We'll discuss the different spiders we have in Katy, Texas. We'll look at what they do in your home. We'll share five of our best prevention tips and tell you what trained pest control professionals do to keep spiders away. If you're not the do-it-yourself kind of person, don't worry. Your All-Safe Pest & Termite team can help. We provide local spider control for Katy residents. Call or email to get connected with one of our service team members. We'll help you get those spiders out and keep them out.

Types Of Spiders Often Found In Katy

There are many spiders in Texas – far too many to cover in a short article. So, we're not going to talk about each species. We're going to focus on the different types of spiders and what is required to deal with each of them.

Garden Spiders: There are spiders that prefer to live outdoors and are often found in landscape vegetation and gardens. They don't want to live in your home. But they make a nuisance of themselves on your property by making webs for you to walk through. It is easy to keep these spiders out of your house, but not quite as easy to make them leave your yard. 

House Spiders: There are spiders that prefer to live indoors. These spiders are so adapted to living inside that you may actually harm one if you catch it and put it outdoors. It has never lived out there. If it survives, it will likely find its way back inside. You can track house spiders by looking for their light-threaded webs a foot above floor level and in structural cavities.

Venomous Spiders: We only have two spiders that are considered a medical risk in Texas. We're sure you know them by their common names: the brown recluse and the black widow. But there are several species of recluse spiders, and some widow spiders are brown. If you have recluse spiders in your home, they'll act like house spiders. They do well indoors and can grow a large population. If you have a widow in your home, it is likely to act like a garden spider and head outdoors. You can track brown recluse spiders by looking for light-threaded webs at floor level. They don't use webs to catch prey; they line their escape holes with the material. Therefore, their webs will look different from house spider webs. Black widows create webs off the floor but can differentiate their webs from house spiders as the threads are thick.

Hairy Spiders: When you see a hairy spider, it is likely one of two spiders: a wolf spider or a jumping spider. Like the brown recluse, these two hairy spiders don't create webs to catch prey. You'll realize you have a spider infestation when you see them crawling around your home.

That is a basic overview of the types of spiders you'll likely see. They can appear in your garden, landscaping, garage, storage locker, shed, attic, or common areas. When you see them, take a moment to consider the type, so that you're able to better track your problem.

Why You Don't Want Spiders Hanging Around Your Home

Spiders make spiders. It is a fact this is not often considered. If you don't deal with spiders you see hanging around on your property, you're going to have a lot more spiders. One spider egg sac can have hundreds of eggs in it. When spiders hatch near the exterior of your home, they can find routes to get inside your wall voids. The more spiders, the greater the chance of this happening. 

Most common spiders are harmless. They have a mild bite or don't bite at all. Even most spiders that have a painful bite do not pose a medical threat. The two exceptions are recluse and widow spiders. A brown recluse has venom that can cause skin decay, though most wounds only result in a small ulcer. A black widow can cause severe medical symptoms that resemble a bad flu. 

It is important to take action when you see spiders, but you needn't fear them. Spiders are mostly creepy. If you are cautious, you're not likely to get bitten, and even if you are bitten, you may have a mild response.

Five No-Sweat Spider Prevention Tips For Around The House

When spiders come into your yard, they are motivated by three factors above all else: Food, shelter, and water. If they find these, they will establish themselves in your yard and put pressure on your exterior walls. During the fall, when temperatures drop, and insects enter homes, spiders often follow. The more spiders you have in your yard, the greater the chance you'll have an invasion. These tips should help you to keep fall spiders out and manage spider pressures all year long.

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  Reduce insects in your yard. Insects are drawn to light in particular frequencies. For example, white light is highly attractive, and yellow light does not attract insects at all. So, depending on what kind of lights you have, you could have a lot of trouble with insects or little trouble at all. Replace lights with yellow lights to reduce insects and the spiders that follow those insects into your yard. 
• Remove places spiders like to hide. Spiders will take up residence in places you wouldn't expect. Get rid of any yard clutter, trim your plants, and keep things neat around your home to deter spider harborage.
• Remove all the webs you find. Spiders make webs high and low. Use a spider web removal tool to pick the webs up. If you see paper-like egg sacs, destroy them to eliminate the spiders hiding inside. After removal, wipe down surfaces to make it less likely for spiders to create more webs in that spot.
• Pest-proof your home. Use a caulking gun to seal gaps in your exterior walls and around window and door frames. Repair screens, door sweeps, and weatherstripping.
• Use expanding foam to seal any gaps you find around pipes. 
• Keep your indoors resistant to insects. A clean home is resistant to a long list of insect pests. Along with keeping things clean, make sure to keep your trash covered and remove trash regularly. When putting trash outdoors, position the receptacle well away from your exterior doors so that pests don't accidentally get into your home when they come to investigate the scent of your trash receptacles. 

These five tips work together to provide you with exceptional management of insects and the spiders that prey upon them. But, as you can imagine, it takes effort to do these things. If you need help managing spiders or want an easier, hassle-free way to keep spiders away, professional home pest control is the solution.

Professional Pest Control Is A Great Way To Keep The Spiders Away

Spiders are looking for food in your yard and inside your home. One thing your pest control service provider does above all else is reduce pest activity, which has the natural result of reducing populations of common house spiders. Here are just a few of the ways we manage your pests.

• We perform routine inspections and evaluate the conditions that help pests thrive.
• We apply spot treatments in key areas to address the conditions and pests observed.
• We apply liquid applications to your exterior to create an effective control barrier.
• When necessary, we inject dust products into wall voids to arrest activity and prevent pests from finding a route from outdoors to indoors.
• We perform exterior spider web removal to directly reduce spider populations and deter spiders from creating more webs.
• Should you ever have an indoor pest problem, we're available to quickly resolve those issues and keep your home free of pests and spider-resistant.

Are you interested in learning more about home pest control? We'd love to speak with you. Contact All-Safe Pest & Termite today to get information about our services and pricing for pest control in Katy, Texas. We're your local pest experts.