Declaring War on Spiders

It is finally Fall and there are so many spiders in my house.  There is a freakin' army of spiders and by army I mean that I have seen at least six huge spiders in my house.  And by huge I mean a size of a dime.   One spider even landed on Gavin's face.  That is the last straw Mr. Spider.  I need to get rid of these spiders.  It is me or you Mr. Spider.  These guys are not welcome in my house.  After taking a look at the screens in our windows and doors I noticed some tiny spaces where the bugs could crawl through the space into the house.  Now I won't even open a window for fresh air out of fear that a spider might crawl its way in.  Killing spiders is not really my thing.  Even though they are creepy, annoying and have a mean bite, I am sure they didn't mean to wander into my house.

Today I declared war on these spiders.  These are my tips on getting rid of spiders.  I found these tips on the internet and I am not sure if they work at all.  Don't believe everything you read on the internet by the way.   But these tips are worth a try; I am desperate here.  These spiders are driving me crazy.   As I was spraying my lemon water around my door frame I kinda felt like I was hanging garlic to repel vampires.  LOL.  I just felt silly.  Here is what I have done to hopefully get rid of the spiders in my home.

• Spiders don't like the taste of lemon.  I bought some lemon oil  and a spray bottle.  I mixed 20 drops of lemon oil in two cups of water with a little soap.  Then I sprayed the heck out of my house paying close attention to spraying around windows and doors, stairs, and in corners.  I felt so silly doing this, but even if it doesn't work to repel spiders, at least my house will smell lemon fresh.
• Spiders cannot escape the vacuum, I hope.  Gavin vacuumed the house and vacuumed up a few spiders along the way.  Gavin and I have vacuumed every nook and cranny and not leave a single floor space undisturbed.  This includes vacuuming behind dressers and under the couch.  Spiders like to make homes places that they will not be disturbed.
• Boxes are no longer allowed in my house.  For some reason spiders love boxes.  They lay their nasty little eggs in boxes too.  Every box will be replaced with a plastic bin. Boxes are kinda ugly to look at anyways.
• Nothing is allowed on the floor.  Keeping things off the floor will give spiders fewer places to hide.
• Clutter is not allowed.  I hate looking at clutter, but sometimes I kinda let it go a little bit.  Now that I am at war with the spiders I will make sure I don't let clutter build up.
• Remove any old spider webs in the house and around entrance ways.  I scoured my home looking for spider webs and I found some webs in some pretty obscure places.  I also made sure to clean out webs around windows and doors, including the outside.
• Lemon Pledge.  I heard through the internets that spiders hate lemon pledge.  Spiders taste with their legs and if they come across the taste of lemon pledge they will retreat.  I polished all of the wood and leather furniture with Lemon Pledge.  I also polished our granite counter tops.  Finally, I used lemon pledge to clean around the windows and doors.  Hopefully this will discourage spiders from crawling in through the small spaces in the screens.
• Spiders are suppose to also hate lavender.  Well, I love lavender.  I am going to get some lavender oil, when I find it on sale, and make a spray just like the lemon spray.  Then I will spray corners of my house with lavender.  Getting rid of spiders never smelled so good.
• I wonder if I can borrow the neighbors cat for a day.  Cats love to eat spiders.  Dogs do too.  

If these spider treatments don't work at least my house will be super, duper, duper, clean and will smell good.  So far, since my treatment, I have not seen any spiders in my house (crossing my fingers).  I treated every nook and cranny in the house except for Gavin's office and we did find a spider in his office closet last night.  The reason I didn't treat Gavin's office is because he thought my plan to get rid of the spiders was silly.  Have fun with your spider friends Gavin.

A Spider Commited Suicide in my Vanity and it is all my fault.

I usually close the lid to my vanity after I am done doing my makeup, but sometimes when I am in a hurry I forget to close it.  One afternoon when I came home I saw a little spider crawling all over my makeup.  I thought "oh no you don't little spider.  Get away from my makeup?"  I chased the spider around my vanity for awhile, but I couldn't catch it.  I didn't want to kill the little guy.  My intentions were to catch him and release him to the wild.  Well, I was in a hurry to leave again and I didn't have time to catch him.   I didn't want him running all over my makeup.  I took a clear drinking glass and trapped him underneath.  He freaked out for a little bit running in circles, but I turned the lights off and he calmed down.  I figured I would release him to the wild later when I got home.




After I got home, I was so tired I went straight to bed and forgot about the spider.  When I woke up the next morning the first thing I did was check on him to see how he was doing.  The spider was half way on the inner portion of the glass and half way on the outer portion of the glass.  I thought, "is he escaping?"  No, he was dead.  He had tried to escape while I was sleeping.  He tried to crawl under the rim of the glass, but instead the rim of the glass crushed him.  Awwww and it is all my fault. I never meant for him to die.  Poor spider.