I’m being terrorised in my own home.

[Stressedafff]

Okay dramatic kinda……

Fucking cellar spiders. I’m massively arachnophobic and my house seems to be over run with them. They’re in every corner, they’re in my cupboards. I literally feel on eggshells in my own home. I want them out.

I do have some small holes in the ceilings from wear and tear etc which I have got some stuff to fill them in to get rid of the pesky little spindly legged fuckers.

Any other advice before I literally add them onto the tenancy and surrender to them

Conkers in the corners of the room, spider stop spray. None of which work...

But my nan swore by these

Conkers work - for a while when they are fresh in September.

Indorex spray

I very rarely have spiders. I used to be overrun with ants every spring and used that Rapide insect/ant spray along the skirting boards, and doorsteps, after a couple of years I had no ants...and no spiders. Maybe try that?

Your lucky it’s just cellar spiders. My area has been over run with false widow spiders for a few years now! It’s gotten so bad that our local schools have had to be closed for weeks at a time to be exterminated but they are not really controllable like that!

I live smack bang in the middle of it all and the building I live in you can barely walk down the communal hallway to our front doors without dodging their webs and LOADS a of them! It would be alright (just about) if they stay outside but they are inside too and they can get massive with their BIG bonnet top bodies with hour glass symbol thing on them!

you can get plants to deter them which I haven’t tried yet as I have cats and most are toxic to them and they LOVE eating plants, same with some essential oils made up in spray bottles (again toxic to animals and small babies). Closing off areas they get in is all well and good but it’s highly unlikely you will be able to get EVERY opening.

extermination is an option but again it works for only so long as they are spiders and bound to be back!

my cat will eat any daddy long legs he can get to but now the climate is getting hotter the spiders are getting bigger and where I am they seemingly now bite/attack back!

If it helps Cellar spiders are the good kind of spiders, they have such long legs because they catch and eat other spiders. When we had an infestation of horrible giant house spiders a few years ago (8 of them in the house in one winter!) the cellar spiders caught and killed two of them for me!

I dont love spiders but got over it by thinking of them as friendly. Imagine them wearing little shoes or mittens. They are harmless little things at the end of the day!

I have arachnophobia too. However, I’ve learned to tolerate the spindly cellar spider dudes after I saw one completely overwhelm & kill my arch nemesis,- Tenegaria Gigantea (otherwise known as the Big Hairy Nopes in this house).

It was like a lion taking down a 2 legged gazelle.

I thought that these were daddy long legs?

Its seems both the cellar spider and the crane fly are called daddy long legs, however most people mean the flying insect.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/other-garden-wildlife/insects-and-other-invertebrates/flies/cranefly/

This. We live in the sticks in a very old house and used to get loads of spiders. I treated the whole house with Indorex and haven’t seen one alive since last September. I was sweeping dead ones up for weeks after I sprayed the house though!

Get a cat. Ours takes care of all the spiders!

I’m no fan of spiders but I really hate flies. I have an agreement with the spiders that if they take care of the flies and don’t bother me, they can stay. It also helps to give them friendly-sounding names 😂 there’s a spider in my kitchen at the moment, I’ve named her Belinda and suddenly she’s not so scary.

Another one for indorex spray, especially with your phobia. Cellar spiders help keep the home free of other spiders. The spray will sort the lot of them xx

I hate spiders too. But I allow the cellar spiders to remain because I believe they catch and kill the big house spiders. And cellar spiders don't tend to scuttle suddenly and quickly across the floor, scaring the life out of me. They just chill in the corner.

I had cellar spiders in my last house. I learned to love them when I found out they EAT the other spiders. For 2 years I never saw a big hairy legged beastie in my home.

I’ve moved now and I miss them 😂

My cat is excellent at dealing with spiders. If we spot one, even if it's high on the wall, we'll pick her up and point her at it and nom nom, it's gone!

i too hate any spiders bigger than a 20p piece except that is for cellar spiders which somehow don’t bother me. Probably because the are so slow. If you are super bothered though that would be awful - I used to have 2-3 gigantic garden spiders a night during spider season in one flat where I lived (briefly)
I’d be calling an exterminator.

I got critter kill smoke bombs for a cat flea infestation in the house (thanks Mr. Whiskers) - I am normally overrun by giant spiders every autumn (at least 2 a day throughout September/october) but this year I had not a single one. And any flies/daddy long legs that made their way through the windows and landed on any surface for a good 2 months after using the smoke bombs, would die within a few minutes. I'm not sure how healthy it would be to use on a regular basis, and I don't like killing insects just because they exist, but I was at my wits end with the fleas and nothing else worked. It was 2 months of hell. But as a fellow aragnaphob3 I understand the fear and the walking om eggshells - during spider season I am afraid to be in the house alone, and sleep with the lights on, and keep a rolling pin by my bed to batter my slippers before I put them on every morning or if I need to pee in the night. It is really debilitating and takes over my whole life for 2 months every year and nearly makes me physically sick. I have tried therapy and hypnosis but it hasn't helped - I don't know if these are options for you to try? I feel immensely guilty that my irrational fear (I know they are harmless and do good) results in them being killed so I need to find a better way of managing it really

Conkers, “spider spray”, peppermint oil and all that sorts do not work. I moved into a flat on a bottom floor and my bedroom was littered with spiders. Tried the above and they didn’t budge. Have since invested in Indorex (pricey but worth it) and haven’t seen one in over four months!

filla in all holes

spider repellent sonic sound plug ins

get someone in to clean out all the ones in cupboards and board up or whatever

this is my worst nightmare

Give them to me. They are the best of the best for pest control. They eat the big black ones as well.

I'd pot up the ones I found at work and let them loose in the house. Awesome spiders cellar spiders. Can't do it now because of the cat.

I started off being Cellar Spider positive but as their numbers rocketed every blinking room is becoming draped in cobweb, which because of my sloppy housekeeping standards mean I am in danger of becoming Miss Haversham and the spider poo splatters on the emulsion walls seem impossible to remove, the only option being painting over.

Get a cat. Ours eats spiders.