This post is brought to you by Ortho®, a Scotts Miracle-Gro brand. Thanks, Ortho!
I love our house, but if there’s one thing I don’t like about the place is that it has more than its fair share of spiders. As you know, I do not like spiders. In fact, I hate spiders so much that when I find one inside I often say that I’m going to burn the house down. The thing is, burning down the house to kill a spider isn’t really practical on account of our family needing a place to live and stuff. So instead of torching the place, I’ve tried my best to deal with spiders I find here in less extreme ways.
The first way I tried to deal with spiders was to pretend like I wasn’t scared/grossed out whenever I came across a spider. One of my biggest motivations for doing this was to set a good example for Annabel so that she wouldn’t be scared of the creepy crawlers like I am (and so she would kill them for me). And while I did manage not to scream at every spider I came across, I’m not sure how successful I was because Annabel ended up pretty much as arachnophobic as I am.
When I’m home alone, I deal with the spiders I come across by using my vacuum cleaner hose, but it isn’t perfect because I have to get too close to the spiders. I define anything within 20 feet as “too close.” Plus I once read an article about a spider laying eggs inside of a vacuum and I’ve never been the same.
Of course, when Mike is home I make him kill the spiders. Annabel does too. Annabel even makes Mike show her the dead spider, which…no thanks. But I’m determined to not let James become afraid of spiders, so every time Mike goes after a spider, I make sure he takes James with him. Do I worry about the spiders viciously attacking my baby? I try not to think about it.
Annabel and I supervise from a safe distance:
As helpful as Mike, James, and my vacuum cleaner have been, the one thing that’s made a huge difference in spider invasions is using Ortho Home Defense MAX. Since we (and by we I of course mean Mike) started spraying it around the perimeter of our house, I’ve noticed a HUGE decrease in the amount of bugs and spiders that make it inside.
It’s incredibly easy to use, just attach the hose and squirt away. So easy in fact that I might consider using it myself next time. This is obviously a very good thing because, all joking aside, I really would hate to have to burn this house down.
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REK981 says:
One of the few pesticides I fully support using! I understand spiders are nice to have around to eat things like gross, useless mosquitos but they don’t need to come in my house. So I use this annually around our home perimeter and windows. It works so well. I love it!
Cheryl says:
I love that stuff! We were overrun with brown widows last year (outside thank heavens) and used that stuff on the eggs and mamas….it is amazing! My husband also sprays around the perimeter of our house and it makes a huge difference
Katrina says:
Yea, I need to do something about our spiders over here, too. We have black widows in our yard, and those mamas are mean bitches. They hide under things, just waiting for unsuspecting fingers….
I’m not a fan of spiders, but snakes are the ones that freak me out. We live in an area that has snakes (in our hills and open space) and sometimes a few make it into the yards around here. I would seriously freak the heck out if I saw one in our yard — does Ortho make a spray for snakes?
Terri says:
We’ve had our house professionally sprayed for years, but last year was awful…we had spiders like crazy, so my husband started using the Ortho… oh my goodness. I haven’t seen a spider in ages. LOVE this stuff! It really works.
RzDrms says:
The way you feel about spiders is exactly how I feel about roaches, except one hundred times more passionately. I’m SO SO SO scared of roaches; they are horrid, vile creatures of our Lord, and I (honestly) struggle when I make my husband make them not alive anymore, but ohmygosh can you even imagine if they got like within ten feet of me?!
Once, after working in our flowerbeds, we had two (2. One. Two. *2*!) TWO come into our bedroom. Into our bed. The big outside roaches. In our bed. (Maybe you didn’t see that last part about the bed.)
I almost moved to Antartica.
Jen says:
Have you seen this thing?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0192MB5RS?psc=1
I HATE spiders, too!!! A friend and fellow arachnophobe just texted me about going to get into her car and there being a spider on the INSIDE of the car door. I was about to text back that it’s too bad she’ll have to burn her car, now…
Heather says:
Yes! The video for it is crazy, have you SEEN the size of that spider?!
Sarah says:
This morning a spider dropped down from the ceiling while I was in the shower. Can I purchase this in a 55 gallon drum?
Marjorie Steele says:
We also love this stuff. It works great on the big black ants we have!