Spiders pose little to no threat to humans and pets, but they’re not creatures you’d like to come across in your home.
These eight-legged arachnids enter your homes for various reasons. And certain things can also draw them to your home.
In this guide, you’ll find out what attracts spiders to your house. And the reason that spiders appear in unlikely places like your bed and bedroom.
Keep reading.
What Attracts Spiders To Your Home – 5 Factors, Revealed
Spiders don’t enter human homes out of curiosity. Five factors play a significant role in drawing them inside your home.
Those five factors are –
- Presence of prey or food
- Outdoor weather conditions
- Mating calls from other spiders that are already there in your home
- Bad cleaning habits
- Dampness
These five factors are even responsible for drawing venomous and hunting spiders like wolf spiders, brown recluses, and black widow spiders.
However, spiders are harmless unless handled. They can bite even if they feel cornered, threatened, or if their egg sacs are at risk.
Let’s dive into each of the factors and find out how these five factors are responsible for attracting spiders into your house. .
Presence Of Prey Or Food (Bugs)
There’s no denying that spiders are efficient hunters. Depending on the spider species, they lurk or pounce on other bugs to hunt them.
One of the common factors across homes with spiders is the presence of other bugs in houses.
Spiders can detect the presence of bugs from a distance by picking up the pheromones bugs emit.
Spiders that are lurking outdoors in your yard or garden will pick up the pheromones’ smell and make a move to your home.
Why?
It’s because those bugs are an easy meal for spiders.
Bugs draw spiders, especially the ones that don’t spin webs on walls and ceilings.
Later in the post, you’ll find out how spiders get into the house.
Let’s move on to the second reason that draws spiders to homes.
Outdoor Weather Conditions
Spiders that get inside homes can’t withstand extreme heat, cold, or wetness.
When the weather outdoors becomes too hot or cold, spiders will look for a temperate or mild place to hide.
While on the lookout for these kinds of places, spiders make a move toward your home.
Just like spiders can get inside homes during summers or harsh winters, the same thing happens when there are heavy rains.
Wet weather will make the spider look for drier places to hide.
Spiders initially begin with hiding in places that they can access first. So, most of the time, spiders will hide in the garage.
And from your garage, spiders can sneak inside cars too. Spiders inside cars are common when there are many spiders inside the garage.
But that’s not all.
Depending on the entry points, spiders can get inside the basement, living room, and bedroom.
Mating Calls From Other Spiders Inside Your House
The final factor that draws spiders isn’t solely responsible for attracting spiders into the home.
It’s more like aggravating the spider infestation, especially when you’re unaware that there are hiding spiders inside your house.
That’s why homeowners notice an increase in sightings of spiders inside their homes and outdoors during autumn.
During the autumn, the temperature starts to decline. And spiders look for warmer places to hide.
On top of that, it’s a mating season for spiders.
So, the female spiders inside the homes will give out mating calls to attract the male spiders.
These two factors, mating calls and a fall in temperature increase the likelihood of spiders in homes.
Bad Cleaning Habits Attract Spiders
There are many common mistakes that homeowners make while cleaning their homes that attract spiders.
How you clean your home and maintain your home’s hygiene level also plays a significant role in attracting spiders.
Seven bad cleaning habits attract spiders. You must avoid these habits to ensure that your home doesn’t turn into a magnet for spiders.
#1 – You Don’t Wash Your Fruits Before Storing Them
Fruits and spiders? Are they even related?
Yes, they’re. The smell of certain fruits like grapes, bananas, and apples attracts spiders. But it’s not the fruits that spiders eat.
The bugs and fruit flies that infest these fruits draw the spiders.
So, if you’ve been cleaning your kitchen or storing your fruits in your fridge, it’ll be best to wash them before storing them.
#2 – Not Storing Pet Foods Properly
Pet foods draw a slew of bugs and pests. Pet foods have mixed chicken, vegetables, rice, and meat, so they’re a magnet to bugs like roaches, ants, and beetles.
And as you know by now, where there are bugs, there are spiders.
So, while cleaning your home, ensure that you store pet food in sealed, airtight containers to dissuade bugs from infesting them.
#3 – Using Trash Cans That Has No Lids
Using lidless trash cans in your kitchen, yard, and bathroom attract bugs. And these bugs will draw the spiders.
Also, leaving organic food wastes in your kitchen’s trash bin is a magnet for kitchen bugs and flies.
These bugs and flies will even lay eggs in the trash can, leading to maggots’ development.
And that’s a buffet for spiders. Spiders will pick up their smells from a distance and sneak inside your homes to eat them.
Always use trash cans with lids. And ensure that you regularly dispose of the wastes in the trash bins.
#4 – Leaving Food Stains On The Kitchen Countertops, Oven, And Sinks
Many people have a terrible cleaning habit when they’re cleaning their kitchen.
They don’t use disinfectants or a reliable cleaning agent to wipe off hard surfaces like kitchen countertops, cabinets, sinks, and appliances.
You need to ensure that there are no food stains, crumbs, or oil stains on these places.
Why?
It’s because these food deposits draw bugs. And when bugs come in, the spiders follow them.
But spiders don’t eat human food, be it cooked or uncooked. They eat the bugs that human foods attract.
So, it’ll be best to give up a half-hearted cleaning habit and thoroughly clean your appliances, storage, and kitchen countertops.
#5 – Leaving Behind Heaps Of Dirty Laundry
Piles of dirty clothes stained with human sweat, food stains, dirt, and grease marks draw spiders.
There were many incidences when homeowners spotted spiders hiding in their laundry baskets stuffed with dirty clothes for days.
Spiders love secluded and dark places to hide. Piles of dirty clothes provide them with the coziness that spiders need.
Also, dirty clothes attract bugs like carpet beetles and their larvae.
Spiders know that those piles of dirty clothes will also draw bugs, which will be easy meals for them.
So, when cleaning your home, ensure that you don’t leave dirty clothes and linen behind.
It’ll be best to wash them asap.
#6 – Not Trimming The Twigs And Branches Of Your Indoor Plants
It’s the most overlooked aspect that draws spiders.
Spiders love to hide in overgrown bushes and shrubs. Those are one of their hiding places outdoors.
So, when you’ve many overgrown indoor plants, spiders will hide in them too.
Therefore, make a habit of pruning your potted plants and spraying bug repellent sprays on them.
Spiders will have one less hiding place in your home.
#7 – Not Decluttering Your Home
If there’s one thing that spiders love, it’s clutter. Cluttered places provide them with enough gaps to hide and lay their eggs.
It’s in the cluttered places and holes and cracks where spiders hide their egg sacs.
So, while cleaning, remember that you must remove the clutter from your home to discourage spiders from getting inside.
Dampness And Moisture In Homes
Though spiders can go without water for days but dampness play a role in attracting spiders in your home.
Dampness and high levels of moisture in homes draw bugs. And these bugs draw the spiders.
That’s the reason spiders tend to gravitate towards basement if there’s a dampness problem there.
Leaky pipes and humid climate cause the dampness of levels of home to rise. That attracts bugs.
And when the weather is hot, a little bit of dampness makes the hiding places for spiders a bit milder than outdoors.
How Do Spiders Get Into The House?
Now that you know what attracts spiders to your house, it’s time to understand how spiders get in the house.
This section will reveal the entry points of spiders inside the house and the other channels they use to sneak inside human homes.
Let’s dive in.
Through Open Windows, Doors, And Vents
Spiders’ most common entry points are open doors, windows, and any vents and openings in your home.
When you’ve got everything in your home that causes spiders, spiders will use these holes and gaps to get inside your home.
As they’re master crawlers, spiders can also sneak inside the home through tight spaces like gaps in the window sills and underneath the doors.
Garage doors are the most accessible entry points for spiders. They’ll crawl underneath the garage door to hide in the clutter of your garage.
Uncovered chimneys and vents in the attic are also the most overlooked entry points that many homeowners overlook.
These gaps are not just entry points for spiders but also many bugs like kissing bugs, wasps, and even mice.
By Hitchhiking On Other Items
Spiders can hide inside objects like cardboard boxes, old book piles, firewood, camping gears, and even potted plants.
When you bring these things inside your home with spiders in them, you introduce spiders to your home.
Through The Cracks And Gaps On The Walls
Spiders are efficient crawlers. They can squeeze their bodies to sneak through the thinner gaps than their body’s width.
Cracks on the home’s walls, holes from where the utility lines pass through, and gaps between the window panels and frames are some places that spiders can crawl through.
The crevices that develop on your home’s foundation are also a pathway for spiders and many invasive pests to your home.
Cracks on roofs, shingles, and gutters also allow spiders to crawl inside your home.
Where Do Spiders Hide Inside The House?
Spiders are shy creatures. They avoid human contact. So inside your home, spiders prefer cluttered and dark places with less human footfall.
Spiders will hide inside your home in the cellar, attic, basement, storage rooms, and garage.
These places have clutter, receive fewer human footfalls, and are common hiding places for many bugs and insects.
So, spiders will hide in places to hunt other bugs. These are also the places where spiders will lay their eggs.
That’s why it’s important to inspect these places for spider eggs, and remove them.
However, spiders can also hide in places like your bedroom.
Why?
It’s because of the clutter in your bedroom. Spiders will hide in places like the storage section underneath your bed, inside the closet, and in drawers.
Spiders can also get onto your bed, searching for other places to hide from these locations.
Many times, people have noticed tiny white spiders in bed.
Those are either spider mites, spider look-alikes, or little spiders in bed that hatch from the eggs that spiders laid in their bedrooms.
Conclusion
This guide revealed the top four reasons that cause spiders inside the house. These are the magnets for spiders that can lead to a spider infestation in your home.
Spiders enter homes through different channels and entry points that many people overlook.
Blocking these channels is essential to stop spiders from entering your home.
Nang Chen is an Entomologist and Arachnologist who is associated with Vienna’s museum of natural history. He’s also a consultant with real estate groups, insecticide conglomerates and law enforcement groups as a forensic entomologist. Nang Chen holds an M.S. from South China University and he’s a regular contributor to our site.