How to Keep Spiders Out of Your Bedroom

You have done everything right. Clean sheets, curtains drawn, the good pillow, a Feng Shui interior if you are really committed. And then, somewhere around eleven o’clock, you spot it in the corner of the ceiling and the whole evening changes shape.

Late summer and the first weeks of autumn are when it happens most. That is when many male house spiders reach adulthood and start wandering around looking for females, and open windows and doors give them an easy route indoors. British spiders are nothing to lose sleep over, mind. Of the 650 or so species living here, the Natural History Museum has recorded only about 12 as being able to bite us, and only two or three of those give a bite worth noticing.

Better still, a bedroom is one of the easier rooms in the house to put off-limits, and almost none of it costs anything.

It’s worth starting with the one that does not do anything. Plug-in ultrasonic repellents promise to drive spiders out with a high-frequency noise you cannot hear, and the shelves fill up with them every autumn. The trouble is the mechanism. Spiders have no ears. They read the world through vibration and through fine hairs that pick up movement in the air right next to them, and there is no evidence that the frequencies a plug-in emits register with them at all.

The Natural History Museum puts it about as plainly as anyone could. Nobody has yet invented an effective device to deter spiders, and the Museum’s own advice is to block the ways in instead, closing windows and blocking gaps with plaster, draught excluders and insect screens. Researchers who have reviewed the devices say much the same, and the US Federal Trade Commission has written to more than 60 manufacturers about unsupported claims.

Save the plug socket. Everything below has considerably more going for it.

Some essential oils may discourage spiders, although the evidence is limited and the effect is likely to vary between species. Spiders have sensory organs on their legs that help them detect chemicals and vibrations, so strong scents may affect how they move around:

• Peppermint oil: Some evidence suggests that peppermint oil effectively deters spiders. In a spray bottle, mix 5 to 10 drops of pure peppermint oil with 240ml of water. Shake well, then spritz generously around windows, door frames and the corners of your room.
• Other oils: If you do not have peppermint, spiders also dislike tea tree, lavender, rose, eucalyptus and clove. Use them in the same spray bottle method.
• Cinnamon: The warm scent of cinnamon is another repellent you can try at home. Place a few cinnamon sticks on your bedside table or windowsill. You can also use cinnamon essential oil in a diffuser or make it into a spray.
• Vinegar: White vinegar is another commonly suggested home remedy, although evidence that it reliably repels spiders is limited. Mix equal parts white vinegar and water in a spray bottle and spray into the cracks and crevices where spiders might enter. The smell is strong until it dries, and it can damage some varnished surfaces.
• Citrus: Lemon, lime and orange come up constantly as spider repellents. The same study that backs peppermint tested lemon oil and found it had no effect on any of the three spider species, despite being the most cited repellent online. Lovely for the kitchen. Spiders however? Further research is still needed.

Spiders like warm, quiet places to hide and spin webs, so regular dusting and vacuuming make your bedroom a much less appealing place to move into. Pay attention to the spots you usually skip. Behind the wardrobe, under the bed, and in the top corner of the ceiling above the door.

Take the webs down when you spot them rather than leaving them, and clear dead flies and other insects from windowsills, since spiders are attracted to places where prey is available. Stored clutter is worth a look too. Piles of boxes make ideal cover, so our guides to decluttering and bedroom storage do double duty here.

House spiders do most of their moving about after dark, and the Natural History Museum notes they are especially on the move between August and October, coming in through open windows and the gaps around doors.

So the simplest thing on this whole list is shutting the bedroom window before you turn in during those few weeks. If you sleep better with air moving, an insect screen on the window gets you both. It is also the Museum’s own recommendation, alongside draught excluders and filling gaps.

Door sweeps are a simple spider deterrent that double as insulation. Fit one to your bedroom door to stop spiders and insects creeping underneath.

Make sure tiny gaps are sealed off to keep spiders out of your home and stop them from reaching your bedroom. Use a sealant, such as caulk, in keyholes, under doors, around windows and electrical wiring, and anywhere else you find gaps in the walls.

However careful you are, if you eat in bed, the odd toast crumb will end up on the sheets, and crumbs attract insects. Spiders may follow the insects, and before long you are sharing your bed with creepy crawlies.

Keeping your sheets clean is good hygiene and helps stop spiders and other insects from settling into the bed. The build-up of skin cells, sweat and dust can provide food or shelter for some small household pests, and spiders may follow where prey is available.

Insects and bugs are drawn to light, which makes it a field day for spiders. Switch outside lights off in the evening and you will pull far fewer creepy crawlies towards your door cracks and open windows.

A little kinder to our eight-legged friends, spider catchers can be easily set up around your home to capture any creepy crawlies you encounter safely. Once trapped, you can release them well away from the house. It is a humane alternative to squashing them, and although it takes a bit more effort, you get to feel quite good about yourself afterwards.

Plants and shrubbery near the house give spiders and insects a sheltered path indoors, so keeping things trimmed back helps stop them arriving undetected. Spiders also favour taller plants for web building, so shorter planting near doors and windows makes the approach less inviting.

If all else fails, professionals can help clear spiders from your home, whether you have a persistent problem or you simply want it dealt with.

This is rarely necessary in the UK. False widows are the ones that end up in the papers every autumn, and the Natural History Museum is clear that they are not the deadly spiders they are made out to be. Their venom is not particularly potent; a bite is often no worse than a wasp sting, and they are generally only likely to bite when provoked or trapped against skin.

If you would still rather not share the house with one, pest control can move it on for you.

Keeping spiders out comes down to knowing why they came in. Seal the cracks, keep things clean, use the scents they dislike and accept that the odd one will still find its way in around September. Pair it with our advice on how to sleep better at night, and your bedroom will be both restful and considerably less appealing to a house spider.

You may have heard that we swallow eight spiders a year in our sleep. It is not true, and it is not close to true.

As Scientific American explains, the idea runs against both spider biology and human biology, and a spider ending up in your mouth is extremely unlikely. Their conclusion is that sleeping humans probably strike spiders as “terrifying” more than anything else.

There is a reason for that. Spiders are very sensitive to vibration, and we produce plenty of it by snoring and shifting about. Add the fact that we are not a spider’s idea of prey, and you have a decent set of reasons for them to stay away.

Our own skin helps too. It is also highly sensitive to touch, so a spider moving across exposed skin may be enough to wake you.

Mostly, it is the weather and the calendar. From late summer into autumn, male house spiders leave their webs and go looking for females, and a warm, dry house with plenty of quiet corners is an obvious place to try.

Weather can shift the timing too. A sudden change in temperature or conditions can affect when spiders become active and how often we see them indoors.

Beyond the weather, three things make a house appealing:

• Food for the things they eat: Spiders follow their prey, so a home with plenty of insects can be more attractive to them.
• Easy access: Small gaps around windows, doors, vents and wiring.
• Somewhere quiet to lay eggs: Undisturbed nooks in lofts, cavity walls and the space behind furniture.

The other way in is that you carry them. A wayward egg sac can travel indoors on a charity shop find, a house move, firewood, garden plants or camping kit that has been sitting in the shed all winter. Worth a quick look over anything coming in from outside.

Spiders are not looking for you. If one ends up on your bed, it is much more likely to be passing through than deliberately seeking out the bed. Crumbs can attract insects, and spiders may follow their prey, but your bed itself isn’t especially attractive to most house spiders. The same goes for the build-up of dead skin cells, sweat and dust that every bed collects between washes. It attracts insects of all kinds, and spiders follow the food.

Warmth and quiet can make a room comfortable for spiders, although a regularly disturbed bed is not an especially good place for most house spiders to settle. The Natural History Museum points out that house spiders are less likely to live full time in the rooms we actually use, precisely because we disturb them. Their webs go up in lofts, sheds and cavity walls instead. One on your duvet is almost always just passing through.

None of which needs a dramatic response. Wash your bedding on a regular cycle, and our guide to how often you should wash your bedding covers what that looks like. Keep food out of the bedroom where you can. Shake the duvet out now and then. That is genuinely most of it.