Spider Control for Avon Basements, Garages, Eaves and Window Wells

Are there dangerous spiders in Avon?

Very few. Most spiders in Avon homes are house spiders, cellar spiders, wolf spiders and orb weavers, none of them a medical concern for most people. The northern black widow lives in Ohio and occasionally turns up in woodpiles and sheds. The brown recluse is generally not considered native to northern Ohio and appears only as scattered introductions.

If you think you have found a black widow or a recluse, trap it under a jar or take a clear photo and let the technician identify it. Many suspected recluses in northeast Ohio turn out to be harmless look-alikes, such as cellar spiders or young wolf spiders.

For any bite that swells, spreads or comes with feeling unwell, contact a doctor rather than waiting it out.

Why do I have so many spiders in my basement?

Spiders follow food and moisture, and basements in the Avon area supply both. Damp walls, sump pits, floor drains and window wells host camel crickets, millipedes, springtails and other small insects, and spiders and house centipedes move in to eat them. Lowering humidity and sealing gaps cuts the food supply, which cuts the spiders.

Heavy clay soil and wet springs keep basement walls damp around here, and sump pumps run hard after snowmelt and summer storms. A dehumidifier holding the basement around 50 percent humidity, moving stored cardboard off the floor and sealing gaps at the rim joist all help a treatment last.

• Keep stored items in plastic bins, off the floor and away from walls
• Cover window wells and clear out the leaves each fall
• Seal cracks at the sill plate and around utility lines
• Fix gutters and downspouts that dump water by the foundation

Why are there so many spider webs on lakefront porches?

Lights and water. Along the Lake Erie shore in Avon Lake, Bay Village, Sheffield Lake and Rocky River, swarms of midges and later mayflies collect around porch lights and windows in late spring and early summer, and orb weavers and other web-builders feast on them. The webs thin out once those swarms pass in a few weeks.

Midges, called muckleheads locally, do not bite and are a sign of a healthy lake, so there is nothing to treat them for and no treatment is sold for them. The spiders that follow are another matter if webs cover the porch all summer. Web sweeps, a treatment of eaves and window frames, and warm yellow bulbs at the door cut the buildup on homes in Avon Lake and Sheffield Lake.

Why do spiders come inside in the fall?

Many of the spiders you notice in September and October are males wandering in search of mates, along with wolf spiders and grass spiders leaving cooling lawns and fields. Gaps under garage doors, around basement windows and at the sill let them in. A late-summer treatment and sealing those gaps reduce the fall surge.

Around Avon, the fall spider spike lines up with fall invader season, when stink bugs, boxelder bugs and lady beetles are hunting for winter shelter too. The same sealing work helps with both; see stink bug control for exclusion that covers the whole house. The Lorain County pest calendar shows how the two seasons overlap.

What about house centipedes and camel crickets?

Both live in damp basements, crawlspaces and garages around Avon, and the same treatment covers them. House centipedes are fast and alarming but eat other insects and rarely bite people. Camel crickets jump, can chew stored cardboard and fabric, and crowd into sump pits and window wells. For both, moisture control matters more than spray.

A one-time treatment knocks numbers down, and sticky monitors along basement walls show whether they are still coming in. If counts stay high, the technician looks harder for the moisture source: a leaking window well, a sweating cold-water pipe or a crawlspace with bare soil.