I get called quite often being asked how people can repel spiders from their homes with little or no management from people, eg ‘I don’t want to touch them’. Often the question of spraying peppermint oil has come up in conversations and although I have not seen any proof of this working, it was enough of a curiosity to make me do some digging.
Fist off let me dispel the roomer that spiders only are in ‘unclean’ houses. This is wrong for so many reasons, although for once I can see the logic behind this. With spiders preference to spend time in little used corners of houses if they are not cleaned regularly you will see a few webs accumulating. However lovely clean houses with no corners will still have spiders, they will just be in hard to get places, such as behind skirting boards or lofts. Why spiders want to be inside despite evolving for millions of years to live outside is pretty simple, humans are a really messy species allowing for pests to flourish in our environment, and spiders eat our pests. So having spiders in your house is actually a good thing, its win-win for both species, we don’t see them often and they eat all the pests we REALLY don’t want to see! (Think flies and cockroaches).
Let me start this by saying that they cause of this theory is possibly the fault of Stick insects. Weird I know, but these animals are predated upon in the wild be spiders and have a defence mechanism designed just for that. Some species of Stick insect spray turpentine’s to protect themselves, with a few spray a chemical combination that smells akin to peppermint. These defences have proven very effective against spiders in the wild, possibly making people think that it is the smell that deters them. Defences for an animal versus a animal deterrent in general are very different things! And many people are reporting very hit and miss accounts on how peppermint oil has helped to rid them of spiders. Having peppermint oil being sprayed directly into your face from what you assumed was an incredibly edible treat is not the same as walking into a room that smells slightly festive. I don’t think anyone would appreciate having peppermint being sprayed into your face from what you thought was food. Having searched the web I found an answer from Charles Lindsay, a blogger at SpiderHugger stating ‘I asked this question of a scientist who specializes in pests associated with peppermint cultivation (how's that for a specialty?). He thought it unlikely that peppermint oil would be worth the trouble, since it's volatile and would have to be constantly applied, but did say peppermint oil has some efficacy as an insect repellent. He also mentioned that spiders are abundant in the peppermint fields he studies, so there's that. I think a simpler way of keeping spiders from wandering indoors (generally males looking for mates, or hunting spiders gone astray), since you know where the holes are, is just to plug those holes instead of perfuming them with mint or rosemary.’
Between the constant reapplication and honestly the faff that seems to be involved in this ‘eco-friendly’ spider deterrent, why not just have a quick tidy of places that you think spiders might like to hang out, such as under the stairs, OR just admit that you don’t go under the stairs often and potentially there might be a spider down there have a great time gobbling up all the pests you really don’t want to see in your home!
Plus how can you say no to that face :)
