I use Demon WP to treat the exterior of my house. I live next to a large field and have always had spiders and insect problems, but they seem worse this year than before. I'm finding several large wolf spiders in the house everyday.

I've tried sealing all the points of entry, but have not really noticed an improvement. I dont seevany other bugs in the house, so i dont blieve the spiders are coming in to eat. Any suggestions on a way to get rid of or at least keep these spiders outside?

In my opinion, anytime you use toxic control methods, you are going to be disappointed. Your target pest will often rebound worse than ever because a poison such as Demon WP is going to kill everything, including all the beneficial insects and other spiders. Have any of the wolf spiders bitten you ever? I have never been bitten by a Wolf spider in 50 years. In my experience, when the good spiders get out of balance, the nasty ones such as the black widow and brown recluse start showing up. If you have one or more Jumping Spiders (Phidippus audax), which are black with a white dot on top of their abdomens, hanging around your exterior doors, leave them alone. They kill the Brown Recluse spiders. When the rains come, your home will become less attractive to the wolf spiders. In the meantime, I suggest you continue to manually scoop them up and put them outside. Teach your kids to appreciate them. (I realize this may sound foreign to most people's perspectives. I used to be a licensed pest control technician and applied toxic chemicals for more than a year as such. However, after watching the birds, the frogs, and the non target critters rather than the pests dropping dead, I realized that "Better life through chemicals" is not necessarily true. I also came to realize that organ-chloro-phosphates and other petrochemicals go through what is known as molecular drift as they break down and end up being tracked and spread all around and in your house. That contact poison that you used to drench the fire ant mound in the yard is being tracked into the interior of the house by people and pets, and you are getting either a large dose of it or small dose of it, which either way can have nasty repercussions for your health long term. If you believe you must put out poisons, I suggest you use a hand duster and put "Roach-Proof" in the walls by dusting into the cavities behind the electrical switch cover plates. Borid boric acid is quite poisonous to pests that move around the house along the wall plates, but the stuff is less prone to molecular drift, or so I have been told. It will stay in the wall cavities. Many insects such as roaches are cannibalistic, and will continue to eat the corpses of their brethren in the walls. If you must use other insecticides, stick to baits such as the "Combat jells" or bait discs. Under no circumstances will I ever use Dursban 50w, Demon, Dragnet or other contact spray again.

http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Brown-Recluse-Spider_vq669.htm


Here are some organic spider control solutions.

Try Bengal for the inside. Thank me later. Those spiders might be resistant to the active ingredient in Demon. I believe Bengal has a different active ingredient.

For spider control, I and many others where we keep our houseboat use either Tempo or Viper. Its a little pricey, and only available at feed and ranch stores, but believe me, you will not have any more spider problems for several months after a treatment.

Thanks for the replies. You all have given me several options o explore.

I also heard Tempo is pretty good.

you can always go to the hardware store and buy a bag of diatomic earth and spread it around your house

Using any type of residual product will have little or no lasting effect on spiders. So liquid sprays, dusts, baits, etc. can be crossed off your list.

To kill a spider requires direct application to the spider. This is called contact kill.
Using a flushing/contact spray such as CB-80 will knock down the initial population. You can apply the aerosol to voids where the spiders tend to hide during daylight hours. These include the kick panel around the bottom of cabinets in kitchens, bathrooms, closets, etc.
The garage is usually a common area to find spiders harboring. A contact/flushing spray used to treat these areas will kill the spiders if it contacts them and has the added benefit of leaving no residual pesticide behind to come in contact with you or pets. You do not "wet" anything or the spider with the aerosol, just simply let the vapor roll to the intended site(target).

You can then use mechanical or environmental controls to try and keep their presence to a minimum.

1.Eliminate or reduce exterior nighttime lighting. Change to motion sensor lights and put landscape lighting on a timer set to go off early in the evening. This will decrease the amount of insects attracted to your home by the lights. These insects are the spiders food source, reduce their numbers and you will decrease the number of spiders there hunting for food.

2.Place insect monitors(small cardboard cutouts with an adhesive on one side)by each side of your garage door and other entry doors. Most of these are perforated to allow fashioning them in to a low profile box open on each end that keeps them from getting stuck to pets, kids, shoes, etc. Do not confuse these with glue boards, although these would work, they are typically large and do not have a cover.

3.Close interior drapes, blinds, or shutters at night so interior lighting is not shining out into the darkness. Insects will also be attracted to this light.

4.Remove all spider webbing both inside and outside the home. This is also a good place to use your flushing/contact spray as the spiders will harbor close to their webbing. Websters are available at most hardware stores, they are basically a large dust brush with a long handle.

5.Treating the exterior perimeter will help kill a large portion of what is harboring around the outside of the home. Also treat around the eaves and soffits. Pay close attention to the edges of patios and sidewalks, as well as the crack next to the foundation where the soil has a tendency to shrink and pull away from the concrete. Remember, if the spray contacts them directly it will kill them. However, after it has dried it will not prevent spiders from approaching nor will it kill them as it does social insects.

I hope this was helpful.

It works, and keeps on working long after applying. To monitor it's effectiveness, lay down glue strips.

I realize you have your own pest control service, but evidently you've never tried Tempo. I use it twice to three times a year and it keeps everything in check.

Insect biology has nothing to do with the fact that I kill bugs for a living. Spiders do not groom their bodies, therefore they are incapable of introducing a residual chemical into their bodies. They can walk through it all day long and twice on Saturday and will continue to live until something else acts on them.

To answer your question I have and I do use Tempo sc and wp as well as Demon. Both of the formulations tend to leave a visible residue so I limit my use of them at customers homes.

Exterior spraying which I assume is what you are doing every 90-120 days will keep pests at a minimum. However, please understand spiders only die on the day of treatment. It sounds like you keep all other critters killed off pretty good, which will in turn reduce your spider population as well. Keep up the good work.

Inside of the house, I have used Bengal spray for close to 20 yrs. It kills everything - roaches, ants, spiders, etc. It is in an aerosol can that puts out a fog when sprayed. It got rid of roaches within two days in my house that exterminators couldn't deal with, and they never came back even after ten years. Available at WalMart and made in New Orleans. They do know a few things about bugs down there.

Thank you for the insight on spiders. I did not know that about them. All I know is that I hate them around my place even though they may be beneficial. Hate walking through the webs at night or early morning when I'm watering my plants.

Didn't mean to come off so harsh, I figured you used more potent insecticide than what we could buy.

I appreciate your information.

I am under he impression that web building spiders do and will ingest poison. Scorpions do not. That is why they are tougher to deal with.