Spiders are helpful little animals to have around, but that doesn’t mean they’re always pleasant. Some are venomous, they’re a little creepy and crawly, and they leave behind unsightly spider webs.
If you’re wanting to know how to get rid of spiderwebs outside, there are solutions. You don’t have to go around every day cleaning up every web you see or hoping every morning that you don’t walk into one. These 13 methods to get rid of spider webs outside will stop you from getting tangled up while you’re outside.
How to Get Rid of Spider Webs Outside: 13 Ways
While spiders inside are the worst, you probably don’t want them right outside your home either. If you’re looking for short- and long-term solutions to keep spiders and spider webs away from the outside of your home and your yard, you need to look at these 13 options.
1. Use Essential Oils
Certain essential oils help to keep insects and spiders away. The best ones to use are peppermint, eucalyptus, and cedar oil. Some people say rosemary, tea tree, and lavender oil also work well. Just place a couple of cotton balls in the area and add a few drops of oil to each ball. Just be careful as some essential oils are dangerous to pets. You’ll want to make sure they are far out of reach for your dogs and cats.
2. Keep the Outside of Your Home Clean
Spiders tend to collect in the recesses around the outside of your home. They enjoy hiding behind objects or in dusty, abandoned edges of your property. If you want to get rid of spiderwebs, you need to clean up the outside of your home. Trim overgrown plants, and regularly sweep and maintain the outside of your home.
3. Destroy Egg Sacs
Egg sacs are home to hundreds of little baby spiders. Within a couple of generations, you can have a huge infestation. To stop your spider problem from becoming a much bigger problem, you need to destroy any egg sacs you come across.
If you can, pull the spider sac down without disrupting it. This ensures you get every one of the young spiders. Vacuum up, burn, or toss out the egg sacs. Or, relocate them somewhere far from your home.
4. Make a Spray
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If you want to cover a big area, cotton balls with a little essential oil on them just aren’t going to cut it. Instead, take some vinegar, water, and essential oils and put them into a spray bottle. Then, spray it around the outside of your home and wherever the spiders are a problem. You’ll have to touch up the spray a couple of times a day, but it’s worth it to keep the spider webs away.
5. Catch and Release Adult Spiders
If you know that the spiders aren’t venomous, then you can try to catch and release them. That way, they can continue removing annoying insects from the area, without being directly on your property. Consider moving them to a nearby park or forested area.
6. Destroy Spider Webs You See
Even if you somehow manage to remove all of the spiders from your home, the webs will remain. To get rid of them, you’ll have to remove them yourself. For sturdy structures, a good power washing would help greatly when it comes to cleaning the area and removing webs. For areas that can’t take power washing, wiping down the surface or using a cobweb broom works just fine.
7. Keep Lights Off at Night
Bright lights at night tend to attract insects like moths and beetles. This means that a spider will often make their webs nearby to catch an easy meal. Keeping your light off reduces the number of insects around your home at night, and therefore the number of spiders. If you like having a light on, consider using a light on a timer or one that senses motion instead of one that stays on all night.
8. Use Citronella
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Citronella is an excellent insect and spider repellent. It works to keep away all pests including mosquitos. There are many options for citronella, including candles, incense sticks, oil pads, diffusers, and more. Place a few of these around your home and light them while you’re outside. The smell will stick around for a while and stop spiders from making webs around your property.
9. Seal Any Cracks
Spiders like to make their home in places that are calm, dark, and quiet. If you want to entice spiders to move somewhere else, you’ll have to start clearing out any spot they could nest. Seal up cracks and holes around your home. This has the added benefit of stopping spiders from entering your home as well and making spider webs inside as well as outside.
10. Hire an Exterminator
If the spider problem doesn’t go away with the other tricks on this list, or the webs come back day after day, then it may be time to call an exterminator. They can help you get the spider population back on track so it’s more manageable. They may also cover up holes and cracks you missed and offer suggestions on how to keep spiders away.
11. Remove Still Water
Spiders don’t necessarily like water, but some of the insects they eat do. Ponds, puddles, and containers filled with murky water are breeding grounds for many insects, especially mosquitoes and flies. These species are prime prey for spiders. Remove and dump any sitting water whenever you see it to reduce nasty insects that are the food source for your local spiders.
12. Keep Trash Away from Your House
Trash attracts flies, and flies attract spiders. To reduce the population of both around your house, it’s important to find ways to reduce trash. Two good options are to keep your trash cans as far away from your home as possible or to keep them in a cooler and sealed-off area like the garage or basement until it’s time for the trash truck to come. You may also want to consider ways to reduce your overall trash, like composting.
13. Use Plastic Bins That Seal in Outdoor Areas
Since spiders like to have calm, undisturbed areas for their home, they’re often found inside old boxes and storage containers you rarely use. To give them fewer spaces to hide, consider swapping out open containers with ones that seal. Plastic is best, as it lasts a long time and good ones have an air-tight seal. They also protect your items from water and dust, so it’s a win-win.
