Tips To Stay Safe In A Home With Brown Recluse Spiders

Living in a home with brown recluse spiders can understandably leave you on edge. While it’s important to treat your home chemically to kill them, that doesn’t always provide immediate results. That’s why we put together several key tips to stay safe in a home with brown recluse spiders. 

To avoid brown recluse spider bites, inspect your bedding each night and pull your sheets up so they don’t touch the floor. Turn your shoes upside down and shake to dislodge any hidden brown recluse spiders. Avoid leaving clothes and towels on the ground, and make sure to inspect your clothes before getting dressed. 

Brown recluse bites are dangerous and can become necrotic. While you should call a pest control service, it’s still important to understand how to coexist with brown recluse spiders. Follow along as we explore how to stay safe in a home with brown recluse spiders. 

How To Avoid Brown Recluse Spiders

1. Tap Your Shoes

Brown recluse spiders naturally love to hide in cramped, dark spaces, such as shoes. Slipping your foot into a shoe with a brown recluse spider hidden in it can result in harmful bites. That’s because brown recluse spiders react to physical pressure and often respond by biting. 

It’s a great idea to tap and shake your shoes before you put them on. This should tell you if a brown recluse spider is in your shoe, as it will likely fall out. However, you must be ready to kill the spider with your shoe when it falls on the ground. 

You won’t find a spider in your shoe every time, but it may happen one day. Ideally, you should also keep your shoes in a closed cabinet to keep them away from brown recluse spiders. This is also a great way to declutter your home. 

2. Inspect Your Clothes

Shoes aren’t the only clothing items that brown recluse spiders are drawn to. Brown recluse spiders commonly hide in dark closets, so they often make their way into shirts and pants. That’s why some people get bitten by spiders while getting dressed for work.

Carefully shake your shirts and pants when you take them off the hanger. This should shake the spiders out of your clothes if there are any. Otherwise, it’s worth turning your clothes inside out to check for brown recluse spiders. 

3. Use Tote Containers

Many homeowners keep old cardboard boxes to use for storage. While this is resourceful, it also attracts brown recluse spiders, as it’s a perfect hiding spot. You can minimize this risk if you instead keep your storage items in plastic tote containers. 

Spiders are unlikely to get into your tote container if you keep lids on them. It’s also typically easier to move tote containers than cardboard boxes. You don’t have to worry about the box’s floor collapsing, and tote containers last much longer. 

4. Be Careful When Cleaning

Cleaning is a common activity that disturbs brown recluse spiders and provokes them to bite. That’s because many homeowners access cluttered areas when cleaning that they don’t normally tend to. You may disrupt a brown recluse spider’s slumber while cleaning, and that is dangerous.

Take your time while cleaning and slowly move one item at a time. It even helps to shine a flashlight in boxes and corners of rooms to check for spiders. 

5. Check Your Bedding

Brown recluse spiders sometimes find their way into beds. Beds provide the perfect hiding space for spiders, especially when you’re gone all day. After all, many people don’t get into bed until nighttime, so spiders have plenty of time to hide.

Get into the habit of pulling your sheets and blankets back to check for spiders before you get into bed. It’s also a great idea to wash your bedding weekly for this reason and for sanitary purposes. Otherwise, you risk rolling over onto a brown recluse spider and getting bitten. 

6. Clean Your Floors

Your floors, especially near the corners and edges of the walls, may serve as high-traffic areas for spiders. That’s especially true if your home is full of dust, lint, and pet hair. Homeowners commonly find brown recluse spiders in corners hiding among clumps of dust and pet hair. 

You may also find spiders hiding in the dust and debris beneath your furniture. That’s especially true if you rarely move your furniture to clean beneath it. Ideally, you should thoroughly clean your floors at least twice a month. 

Not only does this help remove hiding spots for spiders, but it also helps deter them. Brown recluse spiders rarely hide in clean areas. 

7. Pull Your Blankets And Curtains Up

Spiders, brown recluses, and otherwise, typically travel via the floor and climb up objects that touch it. For example, you may find spiders climbing up your curtains if they are touching the floor. The same can be said for sheets and blankets that touch the floor.

The last thing you want is for a spider to crawl from the floor into your bed because a blanket is dangling. Check your bedding each morning to make sure it isn’t hanging down onto the floor. 

8. Hang Your Towels

Some people understandably toss their towels onto the floor after drying off from a shower. However, this is a way of inviting spiders to hide and wait in your towel. That’s especially true if you forget about your towel and leave it there for hours or overnight. 

It’s also important to avoid throwing piles of clothes on the floor. Some people even bunch their clean clothes and put them in a pile before a shower. Ideally, you should keep your clothes folded and elevated or even hanging until you’re ready to get dressed. 

Summing It Up

The best way to avoid brown recluse spider bites is to inspect your clothes and shake your shoes out before putting them on. Replace your cardboard storage boxes with plastic tote containers and lift your dangling bedding off the floor. Regularly clean your floors and inspect your bedding before you go to sleep, as spiders often hide there. 

Related Guides:

• How To Get Rid Of Spiders In Your Basement
• Why Are There Spiders In My House During The Winter?