Your bed should be your safe place — a sanctuary — where you can rest and sleep after a hard day’s work. But it won’t be that calming haven if you have spiders — especially as some can give you a nasty spider bite and that is not pleasant. Here are effective ways to keep spiders out of your bed.
Why you don’t want spiders in your bed
- Most spiders are venomous. Spiders are not poisonous. They are venomous, meaning they can release toxins when they bite you. These toxins can have negative effects on your body. Brown recluse spider bites, for example, can kill body tissues because of the cytotoxin in their venom.
- Spiders will attack even if you just accidentally hurt them. Generally, spiders will mind their own business. If you don’t attack or try to hurt them, they will not bite. But when you are comfortable in your bed, you may accidentally squeeze or touch these arachnids. They will see this as a threat and attack you, putting you at risk of spider bites and toxins.
- They can sustain themselves if you have a dirty bedroom. Some pests will just magically go away if you wait long enough. But this is not the case for spiders. If you have a dirty room with a lot of clutter they can shelter in and a lot of bugs to feed on, the spiders can settle there and cause trouble to you until you actively try to get rid of them.
How to keep spiders out of your bed
1. Clean your bedroom
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you — a dirty bedroom attracts more pests than a clean one. A dirty bedroom has a lot of features that can make pests like spiders thrive. It will have a lot of clutter where they can hide and rest. And all the dirt will attract other pests that spiders eat to survive.
It’s not just about cleanliness. It’s also about orderliness. The piles of clothes on your floor may not be necessarily dirty, but they are the perfect place for spiders to hide. Deep clean your entire room with brooms, vacuum cleaners, and even soaped towels. But don’t forget about putting everything in order as well.
2. Throw clutter away, especially those under your bed
People put stuff under their beds, either intentionally or accidentally. It’s just a very convenient and accessible place. Unfortunately, it’s very near your area of sleeping. If you don’t maintain the space under your bed, it can harbor spiders that may end up crawling on you while you sleep.
Throw away those dusty shoe boxes, old newspapers and magazines, and pieces of debris that may have fallen in there.
3. Maintain your bed frame, mattress, and sheets
Spiders are not necessarily attracted to the dirt around your bedroom. They are more attracted to the pests that are attracted to the dirt. Spiders primarily eat insects. And what insects do you think can be found in bed frames, mattresses, and sheets? Bed bugs are the first ones that come to mind.
If you have bed bugs, spiders are likely to follow. Keep your bed frame, mattress, and sheets clean and dry, so they don’t attract pests that will in turn attract spiders.
4. Close all possible entry points
Spiders can thrive outside of your house, mainly because the outside of your house is teeming with insects they can prey on. Spiders are also small creatures that are only about a few inches long. They can get inside your house through the smallest cracks on your walls and the narrowest gaps in doors and windows.
To make sure that the spiders outside your house don’t make it inside, seal the cracks on your walls with caulk and put weatherstrips on the edges of your doors and windows. You can also install window screens as an added layer of protection.
5. Put your bed away from walls
No matter how hard you try to make your bedroom inaccessible, a small creature or two can slip through once in a while. You can treat your bed as a fortress or island to prevent the unwelcome visitors from getting onto you while you sleep.
Don’t let your bed touch anything in your bedroom, including walls and furniture pieces like cabinets and nightstands.
6. Inspect the plants in your bedroom can keep spiders out of your bed
Many people have plants in their bedrooms. If you are one of these people, we have bad news for you — spiders like to feed on common bugs that can be found on plants, like aphids. Spiders can also hide in the foliage because it is safe.
If possible, put the plants out of your bedroom. But if you really want to have the plants in there, inspect them regularly to ensure that they are not being infested by plant pests that can in turn attract spiders to your bedroom.
7. Avoid eating on your bed
The food crumbs and small water droplets in and around your bed can attract various pests, such as ants and cockroaches. These small pests are perfect targets for spiders since these are part of their diets.
Midnight snacks are very tempting. If you really want to eat inside your bedroom, make sure to clean up afterwards — so you don’t attract other pests.
8. Repel spiders with home remedies
You can repel spiders with ingredients you can already find in your kitchen. You can mix garlic or vinegar with water and spray the resulting solution all over your bedroom. The strong smell will repel spiders. But the smell can be unpleasant for you too, so they may not be the most ideal repellents. You can mix peppermint oil and water instead. At least the resulting solution will smell pleasant.
Take note that these solutions are repellents, not homemade pesticides. They can only repel pests, not kill them. You shouldn’t use these if you are dealing with a full-blown spider infestation.
Keep spiders out of your bed
Spiders can inject you with dangerous toxins when they bite you. You definitely don’t want them around, especially when you are sleeping and at your most vulnerable. There are a lot of ways to keep spiders out of your bed — from getting rid of spider attractors like bugs and fortifying your bed or bedroom as a whole.