About spider repellents
Preventing spiders from entering your home, car, garage, or outbuildings can be a challenge. Spiders can lurk in inaccessible places under workspaces, in cracks in walls, or other dark corners. Natural spider repellents help to create an environment that is inhospitable to spiders. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use essential oils that disrupt a spider’s sophisticated senses.
Essential oils that keep spiders away are some of the most popular types of natural arachnoid deterrents. You can use natural spider sprays around the home without fear of toxic chemicals affecting family members or pets.
Ultrasonic plug-in spider repellers are generally easy to use and they should last for a long time. These products use sound waves that are inaudible to humans or pets but annoy spiders and other bugs. One of the drawbacks of spider repellent plug-ins is that their effectiveness is not always proved. However, if you get one that works, they can help to keep rooms in your home free from pests.
Who needs natural spider repellents?
Natural spider repellents are a great way to prevent bugs, insects, and other pets from infesting your home. Many people who live in areas prone to spiders prefer using humane methods to deter pests. Most essential oil spider sprays and ultrasonic devices don’t kill spiders but just help to stop them coming into your home. However, you need to reapply spider repellent sprays frequently for best results.
One of the advantages of choosing spider repellents that work using nontoxic methods is that they won’t cause damage to the environment. A report on the effect of pesticides on the environment found that insect control using chemicals can contaminate the soil and plants. Researchers found that, although herbicides can effectively and quickly kill off spiders and other bugs, they cause environmental problems in the ground, water, and air. To protect the environment, the report recommended using non-chemical methods for pest control.
If you live in the country or in areas where poisonous spiders are common, then choosing the best spider repellents is essential for protecting the health of your family. Brown recluse spiders, black widows, or aggressive house spiders can all cause nasty bites. Scientists say that in some cases, skin inflammation, swelling, bleeding, dizziness, and respiratory failure can all be a result of a single poisonous spider bite.
So, apart from spiders creating a fear factor in humans by the way they scamper around a room, you need to eradicate spiders to prevent any risk to your health.
Common terms about spider repellents explained
- Essential oils. Steam or a distillation method is usually used to extract oils from plant roots, leaves, or bark. Some essential oils to keep spiders away include peppermint, eucalyptus, and tea tree essential oil.
- Ultrasonic. Sound waves or vibrations that are above the audibility limit of the human ear.
- Plug-in repellent. This refers to the type of spider repellent that works using ultrasonic sound waves to scare off spiders. They are plugged into an electrical outlet to power them.
How do natural spider repellents work?
Let’s look in a bit more detail at the science behind many of the natural spider repellents reviewed in this article.
Essential oils that keep spiders away
Essential oils for spiders work because they irritate spiders’ sense of smell. Spiders have special sensory hairs on their legs that help them pick up scents. Spiders use their sense of smell to hunt prey, find a mate, or sense danger.
The strong smell of some essential oils is enough to put spiders off coming near and, if you spray the spider repellent for home at strategic locations, you can keep spiders out of your property.
Apart from peppermint oil, there are a few other essential oils that are good for getting rid of spiders and insects. For example, one study found that you could use tea tree oil for spiders because it has insecticidal properties and a repelling effect. Spraying a solution of tea tree oil also helped to kill off insect larvae.

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Lemon eucalyptus oil for spiders is another essential oil that can help to keep your home spider-free. Researchers have found that the scent of lemon eucalyptus oil helps to repel mosquitos. Although there was no research carried out on spiders, the strong eucalyptus aromas could help keep spiders at bay.
Plug-in spider repellents
Some people have found that using ultrasonic devices that plug into an electrical outlet helps to keep spiders and a wide range of other pests away from their home.
How do these spider repellent plug-ins work and is there any scientific basis for using them? Most of these devices repel spiders and other arthropods by means of sound waves that are above 18,000 Hz. This means that we humans can’t hear them but they should cause irritation for spiders and insects. The effect of these soundwaves is that they help to create an environment that spiders don’t like. However, there are mixed results in their effectiveness.
Studies carried out by the University of Arizona found that there is limited effectiveness in using ultrasonic devices against pests. The results of some studies indicate that pests may get used to the ultrasonic sound and they can lose their effectiveness. Despite that fact, many users of these products have noticed that the population of pests in their homes goes down when these repellents are plugged in.
What other types of spider repellents work well?
If you are plagued by spiders in your home, there are a number of other ways you can get rid of spiders. For example, you can put near your houseplants that keep spiders away. Sometimes having a peppermint plant near your door or having peppermint on your window can help deter spiders from scurrying into your home.
You could also try making your own spider repellent spray by filling a 16-oz. spray bottle with some warm water, a few drops of dish soap and 5 drops each of peppermint oil, lemon oil, and tea tree oil. Use this spider spray as a repellent to treat surfaces and openings where spiders frequent.
One way to help quickly reduce a spider infestation in your home is to use glue boards. These are pieces of cardboard that have sticky glue on them. You can place these spider traps behind furniture, in attics, under kitchen appliances, or anywhere else where there are a large number of spiders. With glue boards, it is important to make sure that other pets or young children can’ access them.
What should you do if natural spider repellents don’t work for you?
In some cases, you may find that despite using the best natural spider repellents, you still get bothered by these pesky 8-legged creatures.
What should you do if you can’t get rid of spiders by natural means? One of the first things you should do is fill any cracks or gaps where spiders find entry to your home. This is an easy way to drastically reduce the number of spiders that find their way into your home.
You may also need to carry out a thorough inspection of your home to find where spiders are lurking. If you notice spider nests or large spider webs, take a vacuum cleaner to remove as many traces of spiders as you can.
It is also important to ensure that you keep your yard and areas near your home free from clutter.
Spiders like to congregate in dark undisturbed areas. So, stacking firewood away from your home, moving shrubs and plants away from your house, or keeping attics and garages clean and clutter-free can all help to prevent an infestation of spiders.
In extreme cases, you may have to call in a pest control service to use chemicals to eradicate all traces of spiders, spider nests, and other pests from your home.
Spider repellent buying guide
How can you find the best spider repellents that only use natural methods to control spiders and other insects in your property?
- Essential oil spider repellents: Spider sprays containing peppermint oil are some of the best spider deterrents. You should look for products that contain 100% peppermint essential oil and that receive good reviews from users. Using peppermint essential oil to keep spiders away also has the added benefit of keeping your home smelling fresh. Other types of natural spider sprays may contain a mixture of essential oils that have repellent activity. These natural deterrents also work well as spider repellents for cars, garages, and other outbuildings.
- Plug-in spider repeller: There are many of these devices on the market that claim to keep spiders out of your home. Because it can be difficult to know their effectiveness, you should read users’ reviews to see which ones work best. Some of the newer models use the latest technology in ultrasound waves and may work better than older models.
Other useful information about spider repellents to consider
Thankfully, most spiders in the world are not poisonous and the most damage that the majority of spiders will do is give you a fright or a shock.
You may actually be surprised to learn just how many spiders there are in the world. According to some estimates, there are 35,000 different species of spider and at any one time, you are usually within 10 feet of a spider!
Of course, without actually seeing a spider, signs that you have spiders in your house are spider webs. Did you know that spider webs are extremely strong? Actually, a spider’s web is 5 times stronger than steel of the same thickness.
How to use natural spider repellents
In order to be most effective, natural spider repellents using essential oils require a regular application to keep spider populations down in residential properties.
For example, you can soak some cotton balls in a peppermint essential oil solution and place them around your home. These can be put in strategic locations to give off an aroma that prevents spiders from coming close. You should replace the cotton balls weekly or more often if required.
The best plug-in spider repellers usually come in a multi-pack so that you can protect most rooms in your home. Depending on the size of your rooms or if you want to use the plug-in as an outdoor spider repellent, you may need to buy more units.
To conclude
Keeping your home free from spiders is essential if you live in an area where poisonous biting spiders are a nuisance. In the fall, you may also notice more spiders in your home and need to eradicate them naturally. Natural spider repellents are a good way to control spider populations without harming your family or the environment.
The best peppermint oil spray for spiders by First Botany Peppermint Essential Oil is an excellent product to eliminate spiders from your home. The repelling action of peppermint oil will also help to keep other insects and pests away.
The Wondercide Repellent spray is another good “pet safe” spider repellent. This is very easy to apply and you don’t have the bother of having to make your own spider spray with essential oils. This is a good spider repellent for the car, around your house, attic, or anywhere else where you need to ward off arachnoids.
If you are looking for a spider repellent plug-in, then our choice is the VEPOWER Ultrasonic Repellent. This utilizes the latest technology in ultrasonic pest repellents and is effective in protecting you against spiders, flying insects, and other bugs.