5 Simple Brown Recluse Pest Control Hacks To Try (& 5 To Avoid At All Costs)

If you live in a region where brown recluse spiders (Loxosceles reclusa) are common, the fear of encountering one can be very real. One moment, you're reaching for the picture frame hanging on your wall, and the next, you're registering the six-eyed creature's fiddle markings, alerting you to the lurking menace. Brown recluse spiders are dangerous, given to poisoning those unlucky to graze past, hold, or catch them with a sting whose painful memories outlast the scars. That's why purging their presence before their descendants overrun your home in thousands — as they did back in 2007 for a Missouri-based family (who fortunately did come out of it unscathed) — becomes important.

Generally, brown recluse spiders show up during spring when they're ready to mate and populate your attic, garage, cardboard boxes, crawl spaces, firewood piles, or discarded clothing with their broods. Sometimes, you may also find brown recluse spider webs. They look quite different since they're mere piles of white-to-gray threads that behave as retreats and not as snares for prey. When their infestation becomes apparent, ideally, you must call in a professional pest control company to whittle down their numbers. However, if you're certain you're dealing with a few strays, certain pest control hacks involving vacuums, sticky traps, or diatomaceous earth can provide respite, as you'll discover below. However, avoid essential oils, boric acid, and cedar chips because they offer poor results.

The easiest way to get rid of brown recluse spiders is to suck them up with a hand vac as you spot them crawling around your abode — the tumbling action alone should kill them most of the time. Though if you've already hit panic mode and can't for the life of you remember where the vacuum is s stored, a rolled magazine, your dog-eared novel, or a fly swatter would work just fine. Complement this action by dusting and vacuuming around all the places where brown recluse spiders are most likely to be lurking in your home, such as underneath furniture, beds, storage boxes, woodwork, cleaning tools, or inside closets. In short, anywhere that's dark, isolated, and offers clutter must be inspected for traces of these eight-legged arthropods. That way, you can also eliminate any spiderlings, egg sacs, and their darling retreats that weren't already apparent, sending out a clear message that it's time to move elsewhere. As a bonus, it'll take care of other tiny critters that the recluse spiders were hungering for.

However, take precautions by donning full sleeves, long pants, and thick gloves, in case a mother spider turns aggressive. Also, cast out the vacuum's contents in a Ziploc bag outside. Alternatively, you may take down the spider webs with long-handled dusters, mops, or brooms. However, ensure you wash them clean outside or rub them over your grass to squash any remaining egg cases.

Another chemical-free way to evict dangerous brown recluse spiders from your home is to deploy sticky traps or glue boards around their hot spots, such as along the corners, joints, and crevices of low-traffic areas. Ensure they're close to walls, given the spiders' penchant for tracking walls. Although sticky traps are essentially a monitoring mechanism — used to gauge the level and direction of infestation — they also help control established populations. The idea is that the arachnids (regardless of the population size) will crawl over them, get stuck, and perish. However, since they work non-selectively, non-target insects will be caught, too.

To get the best results, place the traps flat on the ground sans any covering and replace them weekly. But if the area tends to collect dust bunnies and debris or you've got inquisitive children and playful pets itching to reduce anything in their path to tatters, switch to traps shaped into a vertical strut form (folded pyramidal), such as Bell's trapper insect traps found on Amazon. Remember, the more traps you put, the more recluse spiders you'll catch, so err on the side of excess. Luckily, they're quite inexpensive, and you can also swap in the traps targeted at catching mice or roaches for this purpose. Note, however, that complete eradication won't be possible unless you simultaneously remove clutter and food sources. 

You can naturally deter dangerous brown recluse spiders from your home using diatomaceous earth. Derived from the hardened remains of diatoms (aquatic algae) — hence the name — diatomaceous earth (DE) is a relatively non-toxic, insecticidal dust employed against a myriad of crawling critters, including brown recluse spiders. It works on contact, meaning it starts lacerating the exoskeletons of the spiders when they walk on it, courtesy of its pointed particles. Once lacerated, the arachnids' bodies lose fat and oils, leaving them high and dry.

To employ this strategy, get yourself a food-grade diatomaceous earth product, as it's considered safe around pets and their humans. OMRI-listed Perma-Guard and Safer Brand's Ant & Crawling Insect Killer are considered benign indoors and outdoors, respectively. Also, get hold of a powder sprayer (you can get one for $23.99 on Amazon) to ensure even coverage from a safe distance (it is still best to wear a mask during this process). Apply the inert dust powder ¼ inch thick or as the label advises in the most commonly crawled-on areas, including floor corners, baseboards, crawlspaces, and underneath the insulation. Ascertain the DE dust remains dry throughout, as it's ineffective otherwise, and replace the powder weekly. Remember, it's a slow-moving process and may miss the mark in larger infestations, as impregnated female spiders largely steer clear of them, limiting themselves to their retreats. If used outdoors, it may harm beneficial insects.

Your lawn may be attracting brown recluse spiders, especially if it's cluttered with piles of yard waste, branches, or debris which provide them with dark places to hide and munch on dead insects. Tidying your yard up is one way to reduce the brown recluse spider infestation. That means any shrubbery or mulch that has strayed within 18 inches of your home's foundation must go. Similarly, overgrown, unruly grasses, tree branches, and foliage closer to windows and doors must be trimmed to prevent them from inviting the spiders indoors — you might want to check on your weather-stripping and sealing at the same time.

You'll also want to deprive the solitary spiders of rocks, junk boxes, and firewood piles they may turn into their refuge — after all, clutter is their jam. Or, at the very least, move the stacks (with protective gloves on) to the farthest ends of your home's perimeters and cover them with a tarp. Boxes of clutter can be sealed shut with tape and placed away from walls. Removing these spiders' food sources alone isunlikely to work. That's because they can survive for months on end without food. So, focus instead on eliminating areas favorable to them.

The need to go green and chemical-free has pushed vinegar from its veritable status as a cooking ingredient to a killer elixir that keeps pests in check, including brown recluse spiders. Although the recipe is quite variable, most agree on diluting white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, or malt vinegar in equal parts of water with a few drops of Dawn dish soap or peppermint oil thrown in for equal measure. As for the results? It depends. While there is no scientific evidence backing up vinegar's potency, there is some anecdotal evidence that spiders fall afoul of this concoction, or at least orb-weaving and house spiders have. Apparently, the acetic acid solution liquidates soft exoskeletons. But since brown recluse spiders parade sturdier bodies, the vinegar solution may throw up variable results, though eliminating a few stray spiders, juveniles in particular, shouldn't be complicated. Stronger acetic acid concentrations may offer more reliable control.

That being said, one thing is certain: Vinegar DIY solutions won't destroy any egg cases. This means you might wind up in an endless cycle of killing spiders but facing their next-gen, though vacuuming their webs might provide some respite. There is also little evidence to back up the use of vinegar as a smell-based repellent. If using it outside, be careful when spraying it around plants. The vinegar can burn the leaves, damage the plant, or even kill it if used in large amounts.

You may think that the little blue and yellow bottle, aka WD-40, that you use to keep your appliances working smoothly could be a quick-witted, last-minute solution to killing any recluse spider, but we urge you to reconsider. It's undeniable that effusively coating arachnids in WD-40 dampens their brain activity (think anesthetization) and plugs their spiracles, cutting off airflow, causing asphyxiation.

However, the results aren't instantaneous, with spiders taking over five minutes to die after the initial onslaught. Also, there is no residual activity, with the spray working as a mid-contact killer — a stinky one at that. Worse, considering WD-40 contains ingredients that are toxic when inhaled, you might want to give up this idea altogether for your health. For this reason, you may even want to skip using WD-40 to prevent spiders from gathering in window corners — the unsightly stains and fire risk aren't worth it.

Several homeowners rely on essential oils to help keep brown recluse spiders out of their homes, hoping the aroma would irritate the spiders enough to want to leave (while still leaving the home smelling heavenly). Several recipes abound, with most advocating for blending peppermint oil (or any other strong-scented oil like citrus, tea tree, lavender, and lemongrass) and soap with water. However, despite the anecdotal hearsay, there is little truth to essential oils offering long-term deterrence against spiders. It certainly may deter spiders from entering your home, but it will not kill them or stop large infestations.

A Kansas State University study put the theory to test and found that while recluse spiders struggled after inhaling the essential oils, they recovered within two days of contact. Lemongrass oil couldn't kill a single spider while lemon and wild orange oils reduced the population by a mere 10% — that, too, after the spiders physically came into contact with the oil-infused cardboards. In light of these facts, consider passing over the method, especially if you're dealing with a major brown recluse infestation.

Another method making the rounds of brown recluse control is to expose the spiders to boric acid. However, doing so is equivalent to setting yourself up for failure. While boric acid is great at getting rid of ants and roaches who will gladly ingest the powder while going about their business until their insides are turned out and their nervous system is impaired permanently, it doesn't work for spiders. Some manufacturers even warn that brown recluse spiders are unlikely to consume the powder, as they rely on a liquid diet.

Nevertheless, there is one instance where boric acid may conceivably play a role in thwarting a spider infestation: when they groom themselves . If the spider walks through the powder and then cleans its legs, it will ingest the powder and die. However, this won't be as effective of a method as, say, diatomaceous earth, which is sharp and will lacerate their bodies. Because of this, it's better to skip this method and go for something more guaranteed. 

In addition to allegedly loathing the fragrance of peppermint and lemon oils, there are stories galore about spiders hating the fragrance of aromatic fruit trees like Osage orange or hedge apples. Eucalyptus trees (both as houseplants and garden trees) are also lumped into this category, even though they're fairly impractical to grow inside because of their size and light requirements. Barring the internet chatter, however, there is no scientific evidence backing the role of aromatic trees in warding off spiders.

Occasionally, horse chestnut trees have been pedaled as spider repellents. When a few entomologists set about to test this claim out in 2018, the results were mixed, with some invasive spider species like the brown widow spiders becoming uneasy when the chestnut scent was around, while others ignored it. There is a caveat, though. It repelled them only during the pre-establishment stage and not after the arachnids had already made themselves at home. Naturally, the claims were extended to the class of brown recluse spiders as well, even though they weren't tested in this small study. So, it remains to be seen whether chestnut will repulse them, too. If you're still eager to test it yourself, place a few nuts around entry points and see what happens.

Amid the heady list of natural pest control hacks that deter brown recluse spiders from venturing inside your homes and yards, you've likely chanced upon cedarwood, cedar mulch, cedar chips, or cedar shavings playing a pivotal role. You might've even heard of people adding cedarwood blocks in their infrequently used cabinets and drawers to prevent spiders, moths, and other bugs from making them their new home. Strange enough, these tactics make intuitive sense, too. Cedarwood oil is known to successfully destroy a whole bevy of insects, from mosquitoes, ticks, and fire ants to common house flies.

Unfortunately, such repellent properties don't extend to any spider species, least of all brown recluse spiders. Greenway Pest Solutions notes that this anecdotal pest control method may appear to work for a little while, but it's no match for long-proven methods — nor is it an effective insect repellent in general. Avoid this brown recluse pest control hack.