Spider Control across Cape Town

The big hairy one that sends people running in late summer is usually a rain spider (Palystes), which looks fearsome but is reluctant to bite and best left alone or moved outside. Sac spiders (Cheiracanthium) are the small pale ones you find in folded curtains and behind picture frames, and they are behind many of the night-time bites people blame on other things. Violin spiders (Loxosceles) are shy, brownish and like undisturbed cupboards, garages and storerooms, and their bite can cause a slow-healing wound, so they are worth taking seriously. Button spiders (Latrodectus), both the black and the brown species, turn up under garden furniture, in meter boxes and around pool pumps on Cape Town properties. Daddy longlegs, baboon spiders in rural Boland plots and a range of orb weavers make up most of the rest.

Is it really a spider bite?

A lot of spider control calls start with a mark on someone's skin. Spiders do bite now and then, but plenty of other things leave a red bump overnight, and the treatment is completely different for each. Before blaming the spider in the corner, look at the pattern:

• Several small itchy bites clustered around the ankles and lower legs usually point to fleas, especially in a house with cats or dogs.
• Bites in a line or small group on the arms, neck or shoulders, found in the morning, suggest bed bugs. Check the mattress seams for small dark spots.
• One raised, itchy bump on an exposed arm or face in summer is most often a mosquito.
• Itchy bites at night in a room below a pigeon or myna nest in the roof are often bird mites leaving an abandoned nest. Our bird mite page explains it.
• A single bite that blisters, darkens or keeps growing over a few days is the one where a spider is more likely, and it should be seen by a doctor.

If the pattern fits fleas, our flea control page is the place to start. For bed bugs, see bed bug control. Treating the house for spiders will not touch either problem.

Not every eight-legged thing is a spider

Two creatures cause a lot of fear around Cape Town and the Boland without being spiders at all. Solifuges, which many people know as red romans or sun spiders, are fast, reddish brown and have huge jaws, but they have no venom glands. They also chase shade, which is why one seems to run straight at you on a sunny day. They are most common on drier properties along the West Coast and in the Boland. Harvestmen look like very small-bodied daddy longlegs with one rounded body section. They are common in damp gardens and are harmless too.

Mistakes that keep a spider problem going

These are the ones we see again and again:

1. Bug-bombing the house. An aerosol fogger settles on open surfaces and barely reaches the roof void, the eaves or the wall cavities where most spiders actually spend the day.
2. Cleaning inside and ignoring outside. The webs around the outside lights, eaves and gutters are where the next generation comes from.
3. Forgetting the outbuildings. The house is treated and clean, but the Wendy house, the pool pump housing and the old garage cupboard are left full of webs.
4. Clearing the garage without gloves. Moving boxes that have stood untouched for a year is the most likely time to meet a violin or button spider.
5. Panicking over the big garden webs. The large wheel-shaped webs strung between shrubs belong to orb weavers, which are harmless and catch flying insects. The small, scruffy tangles low down under furniture and in meter boxes deserve the careful look.

Spider control for guest houses, creches and offices

For a business, the issue is usually what people see. A web in the corner of a guest room or a spider in a creche toilet will be noticed, photographed and talked about, even when the spider is harmless. These places do best with a routine: we treat the eaves, voids and outbuildings on a schedule, and staff brush down new webs weekly between visits. For guest houses, a treatment in October, before the busy summer season, makes more sense than reacting in January when the rain spiders arrive. In offices, the complaints usually start on the ground floor near the loading bay or bin room, where lights and open doors draw in insects. Pick your suburb from the list below for notes on what we usually find there, or read more about how we treat on the spider control page.

Quick answers

Spider Control by suburb