Follow-Up: Spider Repellent – Safe for You, Children, Pets.. Even the Spiders

I recently published a post (click here) about a safe spider repellent that was easy and cheap to make. For several weeks before using the spray, I had found several spiders crawling around my apartment. In the interest of finding a non-toxic way of warding them off, I searched the internet for a solution.

It has now been three weeks since I sprayed my apartment and I have seen three spiders. I am not sure if the first counts, because I noticed it that evening. The second spider was close to the baseboards, so I am not sure about what to make of that. The third spider, however, was dangling from a cabinet door in a place I didn’t spray.

The important thing (at least in my opinion) is that two of these spiders were about the size of a pencil eraser. The third was about the size of a penny. The spiders I found prior to spraying ranged in size from a quarter to a half dollar. So at least the ones I found after spraying were smaller.

I am not quite sure if this spray does work. I can’t rule it out as a possibility. I am tempted to experiment with it. Maybe set up two tanks/containers where one is clean and half of the other has been sprayed with the repellant. I could then drop a spider into each. One would serve as the control, the other the subject.  That seems like a lot of work and would introduce complications, such as having to choose two spiders of the same species. I am a geologist, not an arachnologist. The experiment would also require knowledge of whether certain spiders are more susceptible to the taste of lemon than others. Again, I am not an arachnologist.

My thoughts are that the repellent probably does work, but may need to be reapplied once a week or every two weeks. In the mean time, I will continue to use it and see if I find any more spiders. I might also look into finding an arachnologist at my school and seeing if they have any answers.

In the mean time, I will leave you with the recipe (modified from the source, see the original post for that) since I didn’t the first time around:

• 6 oz of water
• 1-1/2 teaspoon of liquid dish soap
• 10 drops of lemon oil

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