A cleaning guru has revealed three simple strategies to keep your home spider-free.
Spiders are often unwelcome visitors, and the sight of a web or a spider scuttling up a wall can be quite unsettling for many. If you’re someone who gets spooked by these eight-legged critters, knowing how to deter them from your home could be handy.
Anna Louisa, a cleaning content creator, has shared how she keeps spiders at bay. She posted a video on TikTok with her three tips.
Firstly, she suggests creating a homemade repellent by mixing peppermint oil and water. She advises adding five to 10 drops of peppermint or tea tree oil to 240ml (one cup) of water in a spray bottle.
Spraying this concoction around windows and doors can deter spiders, as they “dislike the smell of both of these oils.”
Secondly, scattering cinnamon sticks around your home can also work wonders. In her TikTok video, Anna continues: “They [spiders] also dislike the smell of cinnamon so dotting some cinnamon sticks around your home will keep them away too.”
She even places a cinnamon stick on her bedside table to ward off any potential unwanted visitors. Anna suggests that you can use conkers as an alternative to cinnamon sticks, although this might not be suitable if you have toddlers or small children at home.
Anna’s last tip is to infuse your mop bucket water with orange oil. She claims that this simple addition deters eight-legged visitors and other insects as well.
The cleaning expert recommends adding the specified amount of orange oil for your mop type, along with a “squirt of dishwashing liquid.” For her own Vileda spray mop, she drops in 15 to 20 drops of the oil, emphasising that orange oil has a gentler aroma than stronger alternatives like peppermint and tea tree oil, making it ideal for larger areas such as floors.
Anna highlights that her advice serves multiple benefits in the caption of her TikTok video: “These are tips to help persuade them [spiders] to go elsewhere – they’re not only easy to do but they also make my home smell amazing!”
Places for People, known for offering homes to rent, echoes Anna’s tips in a blog on its website. Emphasising that spiders find certain odours off-putting, the property company recommends using essential oils for their repellent properties and lists peppermint, tea tree, and eucalyptus oils among the effective scents.
Another handy tip is to place conkers or citrus peels in strategic spots like corners and window sills, playing on the fact that spiders “dislike the smell and will likely move on.” Also, the property company reinforces the need for a tidy space, suggesting regular vacuuming and dusting to clear out any cobwebs or spider eggs.
It also advises sealing up any potential entry points around the house to keep the eight-legged creatures away. These include cracks, doors, and windows.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
