6 Things That Secretly Attract Spiders Into Your Bedroom — or Ham Shack — and How to Stop Them

All,

I saw this headline from Good Housekeeping this morning and almost dismissed it as clickbait.

Turns out there is some legitimate pest-control science behind it — and while reading through the list, it occurred to me that several of these things could just as easily describe the average ham shack.

The basic idea is simple: spiders tend to go where they can find food, shelter and a way inside. According to the experts interviewed for the article, six common factors can make a room more attractive to them.

1. Other bugs

This is the big one. Spiders eat flies, mosquitoes, moths, ants, silverfish, carpet beetles and other small pests. If your room has a steady supply of insects, spiders have a pretty good reason to stick around.

For a ham shack, think about insects attracted to lights, windows or a door that gets opened frequently.

2. Clutter

Boxes, bags, stacks of equipment and things stored on or near the floor provide dark, undisturbed hiding places.

Sound familiar?

I suspect more than a few of us have a box of old coax, connectors, power supplies or “parts I may need someday” tucked into a corner somewhere.

3. Dark hiding places

Spiders like cracks, crevices and protected areas behind furniture and other objects.

A ham shack can offer plenty of those: behind desks, equipment racks, filing cabinets, shelves and cable bundles.

4. Vegetation and bright lights outside

Shrubs or tree limbs touching the house can give spiders an easy route to windows and walls.

Exterior lights can also attract flying insects — which in turn attract spiders looking for dinner.

5. Entry points

Spiders can enter through torn screens, gaps around doors and windows, cracks in exterior walls and utility penetrations.

That last one caught my attention.

Ham shacks frequently have something ordinary bedrooms do not: coax, grounding conductors and other cables passing through walls or window panels. Any poorly sealed penetration is another possible pathway for insects — and possibly the spiders following them.

6. Cooler weather

As temperatures drop, spiders and the insects they eat may move toward protected areas around homes and sometimes indoors.

So what can we do?

Nothing revolutionary: reduce clutter, vacuum around and behind equipment, keep insects under control, trim vegetation away from the house, reduce unnecessary exterior lighting and inspect obvious cracks, screens and cable penetrations.

In other words, perhaps one more reason to finally clean out that corner of the shack we have been promising ourselves we would get to.

Original article:
6 Things That Secretly Attract Spiders Into Your Bedroom — and How to Put a Stop to Them

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Phillip Beall (W5EBC)