Spiders, Spiders, everywhere....Help!

trainsteve2435

trainsteve2435

Member
Jun 18, 2004
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barboursville, wv
Hello everyone, i just finished removeing about ten thousand spider webs from all of my rolling stock as well as all of my buildings on my layout, man what a job. The culprits are about the size of a pencil led, but do they make a mess. My layout is in my garage and no matter how hard i try, i cant get rid of the little pests. Does anyone know if they make a spider bomb or anything i might be able to buy to help get rid of these things? I mean, they dont really hurt anything, but i just cant stand the look of little spider webs everywhere on all of my hard work. Thanks!:eek:
 
Good suggestion, Andrew, and less messy than spraying, which can end up all over the layout.

I was considering a rotary snowplow to clear the right-of-way, especially in the only tunnel, or where structures are close to the track. At least the locos wouldn't end up like this:
2007-01-10_462.jpg


Of course, with limited clearances in some areas, it would be of little help with problems like this:
2007-01-10_595.jpg


Wayne
 
Steve,First be careful as some spiders can deliver a nasty bite.Any insect bomb should work on your pest.Just be sure to let your garage air out after the bombing before reentering.
 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions, i appreciate them. i think i will try the sticky pads first and if they dont work then get a spider bomb. thanks again, ill keep everyone posted on how this turns out.:thumb:;
 
Also, you should consider spraying around the outside perimeter of your garage - that is spray around the doors, windows, etc - not only on the interior but also on the exterior. This could help prevent more critters from coming back into your garage to replace the ones that you have killed.

RW
 
thats sad! spiders are good to have around, they keep all the other nonsense out! scooping them out ought do the trick, and you'll have to find a better way to close in your garage. Realize that even if bomb them, more might come back, so don't kill the little guys, scoop them up on some paper and kick them out.
 
Oh, might I mention its considered "impossible" to fumigate against spiders due to their shell. Ask any bug professional, they'll say the only way they get rid of spiders is to get rid of the bugs that attract them.
 
Josh,Spiders can go months without eating according to a show I watched on The Geographic Channel.Also there are sprays and inspect bombs that will kill most species of spiders.Also certain types of spiders will eat other spiders including their own species.
 
jbaakko said:
I head on DIY, to place eucalyptus branches and leaves, and they'll leave you alone. Have yet to try it.
Click to expand...

Nope in the land of drop bears, err Koalas etc. Spiders use eucalyptus trees to toss webs off as well.
Bomb em! but leave some webs around to make other spiders think they are intruding on anothers area.
On my layout G1 tiny spiders look like scale rats just with more legs, more that could be an interesting conversion spiders into scale rats sign1
apart from that give your scale people fly swatters
 
spray the perimeter of the structure and bomb the inside. That should do it for a while. They will come back...they always do! LOL!
 
As Mason Jar above suggested, I bought a Lee Valley spider trap to see how effective it works. I have spiders and house centipedes in my basement which gives me shivers up my backbone. In the past I have used Raid Spider Blaster, which does a good job at killing these pests. Unfortuately, using bug spray means that I give myself a large dose of the insecticide.

Therefore I hope the spider trap works, because it is a more passive and safer approach (I have no pets or young children).

RW
 
Hey Steve, a lot of the suggestions as stated above will work to some degree. I've gone through your pain when using garages and basements. I never really got rid of webs until I went to a separate room that was sealed off from the rest of the house, except for a single door. I am now using a temp bulding outside my house that I finished with insulation, wiring, sheetrock and plaster. It's free of bugs, dust and anything else that would impede my hobby. In your case, you will never get rid of those pests completely, so the best advice I could give you would be for you to wall off your train area from the rest of the garage. ie: use 2x4's, wallboard, etc. Then seal it with plaster and especially around the door. Keep a shop vac in there when any bugs do appear. It works for me. Recently, I had to chase out some wasps that wanted to start a family in there. That's when the shop vac paid for itself. Good luck, Bob
 
Go to Lowe's, get a gallon of Ortho "Home Defense"..about $10. It has a self spray, adjustable pattern. You spray inside perimeter first, base of walls, around doors and windows, then about 2-3 days later, outside. Wipes them out for about 6 months. No fumes, nothing on my track as far as a detectable residue, you can spray in food areas,too. This is the stuff you're looking for. I use it about twice a year, and have no spiders in my layout or my timberframe home....and you know how they love wood. I live in a woods, so that's a real tough case if you want no spiders inside.
 
DON'T YOU KILL THOSE INNOCENT SPIDERS! READ THIS BEFORE YOU NUKE YOUR HOUSE

Fact: Most cob webs are actually made from dust, not spiders. static electricity in the area around the tracks and through the dust causes it to stick together.

Fact: Spiders (and centipedes) are beneficial to your home. Just like a cat might catch mice that invade your homes, many spiders that come in your house are aggressive predators that will keep your house free of small inscect nuscances. Few species will make a web in your home other than the spindly ones mentioned before (the name escapes me). there are plenty of those in my basement, but they don't make the kinds of webs seen in pictures like DoctorWayne's.

You can trust me on this, i was an amateur entomologist ( thats insects) before i did trains, and spiders were related enough that i looked into them to.

Don't kill the spider, just vaccum around the layout more.
 
Well, those webs that I get on the layout are the same as the ones in the rest of the house, and there are spiders on them. I don't mind spiders in the house, but it does "bug" me when I get cobwebs in the layout room. I don't know if they're the ones responsible for the webs, but the ones that I see most often on the layout are very small (about a quarter of the size of the head of a pin, and are orangey-red. The other common ones here are just house spiders (like house cats, only nicer, 'cause they don't shed),;) fairly small, pale-coloured ones. My favourites are the black and white jumping spiders - I don't think that they even build webs, but they're very aggressive. If you have a good complement of spiders, chances are that you at least don't have too many centipedes, as centipedes will kill spiders. I'll take the spiders any day. :rolleyes::-D

Wayne
 
Could be worse...you could have several of these living in your house, though I doubt they would tolerate sharing the same territory with each other.

Warning!!! DO NOT click on the links provided if you are seriously freaked out by spiders! This is no joke. I don't want some poor sucker with arachnophopia giving me poop cause he smashed his monitor when this page popped up!

Mygalomorphae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Snipped from Wikipedia

"While the world's biggest spiders are mygalomorphs - Theraphosa blondi (Latreille, 1804) has a body length of 10 cm, and a leg span of 28 cm - some species are less than one millimeter long. Mygalomorphs are capable of spinning at least slightly adhesive silk, and some build elaborate capture webs that approach a meter in diameter (Coddington & Levy, 1991).
Unlike Araneomorphae, which die after about a year, Mygalomorphae can live for up to 25 years, and some don't reach maturity until they are about six years old.[1]"

The truely hee-bubba-jee-bees parts are bolded for emphasis.

I find spiders facinating creatures and am the only person in the house who would rather trap them and send them packing then kill them, although if I saw one this big, I'd freak out and grab a 2x4!!! :eek:
 
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