Why more spiders will be crawling into your home this autumn
A wet spring meant more bugs, and more bugs meant more spiders will be finding their way into your home this month.
At least that’s what Bug Guy Stuart Brown, with The Bug Guys Pets and Exotics, predicts as he’s seen an uptick in spiders and other bugs this season.
“What’s happening right now is they’re starting to look for somewhere to hibernate,” he said, adding he hasn’t conducted a study about the population increase but noticed there have been more spiders around.
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“This spring was very wet meaning plants did very well, meaning prey animals did very well, therefore spiders did very well since they had a ton of food,” Brown said.
This time of year, as the weather cools down, spiders try to find a safe place to hunker down for the winter that tends to be near people, “until they get squished.”
Common spiders that Interior residents will likely see around are the wolf spiders and giant house spiders.
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“They’re nomadic. They almost live like tiny tarantulas, they don’t have their webs, they will roam around quite a bit more naturally, so you’ll be running into those more for sure,” he said.
Because of the food availability, orb weavers are another common species that will migrate closer to buildings.
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“Those are the classic Charlotte’s Web kind of spiders. I’ve had an enormous one living next to my bedroom window all summer, so she’s keeping the bugs out,” he chucked.
Penticton resident Cheryl Kmyta found a banded garden spider next to her door earlier this week.
“As long as they’re harmless, we’re not spider killers or anything, we remove them from the house safely,” she said.
“Those stink bugs are dreadful right now on the West Bench so if he eats some of those, that’s all good.”
The brown marmorated stink bug, an invasive species in Canada, is thriving in B.C. with summer-like weather extending into fall, according to experts.
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