Don’t Kill the Spider: The Wildlife Sharing Your Home Is More Useful Than You Think
Don’t Kill the Spider: The Wildlife Sharing Your Home Is More Useful Than You Think
“That enormous spider in the bath isn’t plotting against you — and it may be doing more pest control than you realise.”
There is something rather revealing about our attitude to wildlife.
We are happy to put up bird feeders. We build insect hotels. We plant flowers for bees, leave autumn leaves for hedgehogs and talk enthusiastically about biodiversity.
Then a large spider runs across the sitting-room carpet at 10 o’clock at night.
Suddenly, our commitment to wildlife conservation can become rather less enthusiastic.
Yet perhaps going green should not stop at the back door.
Our homes are not sealed biological bubbles. They sit within an ecosystem, and throughout the year — particularly during autumn — various small creatures find their way inside. Some are permanent residents, some have wandered in accidentally and some are simply looking for somewhere sheltered to survive the winter.
Before reaching for the vacuum cleaner, shoe or insect spray, it is worth asking a different question:
What is this creature actually doing here — and does it really need to die?
Autumn Has Not Suddenly Produced Millions More Spiders
Every autumn we see the familiar headlines:
“GIANT SPIDERS INVADE BRITISH HOMES!”
It sounds alarming.
The reality is rather less dramatic.
House-spider sightings tend to peak in autumn partly because adult males begin wandering in search of females. The Natural History Museum notes that house spiders are particularly mobile from around August to October, and warmer autumn conditions can make them visible for longer. They may enter through open windows, doors and other gaps.
So when a surprisingly large spider races across the floor, it probably hasn't suddenly hatched behind your sofa.
It may simply be a male looking for a mate.
And your living room happens to be on the route.
That makes the autumn spider invasion much less like a horror film and rather more like somebody becoming hopelessly lost on the way to a date.
Why Is There Always One in the Bath?
The spider sitting apparently helplessly in the bath is another familiar autumn sight.
There is a persistent belief that these spiders have somehow crawled through the plughole.
They generally haven't.
The water-filled trap beneath a normal bath or sink makes that route highly improbable. More commonly, a roaming spider has fallen into the bath and then discovered that it cannot grip the smooth sides well enough to climb back out. The British Arachnological Society even suggests hanging a towel over the bath edge to provide an escape route.
So the enormous spider waiting for you in the morning may not be occupying the bath.
It may be trapped in it.
Your Eight-Legged Pest-Control Department
Spiders are predators.
They eat other small animals — principally insects and other invertebrates.
That means the unobtrusive spider living behind furniture, beneath a cupboard or in a corner of the garage isn't eating your house.
It is eating some of the creatures that are sharing it with you.
Flies, small moths and numerous other invertebrates can become spider prey. The British Arachnological Society describes spiders in buildings as doing considerable good by consuming insects.
They are certainly not a substitute for dealing properly with a genuine infestation. If you have food moths, fleas or another household pest problem, allowing a spider to live behind the bookcase is not going to solve it.
But neither is that spider necessarily the problem.
In ecological terms, it is much more likely to be part of the clean-up crew.
That is worth remembering before destroying it simply because it happens to have eight legs.
Spiders Are Part of the Food Web Too
There is another reason to reconsider the idea that wildlife should be divided neatly into animals we like and animals we don't.
Spiders are themselves food.
Outside our homes they form part of complex food webs involving birds and many other animals. They are predators, but they are also prey.
The RHS includes spiders among the predators that help keep populations of other invertebrates in check and describes such predators as important components of healthy ecosystems.
Remove enough links from an ecosystem and eventually we start wondering why everything else has changed.
That doesn't mean one spider behind your wardrobe is single-handedly saving British biodiversity.
It means that our instinctive division of nature into “useful creatures” and “things to squash” is rather too simplistic.
But I Really Don't Want a Spider in the Bedroom
That is completely reasonable.
Wildlife-friendly living does not mean surrendering your house.
You do not have to share your pillow with a house spider in order to qualify as environmentally responsible.
There is a very simple compromise:
Relocate Rather Than Kill
The traditional method works remarkably well:
- Place a glass, mug or transparent container gently over the spider.
- Slide a stiff piece of card underneath.
- Keep the card against the container.
- Carry your passenger somewhere more appropriate.
- Release it carefully.
For house spiders in poor weather, a shed, garage, porch or other sheltered area may be more suitable than simply dropping the animal onto an exposed lawn. The British Arachnological Society specifically recommends sheltered outbuildings for some house spiders.
It takes perhaps two minutes.
No insecticide is required.
No spider is killed.
And peace is restored.
Prevention Is Better Than Panic
If you genuinely dislike spiders, coexistence doesn't have to mean allowing every wandering male to move in.
Simple measures can reduce the number entering the main living areas:
- repair obvious gaps around doors and windows;
- use draught excluders where appropriate;
- fit insect screens where practical;
- avoid leaving windows wide open beside bright lights for long periods;
- reduce unnecessary clutter in areas where you particularly don't want spiders;
- accept that sheds, garages and lofts may naturally contain rather more wildlife.
The Natural History Museum notes that modern homes can actually be rather poor environments for many spiders because they are warm, dry and frequently disturbed.
So the creature running through your lounge may not even want to live there permanently.
And Then There Are the Ladybirds
Spiders are not the only creatures that start turning up indoors as the seasons change.
You may suddenly discover ladybirds around window frames, particularly in groups.
Again, they are not assembling an invasion force.
Many ladybirds spend winter as adults in sheltered places. Buildings provide cracks, window frames and protected spaces that can resemble the natural shelters they would otherwise use. Some species — particularly harlequin ladybirds — can form conspicuous clusters indoors.
And ladybirds are valuable predators themselves.
Many species feed heavily on aphids and other small plant-feeding insects.
The strange little beetle hiding in your window frame in November may therefore be one of the creatures helping control greenfly in the garden next year.
Central Heating Can Actually Be the Problem
There is an interesting complication.
An insect that has chosen a cool crack in which to spend winter may become active if central heating suddenly turns its refuge into a warm spring-like environment.
The Natural History Museum notes that ladybirds overwintering indoors can wake prematurely in heated conditions, when little suitable food is available. A cooler shed or similar sheltered place can sometimes be more appropriate.
This is a useful reminder that warmest does not always mean best for wildlife.
Different animals need different conditions.
What About Moths?
Moths deserve a little more caution.
Seeing a moth indoors does not automatically mean that your wardrobe is being eaten.
There are many moth species, and some may simply have flown indoors accidentally or sought shelter.
But there are genuine household pests.
The two moths commonly responsible for damage to natural fibres in British homes are the common clothes moth and case-bearing clothes moth. Interestingly, the adult moths are not chewing holes through your jumper — their larvae do the damage, feeding on materials containing animal fibres such as wool.
So the sensible environmental response isn't:
“Never kill any moth.”
It is:
“Identify what you are dealing with before deciding what to do.”
A large moth resting beside an open window and a persistent population of tiny moths emerging from a wool carpet are very different situations.
Wildlife-friendly living should be based on understanding, not indiscriminate tolerance.
Some Moths Really Do Want Somewhere to Spend the Winter
The Herald moth is a lovely example.
It spends winter as an adult and naturally seeks somewhere cool, dark and sheltered — perhaps a cave, shed, barn or similar structure — before becoming active again in spring.
Finding an insect resting quietly in an outbuilding therefore doesn't necessarily mean that something has gone wrong.
It may mean that the building is doing exactly what a hollow tree or rocky crevice would have done before we built it.
Even Butterflies Sometimes Move In
Peacock and small tortoiseshell butterflies can also overwinter as adults and sometimes choose buildings.
A butterfly resting quietly in a cool shed may be perfectly content.
The problem occurs when it chooses a heated room.
Warmth can wake the butterfly prematurely, encouraging it to fly around when winter conditions outside mean there is little food available. Wildlife organisations recommend carefully moving such butterflies to a cool, sheltered, unheated place where they can remain dormant and later escape in spring.
Again, the answer isn't destruction.
It is understanding what the animal is trying to do.
Your House Has an Ecosystem Whether You Planned One or Not
We tend to think about ecosystems as things belonging somewhere else.
A woodland has an ecosystem.
A pond has an ecosystem.
A meadow has an ecosystem.
But buildings support communities of organisms too.
There are creatures living in roof spaces, beneath floors, around windows, behind sheds, in gutters, beneath flowerpots and in the microscopic spaces between our homes and gardens.
Most of them cause us no trouble whatsoever.
We simply don't notice them.
Perhaps the remarkable thing about the autumn house spider isn't that it has suddenly entered our world.
It is that, briefly, we have noticed the world that was already there.
A Simple Autumn Wildlife Rule
When an unexpected creature appears indoors, I think there are four questions worth asking before doing anything drastic:
What is it?
Identification matters. A harmless wandering moth is different from a clothes-moth infestation.
Is it actually causing a problem?
Being visible isn't the same thing as being harmful.
Can I simply leave it alone?
A spider in a quiet garage corner may require no action whatsoever.
If it needs moving, can I relocate it somewhere suitable?
Often the answer is yes.
That approach takes only a little more effort than automatically reaching for insecticide.
But multiplied across millions of homes, small changes in attitude matter.
Going Green Sometimes Means Sharing
There is a slight contradiction in the way we sometimes talk about nature.
We say we want more wildlife.
But often what we really mean is:
We want more wildlife that we find attractive, provided it stays precisely where we want it.
Robins are welcome.
Butterflies are welcome.
Bees are increasingly welcome.
The long-legged spider racing across the carpet receives a rather different reception.
Yet nature doesn't divide itself into Instagram-friendly species and disposable ones.
Going green is partly about solar panels, insulation, recycling, heat pumps and reducing our consumption.
But it is also about something much simpler:
learning to tolerate a little more nature around us.
You do not have to love spiders.
You certainly don't have to let one remain in your bedroom.
But perhaps the next time an enormous house spider appears in the bath, give it a glass, a piece of card and a second chance.
It isn't plotting against you.
It is probably lost.
And, until you noticed it, it may have been quietly helping to keep some of your other six-legged visitors under control.
Sometimes being greener does not require buying anything, installing anything or spending any money at all.
Sometimes it simply requires deciding not to squash something.
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