I know there’s nothing to be scared of about spiders and I try to be brave for the sake of the kids as I don’t want them to grow up scared of them but when I see one of the little eight legged creatures in the house, I can’t rest until it’s gone.
Mr Frugal is great at rescuing them and freeing them in the garden, far far away from the door and I have an amazing next door neighbour who fills in for him when he’s not here but I’ll be honest, I’d rather not see them at all. This time of year is particularly challenging as they all seem to want to come inside and make their way to whichever room I’m in!
That’s why I’ve been trying out my homemade version of Spider Stop which stops spiders from coming into your house at all in theory because they hate the smell!
Spider Stop is just water mixed with peppermint and lemon essential oils – both of which are scents that spiders allegedly hate. I made my first batch a couple of weeks ago and sprayed it around all the door and window frames and sat back to see how effective it was.
The first batch wasn’t that great to be honest and I didn’t see a difference in the number of spiders we saw so after a week, I went back to the drawing board and make a second, stronger version which does seem to have worked.
I made my spray using a cheap glass bottle I bought off eBay (99p) which I topped up to about three quarters full with water. I then added 20 drops of peppermint essential oil and 20 drops of lemon essential oil which was about double what I added in the first batch.
I added a label to the bottle (because if it looks good then it’s more likely to work, right?) and sent the kids off to spray around every window and door frame.
I’m convinced it’s had an effect on the number of spiders we’ve seen this week so we’ll be making another batch to respray again soon!
(PS) As always, be careful spraying when using Essential Oils. This post shares a bit of information about what you should know before using essential oils.
Don’t miss out on future posts like this – receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also find me on BlogLovin, Yummly and Networked Blogs and I’d love to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram.
