If you've been seeing brown recluse spiders outdoors or in your home, you may be concerned about the safety of your family and pets. While the spiders don't attack people without being provoked, a playful cat or dog could easily get bitten by irritating a brown recluse. Plus, when the spiders are indoors, you could brush up against one accidentally when you put on clothing or shoes and get a bad bite.

You may not even want to mess around with DIY treatments since these spiders are dangerous to your health if you get bit. Instead, call a pest control company for effective brown recluse control. Here are steps they may take. 

Brown Recluse Control For The Outdoors

Plugging holes around your windows and doors is important since the spiders may crawl up the walls and slip inside if they're attracted to bugs circling the lights. The pest control professional may go around the perimeter of your home and plug all the holes and cracks they find.

They can also point out things you need to do so the spiders aren't attracted to your house. This might include keeping plants and mulch away from your foundation, not stacking wood or yard debris near your house, and having pesticide treatments applied around the perimeter of your home to kill bugs the spiders prey on. Creating a spider-free zone around your house can reduce the risk of spiders getting indoors.

Brown Recluse Control For Inside The House

The pest control company may need to seal cracks and gaps inside your house too. They may puff insecticide powder into cracks that can't be sealed. Using an insecticide that has a residual effect can provide long-term protection against brown recluse spiders. The pest control company might also recommend using glue traps to catch spiders that walk across them and to monitor the number of spiders caught.

You'll probably also need insecticide treatments indoors to get rid of an infestation as quickly as possible, although it could take time to completely get rid of brown recluse spiders since they reproduce so fast. However, by using insecticides, other bugs are killed, and that wipes out the spiders' food supply.

For brown recluse control to be most effective, you'll want to declutter your entire house to eliminate hiding spaces for the spiders. These spiders don't usually make webs in the ceiling. Instead, they hide in clutter. When you open boxes and pick up piles of clothes, watch carefully for spiders so you don't get bitten.

When you're cleaning, you may want to keep a spray bottle of soapy water nearby so you can kill individual spiders at a distance with a stream of soapy water so you don't get bit and so the spider doesn't get away to multiply.

Contact a brown recluse control service to learn more.