If you live in Kansas City, you probably know the feeling. The weather finally cools down. You open the windows. You start spending more time on the patio. And suddenly… there are spiders everywhere. One in the basement, one hanging out by the garage door, and a giant web appeared on the porch seemingly overnight. And, of course, there’s always one that decides the shower is the perfect place to introduce itself first thing in the morning.
So why does it feel like Kansas City turns into spider central every fall? There actually are a few reasons—and surprisingly, it’s not simply because spiders are cold and trying to get inside your house.
Fall Is a Busy Time for Spiders
One of the biggest reasons you notice more spiders in late summer and fall is that many spiders are reaching adulthood and becoming more active. For some species, fall is also mating season. Male spiders leave their usual hiding places and start wandering around looking for females. Unfortunately, spiders aren’t particularly concerned with property lines. As they move around, they can end up in garages, basements, around windows and doors, or wandering across your living room floor.
So in many cases, there aren’t necessarily dramatically more spiders than there were a month ago. You’re just seeing them more often.
They’re Following the Food
If you want to understand why spiders are hanging around your house, it helps to remember one thing: Spiders go where the bugs are. Exterior lights, landscaping, patios, decks, garages and the small gaps around your home can all attract or harbor insects.
And where there are insects, spiders aren’t usually far behind. That’s also why simply knocking down a spider web doesn’t always solve the problem. If your home continues to provide a good food source and good places to build webs, another spider may eventually take its place.
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Your House Has Some Pretty Great Hiding Places
As temperatures fluctuate in the fall, sheltered areas around a home become pretty appealing. Think about all the places a spider can hide: underneath siding, around foundations, inside garages, in window wells, beneath decks, around utility penetrations and inside tiny cracks and crevices.
Some spiders may wander indoors through gaps around doors and windows. Others may have already been living around—or even inside—the structure without you noticing them. For example, behind heavy curtains or in boxes you don’t frequently touch in the basement. That’s an important distinction because you’ll sometimes hear that “spiders come inside in the fall because they’re cold.”
That’s not exactly what’s happening. Fall weather, spider mating behavior, changing insect activity and increased wandering all happen around the same time. The result for homeowners is pretty simple: You start seeing a lot more spiders.
Why Are There So Many Spider Webs Around My Porch?
This is another question we hear a lot in the fall. As the weather becomes more favorable and less hot in Kansas City, we naturally spend more time on our porches and outdoor areas. Porch lights and exterior lighting attract flying insects. For a web-building spider, that’s basically a dinner invitation. That’s why you may notice webs concentrated around porch lights, windows, soffits, doorways and other areas where insects gather.
You can knock the webs down—and we certainly recommend removing them when you see them—but if there are still plenty of insects hanging around, the conditions that attracted the spider haven’t really changed.
So, How Do You Keep Spiders Out of Your House?
There isn’t one magic trick, but there are several things homeowners can do.
- Seal obvious gaps around windows and doors
- Replace damaged screens and weather stripping
- Keep clutter away from foundations
- Regularly remove webs around the exterior of your home. It can also help to think beyond the spider itself
- On occasion, move and clean in the dark areas of your closet, behind curtains, relocate basement storage boxes, etc. Anywhere that sits for a long time with no activity will be a spider haven.
At Gunter Pest & Lawn, our approach to spider control isn’t just about spraying the spider you happen to see. We look at the areas where spiders are living and building webs and at the other pest activity around the home that’s giving them a reason to stick around in the first place. That’s also one of the reasons we focus heavily on the exterior of the home. If we can address pest activity outside, we’d much rather do that than wait for those pests to become an indoor problem.
And If You Find a Spider Inside…
Don’t panic. Most of the spiders we encounter around Kansas City homes are more interested in finding food, shelter or another spider than they are in finding you. But if you’re suddenly seeing spiders over and over again—or your porch starts looking like it decorated itself for Halloween—it may be worth figuring out what’s attracting them.
We’ve been helping Kansas City families deal with spiders and other household pests since 1950, so we’ve seen a fall spider season or two. 🙂 If the spiders are starting to feel a little too comfortable around your house, give our local Gunter Pest & Lawn team a call. We’ll be happy to help figure out what’s going on and the best way to address it.
Local + family-owned since 1950. Serving Kansas City, Overland Park, Prairie Village, Leawood, Shawnee, Lenexa and surrounding communities.
