Fall is peak spider season indoors. As temperatures drop, spiders — especially males looking for mates — start seeking warmer shelter, and your home is an obvious candidate. The good news is that most spiders you’ll find inside are completely harmless. The better news is that a handful of straightforward habits make your home significantly less welcoming to them in the first place.

Here are six things worth doing now.

1. Seal Up Every Entry Point

Spiders don’t need much room. Check the obvious spots first: gaps around doors and windows, spaces where utility pipes or cables enter the wall, damaged weatherstripping and door sweeps. Any damaged door strips and sweeps should be replaced — they’re cheap to fix and close off a surprising number of entry points. For larger gaps along the foundation or where pipes enter, caulk or fine mesh does the job.

The mindset shift here is treating your home’s envelope as something that needs actual maintenance rather than assuming it’s fine. Spiders that can’t get in can’t take up residence.

2. Vacuum More — Including Corners and Edges

Regular vacuuming disrupts the dark, quiet conditions spiders prefer. Pest control expert Dmitri Dihonov specifically recommends using the long extension attachment to reach corners, baseboards, ceiling junctions, and behind furniture — places that don’t get attention during a standard clean.

Don’t skip outside the house. Vacuuming exterior window frames, doorframes, and the areas immediately around entry points removes existing webs and egg sacs before they contribute to more spiders inside.

3. Eliminate the Food Source

This one is counterintuitive but important: the most effective long-term spider deterrent isn’t something you spray — it’s reducing the insects they eat. Spiders go where the food is. If your home has a lot of flies, gnats, moths, or other small insects, spiders will follow.

“Spiders feed on insects. If they are attracted to your home, it means they’re finding something to eat,” said one pest expert. Fix leaky faucets and address any moisture issues that attract bugs. Keep food sealed and garbage covered. Replace white outdoor lighting — which draws flying insects — with yellow bulbs, which are far less attractive to bugs and therefore far less attractive to the spiders hunting them.

4. Reduce Clutter

“Spiders prefer dark, undisturbed areas like stored boxes in basements, attics, closets, and areas of the home that don’t get much daily activity, as well as under and behind furniture,” Dihonov explains. A home with a lot of stuff sitting undisturbed is essentially advertising vacancy to them.

This doesn’t require a full declutter. It just means not letting piles accumulate in corners, keeping storage areas organized enough that you’re moving things around regularly, and pulling furniture away from walls occasionally so nothing stays undisturbed for months at a time.

5. Tidy Up the Exterior

The outside of your home is where spiders are coming from, so that’s where prevention starts. Trim vegetation that’s touching or close to your house — overgrown shrubs and trees against exterior walls provide excellent harborage and a bridge directly inside. Keep firewood stacked well away from the house, ideally around 30 feet, since spiders love to shelter in woodpiles. Clear leaf litter, debris, and yard waste away from the foundation regularly.

Dihonov recommends inspecting outdoor areas like porches, decks, and overhangs regularly so infestations don’t develop close to entry points.

6. Know the Two Species Worth Worrying About

Most spiders you’ll encounter inside are harmless nuisances. But two species in the U.S. are genuinely dangerous and worth knowing on sight.

The black widow — glossy black with a red hourglass marking on the underside of the abdomen — is found across much of the country and prefers dark, sheltered spots like garages, woodpiles, and undisturbed corners. The brown recluse — tan to brown with a distinctive violin-shaped marking on its back — is concentrated in the South and Midwest and hides in closets, shoes, boxes, and folded clothing.

If the spider problem has gotten serious despite your efforts, that’s the point to call a professional. For occasional intruders, the six steps above handle most of it.

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