Are there more spiders on boats than in houses?

[Jen_P]

I'm seriously considering buying a narrowboat to live about but have bad arachnophobia. It seems particularly bad this autumn too - an absolutely massive spider decided to join me on the sofa to watch the Great British Bake Off last week and scared the living daylights out of me.

One friend who lives aboard says she hardly ever sees a spider but then other people have told me that you get loads of spiders on boats. Which is true? If you get more spiders on boats , I'm not sure I'd cope with it.

Have had therapy to try and sort it but it didn't work!

[Martin Megson]

I've seen more spiders onboard this year than last. Probably more noticeable on a boat as its smaller than a house.

[Phil Ambrose]

In all fairness this year has been particularly good for all insects, spiders included. Spiders do seem to have an affinity with water so one should always expect to see some around. We all help the spiders by leaving all our doors, hatches and windows open for a lot of the time, however it is only in autumn that they tend to move aboard seeking shelter from the colder weather/nights

It is possible to mitigate the situation by choice of windows and by good housekeeping. We noticed that when we had bus windows,spiders would lurk around them and enter when they were open.

On our present boat with fixed portholes they still lurk but cannot get in. Chris (MOH)also has arachnophobia and can spot a money spider at 200 paces but has been coping for the last14 years aboard. The good housekeeping comes in by, as in our case, having a dedicated spider feather duster thingy and ousting spiders that decide to set up camp on the boat ie around the tiller/button area and around the front doors. The result is we very rarely see one onboard.

I suggest you get your boat and accept that like in a house you will see the odd spider.

Phil

[MtB]

I'm seriously considering buying a narrowboat to live about but have bad arachnophobia. It seems particularly bad this autumn too - an absolutely massive spider decided to join me on the sofa to watch the Great British Bake Off last week and scared the living daylights out of me.

One friend who lives aboard says she hardly ever sees a spider but then other people have told me that you get loads of spiders on boats. Which is true? If you get more spiders on boats , I'm not sure I'd cope with it.

Have had therapy to try and sort it but it didn't work!

 

 

I'd say all are right. It varies year by year, and boat by boat. My boat Aldebaran a few years boat was festooned with spider webs and swarming with spiders af all sizes every time I visited. I'm not arachnophobic but it was so bad I experimented extensively with loads of spider repellants to try to reduce the population. 'Amiral' spider spray was the answer. Spiders can spot a tin of it at 200 paces and they ruyn away instantly.

 

So ever since the big treatment it has never been so bad... but this year they all seem to to be returning. so possibly another Amiral treatment is looming. Walking the length of your boat first thing in the morning and getting 20 spider webs across one's face is not nice.

 

The other boat Reginald barely seems to suffer at all. Rats, on the other hand...

 

 

MtB

[Southern Star]

I've been playing host to enormous numbers of craneflies in the past two weeks, but I think I've only seen a couple of spiders. Personally, I like spiders and think of them as "the householder's (or boatholder's) friend"

[Kwacker]

A thorough going over with a vacuum cleaner, inside and out sorts it in just a few minutes.

[Jen_P]

So basically no worse than a house? Some houses are worse than others, so some boats are worse too? And cleaning and vacuuming helps! It's my only incentive to get hoovering!

I don't get bothered by rats, mice, snakes, crane flies or anything else. Just spiders. Completely illogicalbut there you go.

[b0atman]

I think some boaters throw conkers at them.

[OldGoat]

I think some boaters throw conkers at them.

Haha, haha, Oh yes, very droll (apologies to Sgt. Wilson).

 

With my aim, I find having a few around the boat is effective in keeping them away in the first place.

[patty-ann]

I was told to put conkers around but spiders don't really bother me nor rats, used to be terrified of rats but dealing with 20 years of rat infestation at my dads when we cleared out his barn kinda desensitised me especially as the dogs used to kill them and my dads dog used to leave them beside me whilst I was otherwise occupied. As for spiders huge 8 legged monsters resident in house i'm renovating, polite requests to clear off don't work, chucking them out don't work so for now we co-exist. There will come a time however....

[DeanS]

our cat spends hours climbing the walls and killing spiders ...tracking them like a US special forces team.......goes for any size too....but doesn't care about collateral damage (like the US special forces), so she kicks lamps of shelves, paperwork goes flying, but....1 less spider, so we dont complain.

 

We get them once a year around Aug/Sept, but I've seen a huge reduction in the past week.

[Bettie Boo]

Sorry to say, but I feel the short answer to the OP's question is YES there are more spiders on a boat than in bricks & mortar

 

Or at least that's my take on it. Spiders give me the hebbie gibbies, and I have Dave "removing" numerous amounts of them on a daily basis. And this is on top of me taking a feather duster to the entire interior every morning. And I have 2 conkers in every window and in the corners of every room!!

 

I'm now looking for peppermint oil as someone told me that works

[ditchcrawler]

Sorry to say, but I feel the short answer to the OP's question is YES there are more spiders on a boat than in bricks & mortar

 

Or at least that's my take on it. Spiders give me the hebbie gibbies, and I have Dave "removing" numerous amounts of them on a daily basis. And this is on top of me taking a feather duster to the entire interior every morning. And I have 2 conkers in every window and in the corners of every room!!

 

I'm now looking for peppermint oil as someone told me that works

There is on our boat. I like them, I would rather have them than what they must bee eating.

[BlueStringPudding]

My boat has loads of the blighters. Inside and outside. I too have a major phobia

 

I've started fumigating the place in Spring and Autumn and that's made a massive difference to how many come inside. Or at least how many I see inside - it might be a tarantula elephant graveyard behind the fit out now.

 

I also bought fly screens so I can open the windows without the swines coming in.

 

The good housekeeping suggestion would probably also help. My problem is I won't go anywhere near any sign of a spider having set up home so I probably perpetuate the problem.

[Jen_P]

Wow! I hadn't expected so many responses - thank you.

According to the spider expert who taught the therapy course that I went on (I held a tarantula and let it crawl up my bare arm but just days later was found screaming on the sofa when a normal house spider ran along the lounge floor!) ... Well, according to him, putting conkers around the place works only for a limited time as the spiders grow accustomed to the smell. Throwing vonkers is a good suggestion - thanks for that! - only I have very poor aim (was always the last to be picked for the netball team at school!)

I think fastidious cleaning is the answer ! Never tried peppermint oil. Might be worth a try.

[dave moore]

Most of the paint docks I work in have a spider population. They tend to live in the roof void and crap all over the paintwork! I don't mind them at all, until they drop down on to the cabin side and crawl into my freshly painted lettering. Little buggers! To be fair, it doesn't often happen, small insects are much likelier culprits.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[Starcoaster]

Wow! I hadn't expected so many responses - thank you.

According to the spider expert who taught the therapy course that I went on (I held a tarantula and let it crawl up my bare arm but just days later was found screaming on the sofa when a normal house spider ran along the lounge floor!) ...

I find tarantulas hugely fascinating and sometimes literally beautiful, I read a lot about them and love staring at them in zoos and pet stores. However, certain, much smaller, types of spiders still make my heart near on stop, and I have no idea why. However, I will now handle larger spiders than I ever used to (Ok, still pretty tiny!) and am getting much better with them in general.

My boat is loads less spidery than any house I have been in, and also, you're more likely to see flecky, slow moving/still garden spiders than the giant ugly brown feckers who seem to come out of nowhere and run straight at you.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Starcoaster

[Peter X]

Jennifer, this is a popular forum; even the daftest subject will get responses, and your question is not daft.

It's not unknown for someone to ask "where's the person who started this topic disappeared to?" when the reality is it's someone new to the forum who wasn't to know it's not like other forums; no tumbleweed blowing around here.

 

In theory I see little reason to think that a boat would attract more or less spiders than a house, except that many of them eat insects, so we might expect more in a place with more insects, especially near still water and/or dense undergrowth.

 

Personally I'm lucky, I'm only afraid of things which are actually dangerous, but without wishing to spread too much alarm that can include some spiders. I don't think any native British species is poisonous, but did read a few years ago that one mildly poisonous species has become established in part of West Sussex, and there is a very remote chance of encountering an exotic import anywhere.

 

Long ago when I was 9 or 10 I was briefly fascinated by spiders and learned a bit about them. As I remember it, the only one that spins the classic large flat webs as seen in cartoons, typically across any available gap such as Mike the Boilerman's gangway, is the garden spider, the orange/brown one with a white cross on its back. Very common and harmless, as is the big skinny black house spider, which as its name implies is often to be found indoors; I suppose people can find it a bit scary because of its speed.

 

Anyway, I guess general cleaning would probably help a bit, just on the grounds that it will reduce the food chain spiders need.

[steven wilkinson]

poor little spiders, getting a bad press again!

[john_r]

I have heard this idea that conkers help tp repel spiders, but frankly cannot believe it. My boat and my two neighbours who raft up alongside are often festooned with webs and we are directly under a horse chestnut tree. We shovel the darn conkers off and those things can be loud landing on the roof too!

 

Sadly the conkers can at times bring another pest, which is those leaf miner moths that are blighting the horse chestnut trees. I recall one year when loads of the little caterpillars ended up in the boats as well as the adult moths.

[5thHorseman]

Tried conkers in our old (300+ years) house, the mice loved them.

 

Alister

[naema sufi]

they like wooden pontoons. Also the summer gave them a chance to grow bigger than usual

[Bazza954]

Found this guy on our boat the other day, not seen one like this before, anyone got any ideas ?

Apologies to the OP for posting picture, if its scary.

[saltysplash]

Found this guy on our boat the other day, not seen one like this before, anyone got any ideas ?

Apologies to the OP for posting picture, if its scary.

Possibly a Long Jawed Orb Spider

[Ange]

I tried conkers - sorry but they absolutely didn't work for me.

 

I bought a spider catcher https://www.spidercatcher.net/home.htm

 

As a mild arachnophobe who was brought up with the rhyme "if you want to live and thrive let a spider live alive" it does it for me. Arms length, pick them up then deposit them away from the boat. Job done and my hubbie doesn't get woken up with cries of "oh my god - it's huge!!! Dave get up and get rid of it!"

 

This year has been particularly bad - there's some humungous buggers appearing in our boat.

 

In answer to the OP I don't think there's more on a boat than in a house - it's a smaller space so you're more likely to cross paths,

 

The upsides of living on a boat far outweigh the trauma of dealing with these beasties