Which features of your house bug you?

[recoveringbuilder]

Years ago when the tip near us was an old quarry and you just drove in and dumped stuff there were always the local chancers looking for scrap. We were moving house and needed to get rid of a few things including an old cooker, we also had a lot of bags of dog shit so we put them in the oven part of the cooker, when we got to the tip the usual suspects were there and they were so keen to get the cooker they actually lifted it off the trailer for us, we quickly made our exit but I would have loved to see their faces when they opened the oven???

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Christine Walker said:

I would have loved to see their faces when they opened the oven

I bet they still don't eat curry and kebabs.

[NSS]

Bugs bug me. Specifically spiders. Not inside the house, the place is so airtight they can't get inside unless they follow you in as you open the front door, but outside - all over the outside. Not sure whether it's the cladding, and the air gaps above and below it, but it's spider heaven and they seem to particularly enjoy crawling over the security cameras. The little buggers have a habit of doing so at silly-o'clock, triggering the motion sensors which in turn results in a very loud 'alert' tone on my phone. I have even been known to go outside in the middle of the night with a feather duster tied to a broom handle to clear them. Bloody web-cams!

[Jeremy Harris]

10 hours ago, NSS said:

Bugs bug me. Specifically spiders. Not inside the house, the place is so airtight they can't get inside unless they follow you in as you open the front door, but outside - all over the outside. Not sure whether it's the cladding, and the air gaps above and below it, but it's spider heaven and they seem to particularly enjoy crawling over the security cameras. The little buggers have a habit of doing so at silly-o'clock, triggering the motion sensors which in turn results in a very loud 'alert' tone on my phone. I have even been known to go outside in the middle of the night with a feather duster tied to a broom handle to clear them. Bloody web-cams!

 

I have a theory that spiders might be attracted to the IR lights at the front of CCTV cameras.  We have the same issue, as soon as it gets dark spiders crawl in front of at least one of the cameras.  Seems to mainly be a problem in warmer weather, as they don't seem to be such a nuisance in winter.

 

Using a repellent around the bottom of outside doors seems to work well at keeping spiders out of the house.  I've been using diluted peppermint oil for a while now and we don't seem to get any spiders lurking around under the bottom of doors at all.  Prior to that, the underside of our backdoor was a spider haven, and you could pretty much guarantee that one would make a dash to get into the house every time the backdoor was opened.

[SteamyTea]

Spiders go looking for water/moisture, or a mate.

That is about if for their lives, apart from eating.

[puntloos]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Spiders go looking for water/moisture, or a mate.

That is about if for their lives, apart from eating.

 

They might be slightly smarter than we give them credit for - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider)

 

Ton of instinct too but perhaps if IR attracts moths, it is beneficial to them to also have 'IR sensing' equipment to go where moths would go etc tec

[Jeremy Harris]

18 minutes ago, puntloos said:

 

Ton of instinct too but perhaps if IR attracts moths, it is beneficial to them to also have 'IR sensing' equipment to go where moths would go etc tec

 

Seems this might be the case: https://www.vueville.com/blog/how-to-keep-spider-webs-off-your-security-camera-lens/

 

The spiders aren't attracted to the IR from the camera LEDs, they are just choosing to set up home there because insects are attracted by the IR.  I'm going to try the peppermint oil trick to see if that works to dissuade them.

[Temp]

I've tried a lot of things without any luck including commercial sprays. Next time I will disable the IR in the camera and put a separate IR illuminator some distance away to see if that works. I bet they are still attracted by the warmth of the camera or something.