[YEA]  09/21/2006: Cheryl from Okla writes: "For fiddle back spider bites, mix 1 egg white with 1 tbls iodine and some baking soda to make a paste. Rub onto spider bite and let dry. Do this several times a day."

BAKING SODA OR BUTTER

[YEA]  01/29/2008: Wooly from Joshua Tree, CA writes: "Use Baking Soda/butter as a Poultice/remedy for Brown Spider Bite. I was a teenager riding my horse and a spider got in my long hair, when i went to take a shower, I was bit by a brown recluse spider. For two weeks my father put this poultice (size of a large patch) on me and it was the only relief I had. Who knows what would have happened without the baking soda. I hope this saves someone else's life. God Bless"

BAKING SODA, GARLIC

[YEA]  10/19/2008: Nosakhere from Chicago, IL writes: "I really hate getting sick which goes without saying. However my agonizing desire to beat the bite fueled me to seek out advice for a spider bite.One night when I was sleeping a nocturnal hunting brown recluse spider must have decided to crawl under my neck for warmth. In that moment I was sleeping on the floor mattress to escape the snoring from a dear friend of mine. Anyway I must have rolled over & crushed it unknowingly in my sleep and caused the little fellow to release a nasty amount of venom with his bite. I felt very itchy and felt what only seemed like a pin prick the very next morning in the back of my neck. After placing black soap on the skin, (not the commercial kind but the real kind) this usually comes in plastic or a ball of thick paste to stop the itchy break outs on my arm. The slight rashes on my arm went away with the soap. However I noticed that the bite on my neck was in fact more affected as the source. I began poking at them to release the fluid & swelling. This was very painful, So I took an alieve gelcap prior to this procedure as it would slightly ease the process. However I wanted to find natural ways to make it go away. I am a musician & voice over artist/T.V. host. I'm no doctor, but I appreciate the gifts of nature for cooking & all it's healing properties as well. So I found this website. (Earth Clinic). After reading some of the articles, I began trying the garlic clove taped directly to the back of my neck. There was a strong tingle that gave me much satisfaction knowing that it was working to cure the problem. I later tried the baking soda and it reduced the swelling greatly & the puss from the damaged tissue began to run out from the lava lesion caused by the bite. I had to repeat these once or twice a day often throwing in a peroxide rinse occasionally while squeezing out the remaining puss. Right before my eyes I could see the wound quickly healing. My glands had become swollen from the bite & about 2 or 3 days later they returned to normal as well. I threw back a couple of doses of a prescription antibiotic just for good measure. And all I had left was a scab which I applied Hibiclens which was terrific causing rapid skin reformation.

All that was left was to exfoliate the damaged skin with black soap & a gentle scrubber and then apply coca butter after drying. These natural cures are wonderful. God really knew what He was doing when He placed them here for us. If it had not been for these cures. This accident would have gotten much worse & would have been dragged out to at least 8 to 10 weeks instead of the 2 weeks I endured.

My thanks goes out to Earth Clinic (folk remedies) for this wonderful & valuable information.

the Artist "Nosakhere" (Papa Soul)

www.nosakhere.com"

BREAD

[YEA]  10/11/2008: Kevin Coombs from Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin writes: "Bread cured my daughters spider bite. Went to doctor who put her on anti-biotics. It did nothing for her. My wifes grandma told her to put a piece of bread on it. She did and it drew all of the puss out and cured it in one night."

CABBAGE

[YEA]  03/11/2009: Renata from Cape Town, South Africa writes: "Raw cabbage was an extremely powerful remedy in curing me of two infected Violin Spider bites on my legs (one on the thigh, one on the knee). Just grating a small portion of raw cabbage onto a bandage and leaving it overnight helped to draw out the poisin and heal the infection where other herbal remedies had failed, and my only recommended recourse otherwise would have been antibiotics, which I was loathe to take."

DRIED BASIL

[YEA]  12/28/2007: Kat from New Brighton, PA writes: "If a spider bite itches, take a pinch, or more of Basil (McCormick, crushed basil) rub it on the bite until the basil is fine as sand, or until the itch is gone. Repeat if necessary. This will also keep the bitten area from swelling. This does work. I have used basil on bitten areas; and I have also used on my mother's arm. thank you."

ESSENTIAL OIL BLEND

[YEA]  05/21/2007: Philip from Palm Beach, Queensland, Australia writes: "I was bitten by a redback spider on my left knee on very early Wednesday morning between 1 am & 6 am. Swelling started Wednesday about 10 am.(very painful) By Thursday morning my knee was like a balloon. The swelling started to go down my leg & by Thursday afternoon the swelling was down to the bottom of my calf. The pain was sssooo intense I wanted to cut my leg off. I took the oils at 6 pm Friday. By 6 am the swelling was down 20% I took more at 6 pm Sat. & more at 6.30 pm Sat. The swelling was completely gone by Thursday Then the following Sunday swelling started again so I took more oils only once & the swelling went down that day & never a problem again. All I have is a 20 cent coin size of dimpled skin were I was biten. 1 year later a friend of mine was biten in Lismore N.S.W. about 3 day prior to my remedy treatment. It fixed her straight away like me. No side effects it has been 9 years now."

GARLIC

[YEA]  08/31/2006: Sal from EastHaven, CT writes: "While riding my road bike i felt a sharp bite on my thigh. I squeezed my lycra pants and it stopped. well when i got home from my ride , I saw a crushed what looked like a spider fall out of my pants. I started to develop a sore which grew and identified it as a brown recluse spider bite. nothing worked, it appeared sealed and Hydrogen peroxide didn't even foam. Well I tried a slice of raw garlic taped to my thigh overnight as a last resort before making a Dr. appointment. Well, the next morning the sore showed great improvement and in 2 more days it was about healed. I put on some neosporin just for the final touch."

HIGH VOLTAGE, LOW AMPERAGE DC CURRENT

[YEA]  10/16/2008: Donna from Knoxville, TN writes: "I'd learned about high voltage, low amperage DC current from an article that had come out in 1986 in Outdoor Life I think it was. We'd bought the issue because we'd had so many goats, cats, and dogs snake bitten.

In 1989 I was bitten by a recluse on the calf, and used meat tenderizer and charcoal for the first 5 days. I'd packed the growing hole with one, leave it in for hours, then wash it out and pack it with the other. The thing that had me scared was that it was doing everything the book said it would do, not only a hole 1/4" deep and 3/8" across, but a hot red raised area 3" across with a starlike effect of redder lines within it. I called a fellow who'd worked at Uchi Pines doing alternative medicine, to ask if I really needed to shock it, and he said it sounded that way. We grounded one side of the bite with a screwdriver from the woven wire fence, then ran a wire from the electrified top wire to the other side, using insulated pliers to hold it. I ran the shocks through the bite area, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. The shocks ran only in that small area, more like a little bite than having my whole body shocked. 24 hours later the hole had obviously not grown any more, and in another 12 hours the hot red raised area was nearly normal. The whole thing just faded away, leaving me with a small blue scar.
In 1991 I noticed two little red marks on a knuckle and thought the same thing I'd thought the first time, "Those are just far enough apart to be spider fang marks." Six days went by, and I woke up to a little brown oozy hole in the middle of each pink mark. There was a PT working across the street, so I called and asked if she'd run electrostim on them. She said come on over, and told me that she used to use ultrasound and Betadine on such bites, but as I insisted on electrostim, she flipped a switch and did all 3 at once. The wounds closed up that afternoon.

The next time it happened, it was like some people describe the bites, I got a black spot on my ankle that looked just like someone had dropped silver nitrate on it. It was perfectly even with the surrounding skin, and painless till after about 5 days the surface peeled off. Within a few hours it was really hurting so I used the electrodes from a "Beck Box" on either side, for about 10 minutes. The thing didn't bother me for a week, then it started hurting again, I ran the box longer and hotter and it went away after that. The secretary at the office where I'd borrowed the box used it twice when she had brown recluse bites. We have a Hulda Clark Zapper, but I don't think the voltage is high enough on it. It was not like my other bites, but was equally slow and was working it's way down through the layers.

Then my husband got bitten on the arm and he used his electroacupuncture gadget, grounding on one side of the bite and zapping on the other. A friend got bitten, had the classic nasty brown oozy wound on her leg, and as she had a TENS unit we simply put the pads on either side of the bite and turned it on blast for about 15 minutes. I forget how I treated the last two bites I got, they occurred about a week apart and I didn't let them got very far.
I introduced my chiropractor to the notion of treating recluse bites with his electrostim machine. I had a friend who'd been bitten 3X and had learned to use clay poultices morning and evening to heal them, but then she got a bite on her neck and after 6 days of poultices woke up to swollen glands in her neck and was scared. So that was the first one my DC got to use his machine on, and that was the end of the problem for her.

The one horror story I have witnessed was a friend who went to the dr the same day she was bitten, got on the antibiotics but they didn't do a thing. Her arm swelled up double, and when I heard about it 6 days later, I called immediately and told her to rush over to a DC who would use his electrostim on it. It had eaten a strip on her upper arm an inch wide, 5" long and about 1/8" deep. The wound stopped growing and healed up. She has a horrible scar, but it would certainly kept on eating to the bone had it not been stopped. There are 400 people where she works, they all know about what happened to her and believe me, they and all their friends and relatives will be going to a DC instead of an MD for TX.

The PT who did my 2nd bite told me about a guy who'd been bitten in a very delicate place. The MD's had nothing to offer except to cut out the bite area, which was not in a place where he thought he had anything to spare. The PT, on hearing his story, showed him how to use her machine and had him tow it to the restroom every time he came in for his other tx. She said it saved his marriage. (She also told me about saving her dog which had been snake bitten on a holiday weekend, she applied a TENS unit after he'd suffered for a couple of hours, in 20 minutes he was up dragging it around and wagging his tail. We just use Vit C for animals with snake bite, but we do have a TENS unit just in case. )

I talked with a nurse who works in a wound center, and she was astonished that I know about all these bite cases in which none of their debridement and other medical treatments were necessary. In fact, I was surprised to see that some people do know about the shock treatment. See http://en.allexperts.com/q/General-Surgery-2076/Brown-Recluse-Spider-Bites.htm which also mentions that the venom is "heat labile, calcium dependent, and optimally active at a pH of 7.1." They approved of a home remedy of hot and cold applications.

When I read all the things people have done for what they think are recluse bites, I have several thoughts. First of all, some of them were not recluse bites. I've been bitten my more kinds of bugs than most modern Americans. One thing that will show up in most recluse bites is a stage where there are two small holes, before they grow together and become one large hole. For a day or so after they combine, the hole is often square looking rather than round. Second, some actual recluse bites just got better, because of where the bites were, the person's good circulation and the assistance of salt to draw out toxins, of turmeric to reduce inflammation so the circulation could get in, etc. For example, an old man told me about how his little sister had developed a hole in her leg that ate all the way to the bone. In desperation, their dr had had their mother rip up and old sheet and fill little squares with Epsoms salts. When one was saturated, she pulled it out and stuffed another one in. That healed up the wound, which we can now guess was an early recluse bite. I don't think they were nearly as common before central heating. In my own case, salt and proteoplytic enzymes (in the meat tenderizer) and charcoal did not stop the progression of the bite. The next thing that would have happened to me was the big hot red area would have been undermined and collapsed. Only the electricity stopped it. I talked with a physiology professor about this, and he had two stories, people he knew personally who had stopped snakebite damage with electric shocks. He said that the proteolytic enzymes involved are very large complex molecules, positively charged at one end and negatively charged at the other end. When exposed to high voltage, low amperage current the ends are pulled in opposite directions and the enzymes are torn apart.

One last thing regarding infections being mistaken for spider bites. Anything that will draw out toxins via high osmotic pressure, such as salt or Epsoms salts, will also draw out the toxins from an infection. So those approaches are not contraindicated for MRSA. And if you will dig around a bit, you will find that Bob Beck invented his little box because of an accidental discovery that electrical current stopped bacterial growth in a petri dish. This info has been suppressed, but Bob Beck has put his invention into the public domain and does not sell the boxes so that he can tell people about it. You can find the plans and the boxes and the info online. And for flesh eating bacteria, they are using proteolytic enzymes that are surely similar to those used by recluse spiders and pit vipers, so electroshock may work on those cases too."

HYDROGEN PEROXIDE

[YEA]  04/09/2006: Marsha from Jacksonville, Oregon writes: "I got bit by a brown recluse on my hand. Every day the scab would change color. It would go from slimy green to slimy yellow in the course of only an hour. So everyday I would pull back the scab and soak it in straight hydrogen peroxide. In six months it healed. If I had not done that it could have grown to a very large wound. But the hydrogen peroxide stopped that. Everytime I did soak it would really bubble. I have used this stuff for everything. It works!"

HYDROGEN PEROXIDE, HONEY, WITCH HAZEL

[YEA]  06/15/2009: Jackie from Lawrencevile, GA writes: "Yesterday, I notice my 3yr old son scratching his leg, so I got close to check his leg, I saw a odd insect bite. It didn't look like a mosquito bite, it was about 2 inch, dark red, swollen & firm all around & it was peeling in the center. I show my husband & told me it was a spider bite. He recognizes it because he's had them before. I never seen a spider bite in my life because I lived in FL before moving up here & these things don't come up as often as they do here in GA. So I used hydrogen peroxide to clean the infection, after that I smeared some honey on it & left it to sit. After several hour I notice the swelling going down. I took him a bath before bed time & I dabbed witch hazel on it. Today, I check to see it's progress & I was relieved to see the result. The redness of the bite was fading, it shrunk & he wasn't scratching it anymore. Thank goodness for home remedies!"

MMS

[YEA]  02/11/2009: James from Kent, WA/USA writes: "Miracle Mineral Supplement: This new supplement used at the 15 drop twice a day dose allowed my body to heal itself from five wolf spider bites within two weeks. In Texas one brown recluse bite could not be cured using oral then intravenous anti-biotics and required surgury to remove the infected area. My research found that the hobo, wolf, and brown recluse spider bites, as well as staph and mrsa infections, all propogate in a very similar flesh eating and tissue destroying manner most likely due more to our weakened, overburdened immune systems (because of toxins accumulated from diet,air,water, ect.), and not because bacteria and spider venoms are evolving into newer stronger forms.This supplement is actually a strong chemical called chlorine dioxide and must be prepared in stages according to specific directions outlined in a book by Jim Humble. I am not a doctor yet, and this is not medical advice of any kind, only a testimony that this supplement used properly apparently removes enough toxins from the body so that it may heal itself and should aid in healing needed for any condition."

MULTIPLE REMEDIES

[YEA]  06/24/2009: Carmen from Hiwasse, AR writes: "I was bitten by a brown recluse on Sat. May 30th. It is now June 24th. I went to the Doctor with in 24 hours. They have me Levaquin for the anitbiotic and a pain killer. Then told me to come back the next day for them to lance the blister.

I chose not to go to the same doctor...but went back to a doctor whom had previously treated a bite from the brown recluse years earlier. He said not to lance the blister..and said he would not be giving me the steroid shot he gave me previously. I had been bitten years earlier on the back by a brown recluse which took 5 months to heal.

Well this time I decided to take the matter into my own hands and found this website. I have been using a mixture of antibacterial salve and baking soda... also used activated chacoal. I have switched between the two and mixed the olive leaf extract with the baking soda. I can say I am almost to the point of no longer having dead tissue..and starting the complete healing process. It has still been a painful process however...I truly believe with out the information the wound would've been deeper and taken months longer to heal...and it was in very soft tissue..the belt line."

06/30/2008: Lynn from Windsor, Canada replies: "Hi again. My 4 spider bites are much improved. Did try salt on potato slices on 2 bites and plain potato slices on the other two. No difference in results. Have since cleaned bite wounds and redid all sites of blisters for overnight. It is amazing...great results. This is day 9 since getting biten and the bites are now healing and show no sign of still having venom. I'm sure the Dr's antibiotic has warded off any other type of infection also. I am so relieved! After 2 1/2 days of doing the potato slices (first for a few hours and then 2 nights of leaving them on) to see amazing results and healing I am thrilled. Hope this helps someone else."

[YEA]  06/09/2008: Jason from Atkins, AR writes: "I got a spider bite on the back of my arm and in just a few days my arm was swelled and I had a big knot with a big white, yellow, greenish, center. I got on the earth clinic site and seen to scrap the top cut a potato and put on it. I did and was amazed at how fast it pulled all of the junk out of my arm. The potato is the only way to go in my opinion. Thanks yall are a life saver."

EC: Glad to hear the remedy worked. However, we still have to warn folks to be careful that a spider bite isn't, in fact, Staph or MRSA. We know two people here in Atlanta in the past month who misdiagnosed staph infections for spider bites!!

[YEA]  09/14/2007: Chrystle from Sandpoint, Idaho writes: "When I was in high school I was bitten by (I believe) a brown recluse. I went to the doctor with in a couple of days but they didn't know what type of bite it was or what to do about it. A family friend suggested I take a Potato and slice it. then clean the top of the bite so it's open and put the potato on it. The starch in the potato will draw out the venom. I tried it and it worked great!! The other thing the family friend suggested was to crush up flax seeds in a mortar and pestle until it was like a paste and put that on top of the bite. The flax seed would do the same as the potato."

REMEDIES NEEDED

1 QUESTION

02/10/2010: Shandy from Limerick, Ireland writes: "My 15 year old daughter was bitten by a spider (we think!) - it looks like a burn with a big blister over it. I've read on your website about using baking soda as a poultice - which I will do once the blister bursts. What I'm really concerned about is after. My daughter was bitten once before a few years ago. We took her to a few doctors, and even ER. No one had seen anything like it nor really knew what to do. Apparently 'there are no poisonous spiders in Ireland' - that may be - all we can concude is they are coming over via imported fruit boxes, or my daughter is badly allergic to some sort of spider. Last time the blister burst and then developed into a sore that took literally months to heal. It just seemed to stay wet even if we left it to air out, and even seemed to grow bigger as time went on. When it did eventually heal she was left with a scar on her leg that looked like a crater. So now we have exactly the same sceanario - drs. have prescribed anti-biotics and anti histamine 'if it gets any worse' but it's obvious they really don't know what to do. So far I have her on extra vit c and garlic capsules, and will do the BS poultice when the blister bursts, does anyone have any suggestions for healing it once it becomes a sore, and how to avoid it scarring?"

EC: Have you searched Google images to find a similar photo? Here's a search we just ran with the key words "spider bite blister".

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=spider+bite+blister&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g1

Here's one for "staph infection blister"

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=staph+infection+blister&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0

And finally, a search on "impetigo"

http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=impetigo&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10&start=0

02/11/2010: Tricia from Ireland replies: "No poisonous spiders in Ireland???????? - Have ya looked in Dáil Éireann recently.

Anyway, seriously, poisonous spiders are very rare here. That doesn't mean that the odd one won't escape as you said from shipping packages. I have heard some horror stories coming from workers at the Rosslare port that would make your hair stand on end. However most of that kind of extra unwanted cargo could not survive in our climate. And, I also believe that your daughter would want to be very unlucky to get bitten at two different times by something that is so rare here.

Ordinary spiders don't generally bite (At least we don't notice their bites) but if she has actually been bitten twice then allergic reaction is your way to go. My mom gets horrific reactions to mosquito and midget bites that blister, burst and look like burns and can often turn septic. She doesn't normally get the crater that you describe though. If she takes anti-histamines straight away it reduces the severity.There loads of allergy stuff here worth trying.

As ec says it would be worth your while to look up every image of rashes you can find on the web to see if you can find a matching image or take a photo and post it. Rashes are notoriously difficult to understand in words. One poster who had an awful time trying to diagnose her rash was Deanna and if she is well enough she may be able to point you in the right direction. She did more research than a junior in med school.

Anyhows - did your daughter by any chance visit the dail - she may be able to sue...........LOL"

EC: For those of us who don't know what Dáil Éireann is, here's the Wikipedia entry - ha ha!

02/11/2010: Shandy from Limerick, Ireland replies: "Thanks for the links EC - I looked them up and the photos for 'spider bite blister' are almost identical - after doing more research it seems it might be a bite from a brown recluse spider, as it followed the exact same time frame etc, blister turning into open sore taking months to heal. Or it could be my daughter just reacts very badly to any spider bite - though that doesn't explain the fact that it seemed the tissue was just eaten away. An interesting note, the first time she'd just gotten out clean PJ's and gotten into bed, and this time she'd just gotten clean bed linen out of the airing cuboard and changed her bedding, the spider producing the toxins that cause the tissue decay are not web spiders - so it makes sense that the spider may have been hiding in clean clothes and linen in the cuboards. I went to the local health store today and the lady there said to keep up with the garlic capsules and vit c since that is natural antibiotics and antihistamines. Right now its still a blister about the size of a plum and I'm hesitant to do anything to it. Once the blister bursts I'll clean it with hydrogen peroxide and try the BS poultice. I also got some vit e for her to take internally and once it starts to heal to apply externally as well - all I can say is thank God it was not on her face!"

02/12/2010: Dj from Pdx, Or replies: "Shandy,

You may want to include a garlic or onion poultice in your treatment regimen. Either one will help to pull some of the poisons out. Here is a link on how to make a poultice.

http://www.planetherbs.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Onion-Poultice-for-Deep-Seated-Coughs.html&Itemid=141

Castor oil will help with the healing too.

I hope your daughter feels better soon."

02/16/2010: Shandy from Limerick, Ireland replies: "Thanks for the feedback everyone. It's been very useful especially as I'm dealing with a spider bite in a land where no one believes spiders bite! I haven't taken pictures, but the images people linked me to are exactly the same and following the same protocol for a hobo spider which apparently lives in Europe - so could be in Ireland I presume?
The blister burst. Since onion, garlic and potato had all been recommended as a poultice - I basically threw all 3 raw into a food processor and blended with a little cornstarch to hold it all together. Bound this mush onto her leg for 2 days, changing the poultice every 6-8 hours. I was suprised to find when I changed the bandage, the poultice was dry even though it had been very wet when I put it on. Just the dry powdery cornstarch remaining and a bit of puss. After 2 days it stopted pussing. A friend studying alternative medicine suggested applying plantain leaves. I've used this herb with success before to cure my daughters asthma and my niece's swine flu - but apparently it can be used externally too. Due to the season I couldn't find any plaintain fresh so I bought the tincture from our health food store. It's made with alcohol so of course it stung - but we applied a compress last night and dear daughter was very brave. This morning it was alot better - no weeping and it looks like the sore is not going wider or deeper. Amazing - the last time she was bitten it took a month to get to this stage with antibiotics and topical antiseptics. Will keep you updated."

02/17/2010: Shandy from Limerick, Ireland replies: "Just thought everyone would like to know, we caught and identified the spider. A false widow, relative of the black widow though thankfully not as venomous. So any fellow Irish - beware, the false widow is now over here and bites."

02/18/2010: Tricia from Ireland replies: "I'm goin to have nightmares tonight - spiders are my big fear and you know how everyone tells you that they're harmless in this country - Oooohhhhh GGodddddd!!!!!. Well done for rooting it out, I'd have to get in the fire brigade.

Any idea why it only bit your daughter and not any of the rest of ye or for that matter how it got into your area. Would you have brought it home in a suitcase by any chance?"

02/18/2010: Shandy from Limerick, Ireland replies: "I think it may have bitten hubby as well though he got a little bite he didn't react half as bad as our daughter. She has sensitive skin and has had allergies and excema before so may be we've all been bitten but just not noticed. She does tend to be impulsive, a bit of a tomboy - and has been to hospital ER more than all the other kids put together. Both times she'd just taken clean bedding or PJ's from the airing cuboard so could be that mrs false widow had set up home in there. Since then I visited my Mum and found one in her house too, might be that I'm now spider alert and examining anything with 8 legs with suspicion! Internet reports say they came over to UK 100 years ago from the Canary Islands, so perhaps its just logical they'd get to Ireland eventually."

EC: Shandy, you probably already saw this article about a lady in the UK who bad reaction to a false widow bite last January: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1117342/The-deadly-spider-bite-grandmother-coma.html

"The species had kept a low profile since arriving in Britain with a cargo of bananas from the Canary Islands 200 years ago. But according to the Natural History Museum, it is rapidly spreading and is now thriving in northern climates."

02/26/2010: Shandy from Limerick, Ireland replies: "The Saga continues! DD was bitten again, also round her ankles. We are approaching wits end and considering moving house. We tore apart her bedroom last week and cleaned and vacuumed it within an inch of it's life but obviously there is more than one spider. Funny thing is nothing has happened to her younger sister who also sleeps in the same room. Now we suspect the mattress and duvets, we are changing the mattress and washing and drying the duvets and stripping her bed completely. Does anyone know of anything that repels spiders? My mum said her grandmother used horse chesnuts, though its not really the season for that anymore. Anyways at this point I'm open to try anything!"

02/26/2010: Bessie from Calgary, Alberta, Canada replies: "Hi Shandy - There are a number of "natural" spider repellents you may be able to find in your health food store (there is usually a high percentage of neem oil in them) but here is a recipe if you want to make your own. It's cheaper and you can mix whatever essential oils work for you.

Ingredients

* 1 quart water
* 5 tablespoons natural liquid soap (like Dr. Bronner's Peppermint or Lavender Liquid Soap)
* 1 ounce neem oil (available at health food stores)
* a few drops of lavender oil or tea tree oil

Generously spray the area. You will need to do this repeatedly because it wears off. Also, be aware this may stain bedding and clothing. I found neem oil has quite a pong to it but it did work.

I've also heard a vinegar solution (50% vinegar, 50% water with added essential oils like peppermint, tea tree or lavender) works as well.

Do you know how the critters are getting in? Are there any unsealed cracks around your windows or bushes right outside your windows? You may want to spray vents too - just in case they hide in there.

Good luck!"

02/26/2010: Dj from Pdx, Or replies: "Hi Shandy,

I had some time on my hands so I took a tour on the web and here is what I found on natural spider repellent. I hope you find one to work for you; (I found these posts on thriftyfun.com)

Mock or Osage Oranges (also called hedge apple), these look like green, bumpy oranges and have a citrus-y smell and work well. Just tuck them into corners and closets or anywhere spiders are seen. Hang them in skylights in the kitchen and bathroom.

Diatomaceous Earth is a natural insect repellent to use around the base of your house, individual room etc. You can also eat it. Be sure that the Diatomaceous Earth (DE) is intended for human consumption. Medical-grade diatomite is sometimes used to de-worm both animals and humans.

Natural Spider Spray Formula for inside the house: Dr Bronners Peppermint or Lavender Soap, or any other natural soap.

1 ounce of Neem oil You can also add 1 to 5 drops of any of these Essential Plant Oils (depending on your preference) to 1 quart of water:

Catnip Oil, Citronella Oil, Lavender Oil, Cinnamon Oil, Peppermint Oil, Citrus Oil, Tea Tree Oil, or other essential oils. Add 5 tablespoons of the soap per quart water. Add one ounce of the Neem oil to the water which you have added the soap and label it. Shake well and spray inside house where spiders are seen. Test for strength.

May be done as often as needed. This is not a long-term solution but will provide you immediate help. Oils may stain some fabrics or light colored furnishings, test first.

You will need, 1 cup of vegetable oil, 1/4 cup of dawn liquid soap, and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Mix oil soap and extract in a container. Now in a spray bottle put 1 tablespoon of the mixture for every 1-cup of water. Shake and spray your spiders away

Have a problem inside closets and don't really want to spray anything around clothes. Use old panty hose, string or ribbon, cedar shavings, tea tree oil and lavender oil.

Cut the panty hose into sachet sizes. Fill with cedar shavings and put in 5 - 10 drops each of the essential oils. Tie off the end(s) of the hose and put in closets, under sinks, etc. Whenever the smell weakens, just drop a few more drops to refresh the sachet."

02/26/2010: Candy from Fort Madison, Ia replies: "look up cedar products on line. there is a great product that repels all kinds of insects, fleas, and spiders. if it is allowed I think it is called cedarside. from somewhere in texas. hope this helps. the stuff works."

 

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