Vacuums remove all traces of food remains and accumulated dirt on your carpet, making it look brand-new. The real question is, is their suction power strong enough to eliminate a spider?
Vacuum cleaners kill spiders. They will most likely die from the trauma of being sucked into a vacuum cleaner. If they do, however, survive being vacuumed, the dirt that accumulates in the vacuum cleaner will suffocate them.
In this article, I will discuss whether vacuuming spiders is the technique you should go for and if there are alternatives to remove spiders from your home in the most considerate way.
Do Vacuum Cleaners Kill Spiders?
Vacuum cleaners will undoubtedly bring a spider’s life to an end. If not due to the trauma and shock, a spider sucked in a vacuum cleaner will be short of water and cease to exist very soon.
Most people don’t find it comfortable to share a home with a spider, even though most spiders you would typically see in your home aren’t harmful to humans. The venom they use to paralyze their prey isn’t strong enough to cause any harm to humans besides an itchy bite mark.
However, they’re known for both reproducing and hatching eggs relatively fast. According to Terminix, their eggs hatch in two to three weeks. By then, your problem will be much bigger than just the scary sight of one spider.
So, it’s not uncommon that you would want to eliminate them in the most humane way possible. Many people resort to using a vacuum cleaner to kill a spider, as the most logical thing is to suck them into a device and forget that they ever existed in the first place.
But is vacuuming a spider the best, most humane option to put an end to its life? Keep reading, as I’ll explain further.
Should I Vacuum Spiders?
You should vacuum spiders when you need to act quickly and the vacuum is the closest disposal method at hand. After all, seeing a multiple-legged creature crawling speedily in your direction doesn’t leave you much space to think about doing otherwise.
Also, the spider may run somewhere you can’t find it if you leave the room to find another disposal method.
Nonetheless, many other options are guaranteed to keep spiders out of your home forever and may even spare you the shock of ever needing to use a vacuum cleaner as a quick solution.
As Smith’s Pest Management suggests, using everyday household items such as vinegar, a natural spider repellent, will keep your home spider-free. Additionally, your conscience can stay clean as using vinegar as a repellent will involve no killing.
Using natural products is always the way to go. Spiders are known to be put off by the smell of citrus fruits, such as oranges. A mixture of vinegar with a few drops of orange juice sprayed in the hidden corners of your home should do the trick.
You should also keep your house neatly organized and tidy at all times. Spiders are known for living in small, secluded, and hard-to-reach corners. You’re doing yourself a favor by being aware of possible hidden corners in your home, cleaning them regularly, and never forgetting to vacuum the leftover crumbs from your lunch.
After all, a place that doesn’t enable them to find food and water sources is naturally bound to repel spiders.
To make sure that there are no traces of crumbs left, using a reliable vacuum cleaner is a must. If you’re having trouble getting into those tight corners, check out my article on vacuum hose size. Selecting the right hose is crucial when choosing a vacuum cleaner.
Can Spiders Survive Being Vacuumed?
A spider can’t survive being vacuumed. House spiders, unlike wild spiders, aren’t built to endeavor extreme conditions, and even a small change in their habitat, eating, and drinking habits will end their lives.
The fear of it crawling back on your hand the next time you use the vacuum cleaner is entirely valid, though.
To ensure that doesn’t happen, don’t ever vacuum a spider into an entirely empty dust bag. All the dust and dirt in an already-used dust bag will suffocate it. To put your mind completely at ease, vacuuming a powdery substance, such as flour, will ensure the spider dies.
If you want to be extra cautious, go outside and empty the dust bag after doing all these steps. That way, you’ll be sure that the spider is no longer near your home – problem solved.
Can Spider Eggs Hatch in a Vacuum?
Spider eggs can’t hatch in a vacuum, as that environment isn’t adequate and safe enough for them to survive, let alone hatch eggs. Spiders prefer not to be disturbed and are known to hatch eggs in hidden places.
A female house spider hatches 17 sacs filled with eggs in its lifetime, with one sac consisting of up to 250 spider eggs. That’s 250 spider eggs more than there should be inside your vacuum.
Lucky for you, the chances of a spider surviving being sucked into a vacuum cleaner are very low. The chances of it hatching its eggs inside of it are even lower.
Their egg location is linked to their habitat and is typically somewhere dark and hidden. A common place where they hatch their eggs is a cobweb.
Do Bugs Crawl Out of Vacuums?
While most bugs wouldn’t survive the conditions of a vacuum cleaner, a few rare ones could survive and crawl their way back out. Different bugs have different flexibility abilities.
While the inside of a vacuum cleaner is a compact space by itself, its content, such as dirt, makes it diminutive.
Hardly any bug species could survive such conditions and would die if not from suffocation, then from the lack of food or water.
However, some species, such as cockroaches, are highly flexible and too stiff to be crushed easily due to their hard exoskeletons. Also, one of their abilities that would make them the most likely to survive being sucked into a vacuum cleaner is their ability to flatten their bodies so that they could crawl right back out.
Final Thoughts
Fear of spiders is typical; however, most house spiders can’t cause much harm to humans, as they feed off of other, smaller insects. Nevertheless, nobody likes to live in a house with spiders roaming freely.
Getting rid of them by vacuuming them is a technique that does its job, even though it shouldn’t be the only option you should try.
Keeping your house neat and clean at all times should be enough to keep your spider problem at bay.
