San Jose's Complete Guide To Wolf Spider Prevention

If you hold a wolf spider in your hand, most species will be big enough to fill your palm. They're large spiders. They're also hairy. Together, these two characteristics can make these spiders an unwelcome sight inside your San Jose home. If you agree, we have some prevention tips to share with you that could help you keep these spiders outside, where they belong.

What Wolf Spiders Want

The secret to getting control of wolf spiders is understanding why they come into your yard in the first place. We can break these down into water, food, and harborage. In each of these categories, we can learn about prevention.

Water

All creatures need to drink water. If you have water resources in your yard, you'll have lots of living creatures. You can reduce their numbers by reducing available water.

• Inspect your yard for containers that capture rainwater and remove them if you can.
• Alter conditions that allow rainwater to pool, such as compacted soil.
• Alter conditions that allow continued rain to saturate the ground. This might be a clogged gutter system, an area of dense shade, or a spot where plumbing is leaking.
• Water your plants in the morning and remove unnecessary vegetation to allow your landscaping to stay dry during the day.

Food

There are many things wolf spiders eat. The more of these creatures you have in your yard, the more wolf spiders you're going to have. You can get control of wolf spider numbers by reducing the critters they eat. You do that by reducing the attractants that lure insects into your yard.

• Keep exterior lights off at night to avoid attracting insects.
• Keep your exterior trash in covered receptacles.
• Remove your trash weekly.
• Keep trash receptacles free of smells.
• Remove leaves, sticks, wood, and other organic debris from your perimeter.

Harborage

You may not know this but wolf spiders don't create webs to catch food. They are hunter spiders. When these hunter spiders come into your yard, they look for places to hunt, and places to hide. Removing these can reduce wolf spider activity.

• Fill in ground holes.
• Remove objects from your yard that don't need to be there.
• Replace structures that have lots of gaps, such as rock walls.
• Apply mesh fencing to keep wolf spiders out of the voids underneath structures.
• Move piles of wood away from your exterior.

Exclusion

Once you've worked to make your yard less attractive, the next step is to make it harder for wolf spiders to get into your home. Since these are primarily ground-dwelling spiders, you'll need to focus your efforts on ground-level entry points.

• Inspect your exterior doors. You would be amazed at how many gaps and cracks your doors can have.
• Inspect your exterior windows. If spiders can find a path through a ripped screen, damaged window frame, or broken window pane, they can get in. They'll also squeeze through gaps around your window frames if the gaps are large enough.
• Inspect the seal of your garage. This is a notorious entry point for big spiders. If your door sweep isn't making a good seal, consider having it replaced.
• Inspect your sole plates. These are the horizontal wood members that sit on your foundation, allowing all of the vertical studs to be connected. If wood-destroying pests eat holes in your sole plates, the holes will be the perfect entry points for wolf spiders. You may need to slide under your deck to see these holes.
• Gaps around plumbing can offer a large enough hole for a wolf spider. Use a caulking gun to put a silicone seal around any pipes that have a gap.

Have A Barrier Installed

The perimeter around your home is where insects and spiders can actively explore and feed on each other. When they do, all of them can suddenly become a problem for you when they accidentally find ways into your home. You can keep them all out of your San Jose home with ongoing barrier treatments. Reach out to Bay Pest today and get your pest control service started. There is no better way to keep wolf spiders out of your home than with help from the professionals at Bay Pest.