You notice them first on the windowsill. Tiny pale spiders, barely visible, moving slowly across the glass. Then you see the same thing on the leaves of your houseplants. Fine webbing stretched between stems and along the undersides of leaves. Little dots moving around in it that you almost have to squint to see. Then you find them on the outdoor plants near the front door and along the window screens on the porch.
Most homeowners in Wesley Chapel assume these are spider mites and they are usually right. But there are a few different tiny spider species that show up on windows and around plants in this area and knowing which one you are dealing with changes how you handle it.
Spider Mites Are Not Actually Spiders
Spider mites are the most common thing people find on houseplants and outdoor plants throughout Wesley Chapel and they are technically not spiders at all. They are arachnids in the mite family but they look like tiny moving dots and they produce the same kind of fine webbing that makes people think they are dealing with baby spiders. The webbing on the undersides of leaves, the stippled yellowing on leaf surfaces and the tiny dots moving slowly through the webbing are all classic spider mite signs.
Spider mites thrive in hot dry conditions which makes Wesley Chapel summers ideal for them especially on plants that are stressed from heat or inconsistent watering. They reproduce extremely fast. A small population can become a serious infestation on a plant within a couple of weeks during summer.
If you are finding fine webbing on your houseplants combined with yellowing or stippled leaves and tiny moving dots the size of a period at the end of a sentence, spider mites are almost certainly what you are dealing with. These are a plant pest not a home pest and they do not bite people.
Cellar Spiders on Windows and in Corners
The other tiny spider homeowners frequently find near windows and in the upper corners of rooms throughout Wesley Chapel is the cellar spider which most people know as the daddy long legs. These are the pale yellowish spiders with extremely long thin legs that hang upside down in loose irregular webs in corners, along ceiling edges and near windows where insects are active.
Cellar spiders are completely harmless. The myth that they are the most venomous spider in the world but cannot bite through human skin is completely false. They are not venomous in any meaningful way to humans. They are beneficial spiders that catch and eat other insects including mosquitoes, flies and even other spiders. Finding cellar spiders near windows is extremely common in Wesley Chapel homes because windows are where flying insects concentrate and cellar spiders position themselves to take advantage of that.
Jumping Spiders on Windowsills
If the tiny spiders you are finding on your windows are small, compact, fuzzy looking and move in short quick bursts rather than slowly those are likely jumping spiders. Jumping spiders are the small curious looking spiders that tend to face you directly and appear to watch you when you get close. They are extremely common in Wesley Chapel and are found on windowsills and exterior walls where they hunt insects that land near the glass.
Jumping spiders are completely harmless and actually quite beneficial. They are active hunters that do not build webs and they consume a wide variety of insects. Finding them on your windows is not a sign of an infestation. It is a sign that your windows are attracting insects which is attracting the spiders that eat them.
When Tiny Spiders Become a Real Problem
Finding a few cellar spiders in corners or some jumping spiders on a windowsill is normal in Wesley Chapel and not something that requires treatment. The situation worth paying attention to is when you are finding dozens of spiders of any species in concentrated areas inside your home on a regular basis. That level of activity almost always indicates an underlying insect population providing enough food to support a larger spider population than you would normally expect.
If tiny spiders are showing up throughout the interior of your home consistently and in numbers that feel like more than just the occasional stray, the underlying insect activity is the issue that needs to be addressed. Our spider control program looks at the full picture, identifies what is driving the spider activity and treats both the spiders and the pest population behind them. Call us for a free estimate and we will tell you exactly what you are dealing with.