Redbacks are the ones worth taking seriously around Geelong. They sit under the lip of outdoor furniture, in roller-door tracks, under the barbecue, inside old pot plants and in the corner of the letterbox: dry, sheltered, undisturbed. Black house spiders build the messy funnel webs in window frames and under the eaves. White-tails come inside hunting other spiders, which means cutting white-tail numbers starts with cutting the black house spider population. All three get handled differently.
The visit starts with a de-web of eaves, window frames, pergola and fence line, because a residual spray laid over an existing web never reaches the spider underneath. Then the surfaces: eaves, architraves, sills, door frames, subfloor, shed and garage tracks. Spider activity climbs from October and peaks with the males wandering in late summer, so the spring treatment is the one that counts. Expect to keep finding the odd dead one for a fortnight afterwards. That is the residual doing its job.
