9 Simple Tricks to Keep Spiders Out of Your Shower Drain

You’re headed to the bathroom to take your morning shower when you are horrified to discover a spider crawling out of the drain. This is not a good way to start the day! Spiders are unnerving, startling, and altogether unwelcome invaders into our home.

Spiders are attracted to shower drains because they provide a dark and damp shelter. Luckily, there are many ways to get rid of and keep spiders out of your shower drains. Some of the most common include closing windows, closing pipes, replacing window/door seals, and re-caulking your bathroom.

There are many ways to keep these eight-legged nightmares out of your shower drain. Read on to discover some simple tricks to put your mind at ease!

How Did Spiders Get Into My Bathroom?

Spiders enter your home through gaps in your doorways, windows, foundation, and more. They love the moderate temperature, sources of food, and the number of hiding places.

And just like any other living creature, spiders get thirsty. Since spiders prefer damp and warm environments, you can usually find them in your bathroom. But when they get thirsty, they head down the drain to find water.

This is when you will see a spider coming out of your drain. There’s no other reason! They do not come up from the pipes. This is a myth that spiders will get into your home by crawling up sewer pipes, and is untrue. Spiders will only go down a drain to search for water. 

At this point, they get stuck in the drain. Many times, the spider will be washed away when you turn on the water. If this doesn’t happen, they will find their way back up if the pipes aren’t slippery enough. 

Up next, you’ll see how to keep these spiders out of your bathroom drains and out of your house!

What Does it Mean If I See Spiders Crawling Out Of My Drain Often?

Numerous things can be at play if there are a lot of spiders present in your bathroom. It can be a sign of a deeper problem in your home. 

Is there an infestation of pests in your home? More pests will attract more spiders, so the presence of a lot of spiders could mean you have a pest problem. 

If there is an abundance of them, your best bet is to contact a professional who can fully diagnose and eliminate the pest problem, including spiders. 

Eliminating pests means reducing the presence of spiders. Although pest control will get rid of the spiders in your home, the eradication of other pests will provide continued protection against spiders returning to your home.

How Do I Keep Spiders Out Of My Drains?

Is there a way to keep spiders from entering my drain? Yes, there is! The following list of tips will help you keep those unnerving creatures out of your shower drain.

Using these tips interchangeably will give you the best chance of ridding your shower drains of these unwanted guests!

1. Perform Routine Dusting And Cleaning To Repel Spiders

It is important to keep your home clean to reduce the chances of seeing a spider. This is especially true in the bathroom. Spiders are attracted to warm and damp places, especially in cold and dry months. This makes your bathroom a welcoming home for spiders as they are more likely to be warmth and water in there than any other room in the house.

More specifically, according to University of Kentucky Entomology, spiders can be found in undisturbed areas like closets, garages, basements and attics.

Using dusters or vacuum cleaners is an effective way to sweep the corners of your floors and ceilings of webs and eggs. Eggs contain hundreds of spiders, so make sure to clean these areas regularly or you will end up with a spawn of baby spiders crawling around your bathroom.

Pay special attention to spaces that are not frequently cleaned in your bathroom, like in the corners of the ceilings and behind the toilet. These are prime places for spiders to hide.

2. Use The Power Of Scent To Get Rid Of Spiders

Spiders have a very powerful sense of smell and use it to hunt and find water. There are numerous smells you can use that spiders hate. Keeping these scents near drains will decrease the chance of spiders climbing into your shower drain.

A few scents that will agree with your nostrils and add a pleasant odor to your bathroom are peppermint, cedar, and citrus. Regularly spraying your shower drain with these oils diluted in water will deter spiders from coming near your drains.

The most effective way to utilize scents like the ones above is to add 25-30 drops of essential oil to a spray bottle of water. You can use a variety of other scents like cinnamon and lavender. The key is overwhelming them with scent and making the area undesirable to them.

Vinegar is also an effective way to keep spiders away. Create a solution of one-fourth vinegar and three-fourths water. Spraying this near the drain will have a similar effect, but a much less pleasant odor.

The downside to using scent to deter spiders is that you have to reapply it to the drain after every time you use the faucet. If it has a pleasant scent, however, and will freshen up your bathroom.

Head on over to our other article, 8 Scents That Spiders Hate and How to Use Them, for ideas on how to use a variety of scents to repel spiders!

3. Repel Spiders By Getting Rid Of Clutter

Spiders love dark, quiet places that are undisturbed. If you have a lot of clutter in your bathroom, spiders will be more likely to use the hidden areas behind and between objects as their home. 

Keeping clutter out of your entire house is a great way to reduce the number of spiders in your bathroom. If you don’t keep the rest of the house cleaned and dusted, the spiders that are hiding there are likely to travel to your bathroom to search for water.

Objects like boxes, picture frames, and furniture are perfect hiding places for spiders. Make sure to keep areas with these things clutter-free and regularly dusted to ensure they don’t make their home there.

4. Close Your Windows To Prevent Spiders From Entering

This one is simple. Spiders love to crawl into your home through crevices and your window is the perfect way for them to get in. Unless your home is older or in bad shape, you don’t need to worry about bigger issues like resealing cracks. 

However, if you have noticed an unusual amount of spiders in your house, you should check all of your windows, doors, and baseboards for cracks. They are likely the way that spiders are used to get into your home.

Keep your bathroom window closed as much as possible, especially at night. Spiders are more active at night and will make an entrance into your home most often in the dark. Leaving your window open all night is a great way to welcome a spider into your bathroom, so avoid it!

If you’re interested, check out our article on how spiders enter your home here.

5. Clean Outside Your Home To Get Rid of Spiders

If your bathroom has a window with objects stacked against your house outside of it, the chance of a spider invading is more likely. Spiders love shelters like stacks of firewood and debris that provide the perfect bridge between the outdoors and your bathroom.

If this is the case, clear the area around your bathroom window! Destroy the habitat of any spiders hiding within the area and you will lower the chances of a spider making your bathroom its home and your shower drain its watering hole.

Don’t forget the natural bridges that can be made from the outdoors to your home. Trimming bushes and branches that are touching your house is an excellent way to keep spiders from crawling in. 

6. Get Rid Of Spiders With Repellent Spray

If the spider problem in your bathroom is more severe, using a spider repellent spray will deter spiders more effectively than the other methods mentioned in this article. Repellents can be homemade—like using essential oils diluted in water—but the best way to truly keep spiders away is to use a professional spider repellent.

Miss Muffet’s Revenge is a great product that I recommend for getting rid of spiders! Simply spray the area around your shower drain, the corners of your walls and ceilings, and the area behind your toilet to fully protect the area from eight-legged visitors.

7. Plug Your Drains To Prevent Spiders From Coming Into Your Home

A simple rubber plug over the shower drain when it is not in use is an easy way to ensure that spiders don’t crawl into your drain when you’re not looking.

Another way to do this is to use a product such as this LEKEYE Drain Hair Catcher that is placed over the shower drain to catch hair. It is effective at keeping spiders out because the holes are too small for them to crawl through. The downside to this is you have to clean out the hair catcher often.

8. Use Lemon Peel to Repel Spiders

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You can set up quick protection against these creeping visitors by rubbing lemon peels over various surfaces in your bathroom. 

Use the lemon peel as a sponge and scrub it along windowsills, behind the toilet, in the corners of the walls, and around the shower drain. This is a simple way to deter spiders from coming near those areas.

9. Use Plants To Repel Spiders

There are certain plants that spiders hate to be around and therefore can be used effectively as a spider repellant in your bathroom and home.

Some of the plants are effective because of their scent, like peppermint, lavender, mint, basil, lemon balm, and citronella.

Other plants, like chrysanthemums, have compounds named pyrethrins that are used in many natural pesticides and insect repellents. These compounds exist within the flower itself, so they must be in bloom to be used as a spider repellent.

Unfortunately, chrysanthemums only bloom once per year, so enjoy this natural spider deterrent during the fall weather as more animals seek shelter in our warm houses. Remember to prune the dead flowers off of these plants to encourage new growth.

Final Thoughts

If these methods aren’t working and you are noticing spiders frequently in your home, it may be time to contact a professional pest control service to inspect your home. This will ensure that your home is free of spiders, although it does not permanently remove them. 

Spiders will always be a part of our ecosystems, and although they are effective at removing insects as mosquitos and house flies from our homes, spiders crawling out of our shower drains are just plain terrifying.

Using the tips above will give you the best chance of evading spiders crawling in and out of your shower drain, giving you peace of mind while you are in the bathroom.

For more wild information on spiders, read our article about 7 Reasons Why Spiders Won’t Remember You (Or Get Revenge)!

References

Fischer, Andreas, et al. “Natural Compounds as Spider Repellents: Fact or Myth?” Oxford Academic, Journal of Economic Entomology, 22 Dec. 2017.

Gouge, D. “How to Bug Proof Your Home”. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona, 2009.

Herberstein, M. E., & Wignall, A. (2011). Introduction: spider biology. In Spider behaviour: flexibility and versatility (pp. 1-30). Cambridge University Press.