When I was little, the only thing we did with Horse Chestnuts or Conkers was tie a string through them and then proceed to bash them to bits against your best mates Conker in the school playground hopefully without taking a painful whack on the knuckles in the process.
Funny thing was, my nan always had a ready supply of conkers, I always thought it was because she knew I needed them (I was going to smash Jez Swinglers ‘Niner’ this year!). I did not realise till I was grown up, the reason why she always had a steady supply of conkers on hand, it turns out that she was an arachnophobe and had been using the conkers to scare away the spiders from the house.
Now, being an arachnophobe myself, this time of year is sheer misery, early autumn is when they all seem to migrate to my house and I spend the next few weeks jumping at every imagined corner of the eye movement, jumping out of bed at 3am and stripping the duvet off the bed because something itched on my leg, carefully checking shoes before putting them on because god forbid anything moved while my foot was in it. Spiders are the bane of my existence and you are never more than 6ft away from the nearest one apparently so if there is anything that can keep them away from me, so much the better.
Being a nearly rational person, I decided to do some investigation into whether my old nan was right or simply mixing her pills. After an exhaustive search involving banks of supercomputers, NASA, Google and my mate Geoff who knows everything about everything, I found that while there is no scientific proof or explanation why Conkers repel spiders, an awful lot of people swear that they do.
Just take a look at Ebay at this time of year, there are lots of listings for conkers, why would you pay for them?, they literally grow on trees! mind you, if the closest you can get to a tree is seeing one on television or the kids have already had all the conkers from your local area, then the sellers may be your only option.
Now personally, I prefer the old fashioned way of dealing with those eight legged interlopers but as I am told that a rolled up newspaper or the vacuum cleaner is not sporting, I am forced to rely on other methods to rid myself of spiders. Fortunately, there are many companies that help us arachnophobes out and produce chemical repellents and other more high tech methods involving ultrasound and electromagnetism.
Doff, who are a leading pest control manufacturer have produced The Ultrasonic Spider Repeller. A wonderful contraption that plugs into your mains and emits ultrasonic and electromagnetic waves that spiders cannot tolerate, it also works on rats and mice too.
If you are looking for a more low tech answer, then Doff have also produced Spider Glue Traps. Works like fly paper but you can put it on the floor, the spider crawls inside the trap thinking it is a dark little corner where it can lay in wait and gets stuck to the glue covered sides of the trap, also works on ants and other crawling pests.
If you prefer the idea of just stopping them from entering the home, then No More Spiders will be the answer, just spray the repellent on the door and window frames and the spiders are repulsed and can’t get in. A word to the wise, make sure there are no spiders in the house BEFORE you spray, otherwise they can’t leave and you will be stuck inside with them.
If like me, you just want to get them gone and really don’t care for the casualty rate, then Doff Spider and Crawling Insect Killer is your weapon of choice. Spray the surfaces where you have seen them and wait. Not long before you will be sweeping away dead spiders and other creepy crawlies like woodlice and ants.
Our full range of Spider Repellents can be found here and as always you can click the green links above to go to the product pages directly.
As I said earlier, there is no scientific proof that conkers work as a spider repellent yet people say they do, who is right? Until the end of October, we are going to give you a bag of 10 conkers with every spider repellent product you purchase from our range so you can see for yourself if conkers actually work and I owe my old nan an apology.