When you live in an old house—mine was built in the 1880s and could double as the set for a creaky-doors-and-windows horror flick—there are certain things to which you adjust: floors that creak like the floorboards in a haunted house, windows that let in the draft, and—like an unwanted houseguest who will not leave—an occasional spider settling into some dark, unused corner.
But this fall, things went too far.
Each morning, it felt as if another had emerged, from a lampshade to the corner of a windowsill. I am no delicate flower, but even I have my limits. I'd been living in a Halloween exhibit for a week, I thought, and it was time to get to the bottom of this thing.
I wasn't exactly thrilled about coating my living space in poison, so I went hunting for some natural alternatives.
Weirdly, I stumbled upon a useful bit of advice in a comment on a forum: one poster said she uses Vicks VapoRub as a way to make spiders skedaddle.
It wasn't exactly your traditional pest control, but I was desperate.
🧪 The First Test: Skepticism and a Jar of Vicks
I even owned a crusty old jar of Vicks that I'd had in the back of the medicine cabinet for ages. Almost certainly past its sell-by date, but it smells as strong as ever—that shocking hit of menthol.
That night, I put little globs around:
- All the window frames
- By the baseboards behind the couch
- Behind the door going downstairs to the basement
- Locations I'd observed the spiders appeared to favor
I wasn't expecting much. To tell the truth, it all got a little silly rubbing cold remedies all over my living room.
But there was a shift by week's end.
No fresh webs. No fast-movin' darting shapes scuttling across the floor. Only the faintest whisper of menthol whenever I passed a window—and so much more peace of mind.
🔬 Why Vicks Seems To Work: The Science (and the Speculation)
There's no magic involved. But there is some plausible science.
