Spiders and indoor Wood Stack

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Soadrocks

New Member
Nov 1, 2009
116
Rochester, NY
Dear All,

Another question for the veterans out there. This is our first year of burning wood and we have learned so much up to this point from this forum. Thank you sooo much.

Our question is this...

We have two fire grates with some logs on them. Our stove is in the basement so we like to keep 15-20 logs inside for the convenience factor. Every once in a while, we see our three cats together (never happens), but if they're on the prowl of a spider, they're all trying to play with it.

Is this just part of being a wood family? Is there a way to minimize this? Obviously, we could keep ALL wood outside, but that's not really practical.

What have the vets done to keep spiders at a minimum? Luckily, we have cats that take care of these critters, but still a little creepy.

Thanks!

Attached is a pic of our beautiful Chloe and our Castine F 400!
 

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It's part of the deal, unless you choose to keep all the wood outside. At least your cats go for the spiders . . . mine just watches them walk away (he has zero predatory instinct).
 
Lately we've had some really big hornets travel in on a log or two. One stung me as I grabbed a log. That was not expected in November! So now I always wear leather gloves moving wood and inspect the split for critters and brush them off if I find them, before loading the cart to bring it to the porch wood box.
 
I use that ortho home defense it works great goes on all the wall bottoms and around the wood closet
 
The only time we have extra wood in the house is at night. That way we don't have to go outside in the morning to get the wood. We do sort of pamper ourselves every now and then.

Worse that spiders, we've seen cockroaches on and in wood piles. Would you want to bring those indoors?
 
Revenge of the woodburners.

Another reason to keep glass doors clean.
Watching bugs explode.
 
Well we store about 8 cords inside. Never had a serious problem with bugs, mind you a few spiders do not constitute a problem around here. Maybe its the fact we have no poisonous bugs, snakes etc. We just have summer biters but then they are good for trout.
 
Not much you can do about this if you want a supply of wood indoors, which most of us do. The only problem we've had was one winter, luckily only one, when I began to find ticks on the dogs in December...usually the ticks are gone after July up here. Eventually, I figured out that some of the chunks of wood I'd brought in harbored the ticks. They were of a species I'd never seen up here [the ticks, I mean], and there were a bunch of them.

Neatest deal I've ever seen for wood was in a home in Wales where the wood bin had a door to it that sealed it off from the living room. Then there was a door on the other end which opened from the outdoors. You opened that outer door, stacked the wood in from there rather than having to carry it thru the house, then you just opened the inside door when you wanted to grab some wood. Wish I'd built my house that way, it was very smart. And it would minimize critters coming in.
 
My take is this: the chances of having a dangerous spider is near zero (only one in your range = northern black widow), and therefore, besides the 'creepy' factor (I happen to like spiders - but then again, I'm a biologist that studies bats.......), you have nearly NOTHING to worry about. Gather the buggers up and let 'em go somewhere - perhaps they'll make it through the winter where you leave them. They do a heck of a lot more good than harm......unfortunately, they are one of those critters that lots of people don't particulary like. Sorry for the rant.....but....I like most critters.....
 
Borax powder around wood, Home Defense, and or a contract with an exterminator. But read the labels with anything, especially if you have kids and animals you care about. I do not think it is a good idea to spray the wood and then burn it, but I knew a guy, in Idaho, who filled his garage with wood in the fall, then would set off multiple bug bombs... He is still alive and speaks in complete sentences.

I stash a 1/4 cord in the attached garage, typically ~ 40 degrees and move the wood in directly to the stove. And they do not get active too much at that temp.

My wife is a spider freak, and we had some of the wolf/wood spiders ( http://www.badspiderbites.com/wolf-spider/ ) a few yrs ago when we use to bring wood into the house. Those spiders were like OJ simpson when he was in his prime, fast, agile and could fake you out and run right past you.... I had one cornered , and it faked me out, ran under the door, I went into the other room, and could not find it.... Until i looked behind the door, and the thing had run under the door, and immediately up the other side of the door. He bought the back end of a dust pan, lots of juice to those guys as well.
 
Goes with the territory of burning wood. All the more reason to get clean wood.
 
A very timely question.

I was out 'cleaning' one of my wood piles today.....If neighbors had seen me they would have thought I certifiably nuts....Anyway....This wood pile sits against a 6' fence and under 2 very tall pine trees and a huge bush. I did not get a chance to cover it soon enough and a lot of debris from the said bush and trees settled on top and throughout the pile.

I took a small whisk broom out and spent some time brushing off the worst pieces and clearing out all the needles I could that were resting on the fence behind the wood...Hibernating critters were swept away too.

I know that wood will be clean when it comes in ;-) and I usually only store a couple of days worth of wood inside.

Have never had a problem with bugs from the wood but, on occasion, I have heard them chomping on a split from somewhere in the interior of the split...but, alas, poor insect never makes it to the outside of the split....It gets roasted....

Learned today I kinda like cleaning wood. Beats sweeping and washing kitchen floors. (I would never admit what I just admitted here anywhere else but I know you all understand and some of you probably do the same.....)

So, I don't worry about spiders.
 
I don't think they eat much. But then, I was a big fan of Charlotte's Web.

Couple of bugs here and there, sounds like life to me ;-)

'Course ya shoulda seen me knocking the white worms off a couple of splits before I brought them in a few weeks ago :lol:
 
I wish it was only spiders.
I keep finding mosquitos in the house. I guess some went dormant in the wood bark, and woke up when the wood warmed in the box near the stove???
 
My 8 year old came and got me the other morning, he had been looking behind some plywood leaned up outside our door for crickets. Guess what was hanging around that nice food supply? Black widow. Guess I need to move that plywood, makes for a nice hiding place. Watch where you put your hands....
 
elmoleaf said:
I wish it was only spiders.
I keep finding mosquitos in the house. I guess some went dormant in the wood bark, and woke up when the wood warmed in the box near the stove???

I've noticed a couple of mosquitos in the house too. I thought they may have come from my mosquito magnet in the basement but I didn't see any Mosquitos in there. Never thought of the wood.
 
madison said:
I knew a guy, in Idaho, who filled his garage with wood in the fall, then would set off multiple bug bombs... He is still alive and speaks in complete sentences.

My wife's uncle brought over his splitter this fall to split some red oak that we had decided to divide up between the two of us. One of the first rounds we split had some ants in it. I was horrified when he ran to his truck to grab a can of raid ant spray then began to spray the piece of wood with it and told me that every so often he walks around his wood stacks spraying them with ant spray. I quickly told him he could have any pieces with ants in them since he was so prepared to deal with them just because I didn't want him spraying any of my wood.

He is in his early 60's and seems pretty healthy and normal but I'm glad he doesn't live next door to me.
 
1st off, beautiful dog, is it a St. Bernard?

2nd, bugs definately go with the territory, all you can really do is keep the storage area as pest free as possible (as noted earlier) and knock your pieces together to eliminate debris/pests when your rounding up some splits.

Good luck
 
I use to stack about 1/2 a face cord in my hall way, to make sure I had dry wood. Then one day I started seeing all these big black ants all over. Then I started spraying the wood stack, and checking the wood better.
 
I only bring one days worth of wood into the heated area of my house,
So I'm not too concerned about bugs.

But this is what I've done to discourage rodents and bees/hornets/bugs from building nests in areas I didn't want them to be in.
I have never tried this for bugs in a woodpile, but it m-i-g-h-t work.

I use to have a problem with mice and bees/hornets building nest in the interior compartment areas of my
old Ford tractor that I had stored underneath a tarp outside during the winter months up here in Maine.

Someone told me to use drier sheets (the anti static softener sheets you put in the clothes drier)
in the areas the mice and bees/hornets would like to build their nests.(Rodents and bugs really dislike these drier sheets.)
It worked. I have done this in a small shed that I stored a couple of garden tractor in too, in which the mice use to love
to spend the winter.
I'd place a sheet in the battery compartment area, around the engine, in the usual nest sites and a few just scattered around on the floor, the mice never showed.

For a woodpile, this technique probably would not work if the woodpile was outside or really well ventilated, but
within an outbuilding/woodshed it m-i-g-h-t work.

I make no promises.
 
I think I'm missing out . . . 2nd year and still no spiders, bugs or other creepy crawlies from the wood . . . about the only thing I see is some evidence of powder post beetles on some of the older wood and I can live with them.
 
I try to knock every piece I bring in against another piece to knock anything I can off, and I store about 2 weeks worth of wood inside at any time. I figure I bring enough spiders in to deal with any other bugs that also make their way in
 
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