Heed This Warning After Vacuuming Up A Spider

Vacuums are a tidy way to clean up many things in your home — not just the crumbs and dust that accumulate on your carpet. With the myriad of attachments most vacuums come with, you can easily clean up dead (or dormant) Asian lady beetles from your window sills and spiderwebs that are lurking in all of the corners of your home — which may also still have spiders in them. If you manage to get a black widow or a brown recluse in your vacuum, you must deal with your trapped prey immediately. The longer you keep them in the vacuum, the greater the chance they have of escaping or of you forgetting they're in there in the first place.

It can be handy to deal with spiders with the suction from your vacuum. However, it's essential to know that the vacuum isn't always going to kill them (and may not even catch them in the first place). Spiders generally have good reflexes and will survive being sucked up — some may even be able to get away, sensing the vacuum before you can get them. They notice the change in airflow, and it makes them run for cover. If you do manage to suck up a spider, you'll want to be careful when emptying the vacuum cleaner.

Of the ten most common spiders you'll find in your home, some of them can cause pretty painful bites, including the black widow and brown recluse. While neither bite is likely to kill you, they can cause headaches, vomiting, and high blood pressure, among other things. Although a vacuum with a bag may help prevent you from seeing the spiders you vacuumed up, they could still crawl back out — so you want to be careful when pulling the bag out and disposing of it. 

If you know for sure what type of spider you got and it's not a brown recluse or black widow, tossing the bag as usual may be no biggie. However, if it is one of those two or you're not sure, we suggest putting the vacuum bag in a plastic bag, tying it off, and putting it in your outdoor trash can immediately. If you use a bagless vacuum, carefully dump the contents into a plastic bag, then follow the same instructions to remove the spider from your home ASAP. If you're finding that you're vacuuming up a lot of spiders regularly, you may have a bigger problem — like a possible infestation.

Regular vacuuming is a great way to keep some pests out of your home. Plus, a clean house, sans spider webs and cobwebs, makes it a little less welcoming to spiders. It discourages them by removing their hunting grounds and home, requiring them to rebuild — which they may get sick of doing if you're sucking up their webs regularly. Before you go after the spiders sharing your residence, though, consider the fact that there are some beneficial spiders you may want to keep around.