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Removing spiders from layout buildings?


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I get spiders stringing webs from the viaduct boards to the window, the hoover shifts them. Years ago I had a dead spider in a brake van, awkward to get out.

 

These days I design everything with a visible interior in ways which make access easy. For example ;

 

 

 

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My unheated 1850, low-ceilinged barn is spider heaven. Never mind the buildings, they construct webs in tunnels and under bridges, too! So when I came home from a few weeks in the UK, with a precious brand-new kitbuilt and custom-painted loco, it acquired a number of cobwebs on its first tour of the layout!

 

Worse things happen at sea. 

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8 hours ago, TrainMan2001 said:

So, this is a (really weird) question for people who have a permanent layout in their homes. Do you have to remove spiders/webs from the buildings? If so, how often do you have to do it? Just a thought that popped into my mind a couple days ago. Thanks for any help you can give!

 

Used to have this problem in the past when I had layouts in outside sheds and a garage.

 

We are coming up to horse-chestnut season. Go out and gather a few and leave them concealed around your layout in the buildings. No more spiders.

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15 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

You beat me to it Joseph, but I fully agree.  For reasons quite beyond my comprehension, horse chestnuts do seem to deter spiders

 

Horse chestnuts are toxic to a lot of creatures, including spiders. And humans, for that matter, although we'd have to eat them to suffer any ill-effects - handling them won't do us any harm as the amount of toxin you could pick up just by touch is far too low a level to have any effect. But merely touching one can harm a spider, and therefore they avoid them.

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Shop vac takes care of them in the railway shed. Works on the Landy's wing mirrors as well. Can't use any spray as SWMBO has forbidden it near her plant life which is always swarming with bees and butterflies. 

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3 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

Horse chestnuts are toxic to a lot of creatures, including spiders. And humans, for that matter, although we'd have to eat them to suffer any ill-effects - handling them won't do us any harm as the amount of toxin you could pick up just by touch is far too low a level to have any effect. But merely touching one can harm a spider, and therefore they avoid them.

 

Not disputing the toxicity, but how do spiders know not to touch them?

Or if they do touch them and then die before spinning a web, why do they all seemingly touch the horse chestnut?

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33 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Not disputing the toxicity, but how do spiders know not to touch them?

Or if they do touch them and then die before spinning a web, why do they all seemingly touch the horse chestnut?

Nature is mysterious or wonderful if you prefer. How do newly-born animals know what they need to do? They have not received any training.

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1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Nature is mysterious or wonderful if you prefer. How do newly-born animals know what they need to do? They have not received any training.

 

No training, but natural selection.

 

Those that randomly mutated so as to be able to smell/detect the poison and avoid it lived to have billions of baby spiders, those without that mutation suffered a horrible death by poison, some of them before they could reproduce. Over time the non-conker-smellers die-out, and the conker-smellers rule.

 

Presumably spiders in non-conker parts of the world haven't evolved that way, or maybe the poison is characteristic of multiple types of plant, so they have.

 

Now, the conker-trees, OTH, have possibly evolved to poison pests that lower their reproduction rate ......

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As to the original question: dangle flies on cotton threads outside the buildings, and wait.

 

This combines the creative fun of railway modelling with the mind-numbing tedium of fishing, thereby giving two hobbies for the price of one (unless you start buying "tackle" in which case two hobbies for the price of ten).

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Did hear of a track maintenance vehicle on a garden railway which consisted of a toy mouse mounted on a high speed four wheel chassis.  The attention of the cat was gained and it was set off with the cat in hot pursuit, through the tunnel removing the cobwebs as it did so...

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44 minutes ago, Titan said:

Did hear of a track maintenance vehicle on a garden railway which consisted of a toy mouse mounted on a high speed four wheel chassis.  The attention of the cat was gained and it was set off with the cat in hot pursuit, through the tunnel removing the cobwebs as it did so...

 

Thus brilliantly removing the cat and the spiders from the layout at the same time, presumably...

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I had a problem today with several trains derailing when they came out of the hidden storage yard. Eventually I concluded it was not the trains themselves at fault but something to do with the track.  Close inspection revealed a large wasp had decided to expire in one the frogs, thereby causing some wheels to lift and derail ....

 

Wasps and flies seem to get into my converted loft all too easily but this is the first time it's caused a real problem.

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