Black House Spider Identification Melbourne
Identify black house spiders — Melbourne's most common web-building house spider.
Black House Spider in Melbourne — Quick Answer
The black house spider is Melbourne's most common web-building spider, constructing distinctive lacy, tangled webs around windows, eaves, and gutters. Adults measure 12–18 mm with a dark brown to black, robust body. They are timid and rarely bite, but bites can cause localised pain, nausea, and sweating. Black house spider webs attract white-tail spiders that hunt them. T47 Pest Control removes existing webs and applies targeted treatment to prevent rebuilding.
How to Identify Black House Spider
Size
12–18 mm body length
Colour
Dark brown to black; robust, slightly velvety body
Behaviour
Web-builder; rarely leaves the web; timid; rebuilds webs in the same location repeatedly
Habitat
Window frames, eaves, gutters, fence posts, tree trunks, rock walls; inside toilets and garages
Look-Alikes & Confusion Notes
May be confused with funnel-web spiders due to dark colouring. Black house spiders are significantly smaller, less robust, and build lacy webs — funnel-webs build ground-level burrows with trip lines.
Risk & Urgency
Low to moderate. Black house spider bites cause localised pain and sometimes nausea but are not medically serious. The main concern is that their webs attract white-tail spiders into your home.
Where Found in Melbourne
Black house spiders are found on virtually every building in Melbourne. They are most visible on light-coloured walls where their dark, messy webs accumulate around windows, eaves, and exterior lights.
What to Do Now
Regularly remove webs from around the house to discourage rebuilding. Reduce exterior lighting that attracts insects to webs. T47 Pest Control applies long-lasting surface sprays that prevent spiders from re-establishing web sites.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why do black house spiders keep coming back to the same spot?
- Black house spiders are highly site-faithful. They return to the same web location repeatedly because it provides good insect prey access. Simply removing the web is often not enough — the spider will rebuild within days. Surface treatment of the web site prevents re-establishment.
- Do black house spiders attract other spiders?
- Yes. Black house spider webs attract white-tail spiders, which are specialist spider hunters. Reducing black house spider populations around your home also reduces the number of white-tail spiders that come inside to hunt them.