<p>the sticky traps that presume to attract insects/spiders/flies. they use pheromones so i’d presume that they are specific to a species, but i’m sure there are some pheromones that work on organisms across the species (and even class) order. </p>
<p>i found one on amazon.com and it had really good reviews. still, even after i installed one of those traps, i still had at least 3 spiders and lots of flies roam around in my room - all of them oblivious to the trap.</p>
<p>Step on the spiders and swat the flies.</p>
<p>Good Lord the word ‘spider’ does make me shuddeeeeeeer…</p>
<p>I admire your fortitude-I could never put up with such a hellish and nightmarish dorm!</p>
<p>I was thinking about this sort of thing yesterday. There is an ant problem in a room a few down from me, and normally I use terro strips for ant problems and it works great-- but the problem with those is that they attract ants to them and you have to let a huge army of ants come at it in the beginning and then they all go home to die. I would guess that in a dorm or apartment you either 1.) couldn’t reach far enough with the attraction component to get enough bugs to keep them from coming back, or 2.) would attract way more bugs than you bargained for. I am not sure.</p>
<p>I never use traps, generally speaking if dogs eat or lick them it’s bad news. So I don’t use any.
My dog kills larger bugs for me, and I’ve never really had a problem with ants or anything super tiny.
If you have a problem with lots of flies, but a few spiders it sounds crazy but your best bet is to leave the spiders alone. Don’t capture or kill them. They’ll kill more flies more efficiently than a human ever could. Obviously that’s a bad idea if they’re ground dwellers like wolf spiders, or something poisonous. But if it’s a simple spider, like a daddy long legs you may consider letting it stay and it will kill the flies for you</p>