Interesting tradition. And, I understand the idea of something that makes them stay away. I hadn't thought of it for spiders. But, I know that if you drive away wasps and pull down the nest, they'll just come back and build a new one if you don't eradicate the scent of the nesting site. A little smoke will do the trick there – and, the smoke is handy for driving the wasps away in the first place.

I have an extreme aversion to spiders. When I was a toddler, mother and the landlord were discussing where he was going to fence off the yard. Apparently, as mother told it, she discovered about to grab a massive, bright green and yellow and black garden spider that – with legs extended – was a big as my little head. In horrified fear, she and the landlord screamed my name and he rushed forward and snatched me away. She always said that from that day on, I was terrified of spiders.