T hey’ve made their homes all across campus, staking their claims on drinking fountains, shower stalls, fences and window panes. From the wire fences by the lake to the top floors of Kemper, they’ve become a presence as ubiquitous as North Face jackets and Nalgene bottles.

“Everywhere you look there’s a spider hanging out on its web,” said Weinberg freshman Paul Beck.

This fall, Northwestern is facing an unusually large and visible population of arachnids. Although there is no hard data to support the claim, students agree that there seem to be more of the eight-legged pests now than in years past. News agencies such as CBS 2 and the RedEye have reported similar findings throughout the Chicago area.

According to biologists, the arachnid population boom might be the result of unusual local weather that has resulted in a spider-friendly feeding environment.

“It seems to do with the drought we had this summer,” said biologist Doug Taron, a scientist with the Peggy Notebaert Museum in Chicago.

He said the summer heat helped the spider population in two ways: First, it eliminated the bacteria and fungi that act as natural arachnid killers, and second, it created a bumper crop of insects to feed on.

“It’s been a good year for hunting,” he said.

In Rogers House, the spiders have invaded everything from the bathrooms to students’ sheets, said Sarah Michael, a Music sophomore.

“I know one of the girls found one in her bed the other night, and so she slept in another girl’s bed,” she said.

The tiny hunters have even made their way to Krista Ross’ apartment on the 9th floor of Park Evanston at 1630 Chicago Ave., where they camp outside of her window.

“I would say there would be three or four on the window at a time,” the Weinberg junior said. “It’s sort of like a museum; they’re behind glass.”

There are 646 recorded species of spiders in Illinois, said Petra Sierwald, an assistant curator at Chicago’s Field Museum who specializes in arachnids.

At NU, students are likely encountering the common High Rise Spider – also known as the American House Spider – a harmless but “cosmopolitan” breed that gravitates to “highly disturbed, human-influenced environments.”

“Their natural habitat, we believe, are rocks overhanging water, and basically that’s what our big buildings are, rocks overhanging water,” Sierwald said.

Lit windows provide a perfect hunting ground for the species, as unsuspecting insects fly towards the bright lights and into their webs, she said.

More than 30 spiders are residing on the glass outside of Sub Connection in the Norris University Center.

Few, if any, requests to deal with the potential spider problem have come in, said Jim Kaltinger, district manager of Anderson Pest Control, the company that handles pest management for NU. Generally, Anderson views spiders as a minor nuisance.

“With spiders, it’s what we’d consider an occasional invader,” he said. “We don’t consider it a structural pest for the most part.”

But Weinberg sophomore Michael said the spider problem became so bad she and her Rogers House dormmates considered hiring a private exterminator. They dropped the plan after their community assistant informed them that facilities management usually handled those sorts of problems.

While they wait for a solution, Michael said they will do their best to avoid their wall-crawling roommates.

“They’re so big that nobody wants to squish them,” she said.

Reach Jordan Weissmann at [email protected].