Hedge Apples? Spiders?

yep, funny true story when i was a teen I never knew what these darn things were and they were selling them in the produce aisle at the grocery store. My friends and I were making a goofy movie for a HS class and the movie was going to be a spoof on the juicer guy who did info-mercials. So no one knew what it was and thought it was an exotic fruit so we bought it along with a ton of other stuff. When it came time to juice it, we cut it open and it was all white and thick sticky nasty... right. So who gets the short end of the stick about "testing" the results. ME it was the MOST vile nasty horrible thing ever and then we all ran to a encyclopedia, (no internet other than bulletins at the time) and found out what it was and used for. I took the rest home and it DID repel spiders and other bugs. It sure as heck repelled me. YUCK.

Yes. You can buy them at the grocery store. I honestly thought it was an edible fruit, because they were selling it at...where? The grocery store! So I picked up one to try it, and then the cashier politely informed me (probably because she assumed I didn't know...which I didn't...) that it was for keeping spiders out of your basement.

we have tried them a few times at different houses and we both felt that it attracted the spiders. After getting them placed it seemed like there was double the spiders. A bottle of raid and removing the hedge apples we bearly had any spiders the rest of the year.

you know, I've tried them thru the years....but ended up being sensitive to the odor. & I noticed that they bring gnats into the house if you allow them to decay for any length of time....just trading one issue for another for the most part.

While I can of course read about this online, it would be nice if someone tells us all how this is used? Do they just get placed at various places in the basement? Are they supposed to be mashed up first? I would love to know.