diff --git a/hepcrawl/testlib/fixtures.py b/hepcrawl/testlib/fixtures.py
index 73f28f96..c227d109 100644
--- a/hepcrawl/testlib/fixtures.py
+++ b/hepcrawl/testlib/fixtures.py
@@ -133,13 +133,13 @@ def expected_json_results_from_file(*path_chunks, **kwargs):
 
     return expected_data
 
-
-def clean_dir(path):
+def clean_dir(path=os.path.join(os.getcwd(), '.scrapy')):
     """
     Deletes all contained files of given target directory path.
 
     Args:
-        path: Absolute path of target directory to be cleaned.
+        path(str): path of directory to be deleted. Default path is the produced DB per spider that
+            stores the requested urls.
 
     Example:
 
diff --git a/tests/functional/arxiv/test_arxiv.py b/tests/functional/arxiv/test_arxiv.py
index ce01eecb..22025020 100644
--- a/tests/functional/arxiv/test_arxiv.py
+++ b/tests/functional/arxiv/test_arxiv.py
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 
 from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function
 
-import os
 from time import sleep
 import pytest
 
@@ -53,7 +52,7 @@ def set_up_local_environment():
         }
     }
 
-    clean_dir(path=os.path.join(os.getcwd(), '.scrapy'))
+    clean_dir()
 
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize(
diff --git a/tests/functional/wsp/test_wsp.py b/tests/functional/wsp/test_wsp.py
index d034e7aa..27f36955 100644
--- a/tests/functional/wsp/test_wsp.py
+++ b/tests/functional/wsp/test_wsp.py
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ def set_up_ftp_environment():
     )
 
     # The test must wait until the docker environment is up (takes about 10 seconds).
-    sleep(7)
+    sleep(10)
 
     yield {
         'CRAWLER_HOST_URL': 'http://scrapyd:6800',
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ def set_up_ftp_environment():
         }
     }
 
-    clean_dir(path='/tmp/WSP/')
+    clean_dir()
     clean_dir(path=os.path.join(os.getcwd(), '.scrapy'))
 
 
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ def set_up_local_environment():
 
 
 def remove_generated_files(package_location):
-    clean_dir(path='/tmp/WSP/')
+    clean_dir()
     clean_dir(path=os.path.join(os.getcwd(), '.scrapy'))
 
     _, dirs, files = next(os.walk(package_location))