House crickets?
January 2, 2022 10:11 AM Subscribe
After 15 years of living in our house, for the first time this winter, we have been invaded by crickets. How to get rid of them?
For the past month, we have seen multiple tiny pale-colored crickets in the house every day. (I had no idea before this that crickets will come into houses and take up residence but apparently it's a thing - according to Google there is a species of cricket known as a "house cricket"). Glue traps do nothing - the crickets will jump pretty much everywhere EXCEPT on the traps. We have been catching the crickets and putting them outside on a daily basis, but it's not making a dent in the population. If it were just an occasional cricket here and there I wouldn't mind, but there must be dozens of them in the house by now given how frequently we are seeing them. Has anyone successfully managed to eradicate a house cricket infestation? What is the best way to go about this?
For the past month, we have seen multiple tiny pale-colored crickets in the house every day. (I had no idea before this that crickets will come into houses and take up residence but apparently it's a thing - according to Google there is a species of cricket known as a "house cricket"). Glue traps do nothing - the crickets will jump pretty much everywhere EXCEPT on the traps. We have been catching the crickets and putting them outside on a daily basis, but it's not making a dent in the population. If it were just an occasional cricket here and there I wouldn't mind, but there must be dozens of them in the house by now given how frequently we are seeing them. Has anyone successfully managed to eradicate a house cricket infestation? What is the best way to go about this?
Borrow a cat.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:38 AM on January 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:38 AM on January 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
They usually like moist spaces, so you can try drying out and ventilating more. Are you seeing them in specific areas of the house, like the basement? A dehumidifier might do the trick. Likely better to see what you can do about changing the environment to make it less hospitable for them, rather than trying to use pesticides.
posted by gemmy at 11:11 AM on January 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by gemmy at 11:11 AM on January 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Try these traps. They work really well on the spider crickets.
posted by pyro979 at 11:30 AM on January 2, 2022
posted by pyro979 at 11:30 AM on January 2, 2022
Clean up food and moisture sources, they'll cycle back down. We get a few in the fall each year but they never last long. They can't infest properly stored food and they can't breed without water so they aren't really a problem that requires dedicated techniques in most cases.
And yes to keeping spiders and centipedes welcome, that alone prevents most all bug problems in my experience :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:49 PM on January 2, 2022
And yes to keeping spiders and centipedes welcome, that alone prevents most all bug problems in my experience :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:49 PM on January 2, 2022
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We tend to have two or three of these indoors most of the time and other creepy crawlies just don't last long. We also have a few windows we've given over to use by black house spiders as well, so we see very few mosquitoes indoors and house flies don't last long either.
Wherever you live, there are almost sure to be spiders about with habits similar to these two. Just let them be when you find them.
posted by flabdablet at 10:26 AM on January 2, 2022 [3 favorites]