Crickets may be revered in Asian cultures. Some people think crickets have an amorous song and there are some that think crickets aim luck and made a comfy cage for them. Yet, this culture was never translated to the western world. Cricket sounds of chirping were regarded as a sound pollution. It breaks your comfortable silence and the worse is, you get no sleep due to its incessant chirping.
Furthermore, crickets also tend to invade human houses. So you can imagine how upsetting it is, hearing non-stop chirping inside the house while you have no idea where they are.
If they reside in the house only in small number, maybe it will not cause a significant damage. However, if they already “occupy” your house with large of numbers, there’s a possibility that they will chew your furniture, or maybe your food supplies. There’s only one way to end your sleepless night, learn how to get rid of them. However, first of all, you have to know where they are hiding in your house.
Cricket’s Descriptions
Crickets usually are brown or black with long antennae and have wings, yet they don’t fly. The wings usually used to scrap with each other by the male one. Then, they make a sound of chirping and the chirping is used to attract the female. Crickets are able to jump to 3 feet high and this is one of the reasons why crickets are hard to catch and to get rid of.
Commonly, there are four types of crickets, house cricket, camel cricket, field cricket, and mole cricket. All of them prefer dark, humid, warm places. Those are the reasons why crickets love to invade human’s house. As you may know, kitchen or under your furniture have all of those criteria.
Your house also has the unlimited food source for the small creature. They can eat plants or animal in the house as they are carnivores. Crickets can also eat seeds, fungi, cloth, even wood. Another reason why they enter your house is that crickets are looking for a shelter to hide from predators. Your house is the safest place for them because there are so many predators on the outside. Spider, wasp, beetles, reptiles, birds, and rodent found cricket tasty.
Damage
As you read above, the crickets are harmless, if only in small numbers. The female can lay at least 200 eggs, so you can imagine what happens if your house is infested crickets. Not only the nonstop chirping that can drive you mad and has a sleepless night, that amount of crickets can also do damage to your silk, woolens, and cotton. Even though they may be harmless to human, still, there is a chance that they will go for your silk, paper, woolens, furniture or your walls.
10 Ways on How to Get Rid of Crickets
1. Seal Your Home
Crickets enter your house through a small opening such as through small cracks or gap between doors and windows. So, one of the easiest methods to prevent crickets from entering your house is sealing the house from the insects. Check carefully every small gap in your house that will be the secret tunnel for the crickets. You can caulk every gap crack in your house. Buy an attachment that will affix to the bottom of the doors to seal the crickets’ secret passage into your house. Then, make sure the vents have screens since they can jump.
2. Remove Bright Lights
There are insects that are attracted to bright lights and cricket is one of them. If your house has strong lamps, then they will lure crickets coming to your house. You should consider changing your lamps so they won’t attract crickets. “Bug lights”, sodium vapor lamps or amber LED lights are the best options to make your house less attractive to the insect. it is suggested that you should use these lights to light some strategic places in your house, such as porch lights and lights near windows. These places are the most visible for the crickets.
3. Cut Back The Vegetation
As you learn that crickets are attracted to enter human houses because the house is habitable for them. So, to get rid of crickets, you simply need to make the house inhabitable or attractive for the insect. Here are two ways to make your house less attractive for crickets:
- Keep Your Lawn Under Control
Tall grasses can be the crickets’ nest. Trim the tall grasses or bushes short to keep them at bay. Mow your lawn so they won’t have a place to build their nest. If you keep the grasses tall, it is only a matter of time before they start jumping into your house. At least, keep the grasses and bushes several feet away from your house so the crickets won’t have an easy access to your doors.
- Make Your House Tidy
As the grasses are kept short and several feet away from the house, you also need to keep the house tidy. It will get rid of the crickets’ hiding place and also it will make the house inhabitable for them. This method needs to be done in and outside of the house. Inside the house, reduce clutter and piles so the crickets won’t have any places to hide.
Outside of the house, make sure to take out your trash. The smell of trash attracts crickets. It also provides the insect foods and shelter. To make the crickets less attracted to the trash, tie the trash bags in a knot and put them in a trash can with the lid shut. To make it more secure, make sure to put the trash can away from your doors or strategic entry points.
You should also consider getting rid of your lawn debris, such as stones or woods. Keep them away from your doors. These objects can be the perfect shelters for the crickets since they provide a dark, moist, and humid place. They are the perfect place for crickets to hide until they get their chance to enter your house.
4. Nitrogen-Fixing Plant
Planting the nitrogen-fixing plant in your garden is one of many ways to repel the crickets. The plants irritate the insect and will drive them away. Garlic, clover, and sweet peas are nitrogen-fixing plants. Planting them in your garden will help the cricket to be away. Another option is to plant beneficial weeds such as Wormwood and Alliums. These weeds are useful and proven for pest prevention.
5. Trap
If the prevention methods did not work and the crickets still successfully make their way into your house, you should consider making traps to catch or maybe kill them. There are traps that aim only to catch them, and there are that definitely kill them.
- Sticky Trap
First, let us take a look at the trap that will only catch the insect, the sticky trap. The sticky trap is also safe for your children and pets because it consists of non-toxic material. All you need to do is to place the traps in the strategic areas where the cricket may jump around. The possible entries like doors, windows or doorways are also the strategic places. Or you can set the trap near the warm and moist areas where the cricket may hide.
Some sticky trap already has a particular smell that attracts the cricket. If your sticky trap doesn’t have it, use bait such as corn meal to lure the cricket.
- Live Cricket Trap
Crickets are tasty foods for some pets such as snake and lizard and the insect also make good fishing bait. So, if you want to feed your pets with crickets or you are into fishing, then you should consider catching the crickets alive.
All you need to do is a container box filled with lettuce and light source. Set the trap partially open and leave it at night on the strategic areas, the areas where the cricket infestation is. It will attract the crickets and then, the container box will be full of crickets in the morning. Take note that this trap can be set up indoors or outdoors.
Another option is by using beer. All you need is an almost empty bottle with several drops of beer inside. The beer will attract crickets and once they enter the bottle, they will have a very hard time to get out. Then, you can harvest them for your pets or fishing baits.
- Molasses Trap
First, you have to know that this will kill the crickets in the process. All you need are molasses water and a clean jar. Mix the water and molasses in the jar. The molasses is used to lure the cricket to their doom. Set the trap on strategic areas indoors or outdoors. You will hear the chirping slowly disappear as the crickets meet their demise. Once they taste the molasses, the insect will drown in the trap. Make sure to clean out the jar as it is full of dead crickets regularly until your house is cricket free. You can also use beer to set this trap if you have no molasses.
6. Homemade Spray
The homemade sprays usually are made by using environmentally friendly ingredients. First, is using soap water. Fill a spray bottle with soapy water, and then spray the water to the strategic areas or directly to the crickets. Once the crickets make contact with the soap water, it will penetrate the insect’s skin and cause irritation, and then it will force them to leave.
Second, you can use chili water. Mix ½ cup of red chili (powder or sauce) with two cups of water. Strain it and then add two more cups of water. Spray it on the strategic areas. The water will repel the crickets.
7. Vacuum Cleaner
Vacuuming the crickets is one of the best non-toxic methods to get rid of the insects. Take note that this method may kill the crickets. The best vacuum cleaner is the one with HEPA filter. You can clean your baseboards, carpet perimeter, wall voids and so much more by using this method. The vacuum will suck the cricket. After you finish vacuuming them, make sure to check the vacuum content. If they are still alive and you don’t want to kill them, throw it all away from your house so they won’t come back.
8. Allow Predators at Home
One of the reasons why crickets enter houses is to avoid predators. So if you want to get rid of crickets from your house, you can simply get a “predator” for them. Spider and lizard are natural cricket predators. If you are not afraid of them, you can have them as pets so they will do the job for you.
Other great predators of crickets are cat and bird. The cat can scan your house and your lawn to hunt the insect. On the other hand, the bird only can hunt outdoors. Buy a bird feeder and let birds flying around your lawn as they hunt for the crickets. These natural predators will help you to control the cricket’s population.
9. Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth is very effective in killing various insects and it also has food grade which means it is safe for children and pets. The powder will penetrate crickets’ exoskeleton to dehydrate them and kill them eventually. Dust the powder around windows, walls, trim, attics, basement, behind appliances and other strategic areas where the crickets are found.
10. Remove The Eggs
Once your house infested by crickets, there is a possibility when they already lay their eggs. All of the methods on how to get rid of crickets above are effective, but some of them cannot remove the egg. Without removing the eggs, the crickets will keep multiplying in your house. So once you kill or catch the crickets, locate the eggs and remove them. One of the best ways is by vacuuming them, as you read before.
Those are how to get rid of crickets. Tell us if there are other ways that you know.