How to Get Rid of Crickets You Can’t Find (HINT: Use Your Vacuum.)

crickets

Crickets may be one of the better parts of a summer evening when their songs rise up from the grass, but they are less than welcome if they move into your house. Some species of crickets, like the cave cricket, live in colonies and can cause an outright infestation during warmer months.

While mostly harmless, crickets are among the more annoying household pests because of the noises they make and, in the case of mole crickets, the potential damage they can inflict on your property. Besides, anyone who isn’t too fond of large spiders popping up in the basement or under the kitchen cabinets will be no more thrilled to find a cricket crawling around. End the nights of trying to find where that creaking, constant song is coming from in your house by learning how to get rid of crickets.

Identifying the Crickets in Your Home

Are the crickets in your house small, black, and shiny, or large and mottled with long antennae? Knowing what kind of cricket you are dealing with will help you come up with the best strategy for eliminating them. Camel crickets live in damp, dark places whereas field crickets are attracted to lights and prefer to escape back outside when given the chance; you will have to handle these different varieties with different elimination tactics.

DIY pest control experts agree: knowing the habits and life cycle of the particular cricket you are trying to get rid of can help you know what kind of pesticides to apply, which environmental changes to make, and where you can expect to find them hiding. A pest control expert in your area can help you identify the crickets in your house if you’re unsure.

House, Camel, and Field Crickets

Three common types of crickets found in houses are the field, house, and camel cricket. The house cricket can invade a building in droves. They are often identified by their chirping sound and yellowish body which can grow up to an inch long. These crickets tend to feed on clothing, though they will eat most anything else as well. House crickets tend to hide in small, warm places like under kitchen baseboards or around fireplace masonry.

Camel crickets cannot fly, are large, and have a brownish color. Unlike house crickets, camel crickets prefer damp, cooler areas like basement crawl spaces. They may also live under rocks and debris around the outside of the house. They, too, will feed on most dead or living plant and animal matter.

Field crickets are dark, nearly black, and tend to live in green areas like the garden or yard. Still, these crickets will come inside to escape extreme dampness, dryness, heat, or cold. They are attracted to lights in the dark and are especially likely to come into the house when lights are on at night.

All three cricket varieties may be tackled with pesticides. An organic or chemical pesticide can be used around any place crickets may be entering your house: doorways, windows, or unsealed spaces around the foundation. You can also apply these insecticides, following the manufacturer’s guidelines, in places where crickets hide such as under cabinets, basement areas, or crawl spaces. Bait is another option– you can use bait to slowly poison the cricket population in your house. Bait is a particularly effective method for cricket types that colonize.

Mole Crickets

Mole crickets are a particular sort of problem for homeowners and gardeners since they live underground and tend to wreck the grass and plants above the areas where they tunnel. These pests are over an inch long with very thick bodies. Mole crickets feed on grass and are difficult to eliminate. Even if you get rid of one generation of adults, their eggs will likely hatch and create a new problem for you the next summer.

The key to mole cricket control: destroying their eggs before they can hatch. You can apply pesticides to the areas where mole crickets tend to lay their eggs, or you can use an organic solution like parasitic nematodes to get rid of mole cricket eggs without chemicals. For mole crickets that have already hatched, it is best to spray for them at the younger, nymph stage than after they’ve matured.

General Cricket Control Tips

Before you buy a jug of pesticides, figure out the kind of cricket in your home, or call a local exterminator, you can make small changes in your home or yard to start curbing your cricket problem. Keep plants and grass around your home shorter so crickets have fewer places to hide, keep your property clear of debris, and reduce dampness around the perimeter of your buildings. Seal up potential entry points for crickets and other pests. You can attract birds and other natural cricket predators to your property to reduce their overpopulation.

If you would like to try a natural pest control solution before using chemical pesticides, consider setting out glue traps or sprinkling diatomaceous earth in the spots in or out of your house where you suspect crickets are getting in. Glue traps will stop crickets in their place and are usually non-toxic; once a cricket is caught, simply toss out the trap and replace it. Diatomaceous earth looks like gritty powder and is perfectly safe, even for human consumption, but is razor sharp to insects like crickets, puncturing and drying out their bodies.

Learning how to get rid of crickets is the first step toward eliminating these annoying pests from your house. If your best DIY efforts aren’t enough to tackle the problem, consider hiring a pest control expert who can assess the problem, apply any needed insecticides, and help you figure out which environmental changes will prevent future infestations.

Published
Categorized as Crickets

By David Jackson

I enjoy learning about new pest control strategies and sharing what I learn at NeverPest.com. I aim to create a reliable resource for people dealing with all sorts of pest issues.

11 comments

  1. I have a pesky cricket somewhere under my kitchen sink. It drives me and my Great Dane nuts. What can I do to shut this thing up. Like you said once I walk out there it shuts up!

    1. Kathy, unfortunately, the only thing you can do to “shut it up” is remove or kill it. The hard thing, of course, if finding it.

  2. You make a great point that crickets tend to hide in small, warm places like under kitchen baseboards. My husband and I have been going crazy for a couple of weeks now because we can hear crickets in our house at night, but we can’t find them. We’ve already tried searching all over our kitchen and around all of the baseboards, but we still can’t find them. We’ll have to call a professional to come in and get rid of the pests because the sounds are driving us insane.

    1. Monica, yes, even one pesky cricket can cause a whole family to lose sleep. Best of luck to you in getting rid of these evasive insects!

  3. David, I’m from Louisiana and we have plenty of crickets. I like the noise of them as well, like Arthur but my wife doesn’t particularly enjoy them chirping. One thing I use a lot to keep insects away is Tabasco sauce.

    I usually take an old spray bottle, or you can use a pump-type weed sprayer, and mix water and Tabasco sauce. About two tablespoons per 20 ounces should work pretty good. Just spray this mixture on the plants around your home. It’s natural and won’t hurt the plants! I’ve also talked to gardeners who like to do the same thing with peppermint or tea tree oil instead of Tabasco sauce. There are actually quite a few natural ways to keep insects away from your property. You will never eliminate all of them, but many of them try to avoid certain scents and Tabasco seems to be one of the scents they do not enjoy.

  4. I actually find the sound of many crickets together quite soothing, it helps me sleep believe it or not!

    But I hate the sound of that one annoying cricket who sneaks into the house and decides to rub his legs together. I used to have a cat that was great at hunting these lone intruders down and finishing them off. Some (NOT ALL) cats and dogs like to hunt crickets in the house and kill them. I have also hear of geckos working great, but of course they are only common in some parts of the world. My idea is that if you have a puppy or a kitten, try to coax them or teach them to have fun chasing insects when they are young, perhaps their natural hunter instinct can be fostered. This is a win-win, they have fun and you sleep better :)

  5. David, good article on cricket control. And Jim, thanks for vouching for using nematodes for crickets. Great to know!

    One thing that my Grandmother used to do quite often was place a few mothballs outside our windows (at the ground) to help keep crickets away. We used to sleep with the windows open during the Summer in Indiana and the crickets could be quite loud, especially when they were right outside your window! When I would complain as child to my Grandmother about the crickets chirping I remember she would place a few mothballs out there and tell me not to move them. Usually she placed them under the shrubs near her house below the window. That seemed to have done the trick!

  6. I can’t stand getting circkets in my house. In the summer their chirp keeps me upt and the most annoying thing is they are so difficult to find once they get into my house. I hear them, but I usually have a hard time finding them. Any tips on how to find that one annoying and elusive cricket?

    1. Samantha, I agree with you on how annoying crickets can be when they sneak into your home. As far as finding that one elusive cricket chirping in your room, they will typically start chirping when all is quiet and dark in the room.

      Some people use a nightlight as a way to draw them out since they are attracted to light. If you turn the lights out and wait you will hear the culprit start to chirp eventually.

      Then move toward the sound slowly. Usually, when you get close, they can sense the movement and will stop chirping until they stop sensing movement again so stop moving for a bit and the cricket should start up again.

      You can often find crickets hiding near the base of a wall hiding under something although they sometimes hide inside cracks so can be difficult to find. If you find your annoying house pest, you can kill it or simply catch it and release it outside.

      Crickets are rarely harmful, but very annoying. Quite a few people report to me that their pet cats are skilled at finding these intruders and “playing” with them or killing the crickets. Hope that helps and best of luck in your hunt for that cricket :)

  7. Thanks for sharing the tip about using nematodes to get rid of mole crickets. I’m assuming that mole crickets are what I grew up calling “cave crickets.” I have a heck of a time keeping cave crickets or mole crickets out of my basement. I cannot seem to find how they are entering but I do not like using too many chemicals in my home unless I have to. I am going to give nematodes a try because I’ve used them in my garden and seen great results in keeping bugs away from there.

    1. Jim, I love nematodes for a variety of pest control issues. They are natural and usually quite effective. They really work wonders in gardens as you said. I like to mix the nematodes in with the soil in the spring prior to planting and it controls a large variety of insects very well and best of all they will not contaminate your fresh garden food!

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