Arrggghhhhhhh! DIE! DIE You horrible evil mutant bastardsssssss!!!
OK, sorry. I’m calm now. I’m calm, I say, but I would appreciate any advice you might have about how to get rid of a sudden influx of camel crickets. Since we moved in here last April we’ve seen 10 or 11 of these things; caught 'em, flushed 'em, no drama.
In the last three days it is suddenly more like 15-20 per day. They are far more aggressive too - one jumped onto my leg while I was peeing ferchrissakes. Celtling is screaming 2-3 times per day which has the dog in hyped-up defence mode and barking at shadows. We’re stressed man, I’m telling you: Stressed!
So we’re looking for scorched-Earth methods, the which also need to be child-safe, dog-safe, and hardest of all to achieve - aquarium-safe.
As enjoyable as it’s been reading solutions like this one, we really need a faster method. Any advice you may have about completely eradicating these grotesque vermin would be greatly appreciated.
I have five things that I’m truly terrified of, and cave crickets are #2 on that list. (shudder)
The first thing you need to do is reduce the moisture in the area they’re calling home. Are they coming up from the basement? Put a dehumidifier down there, seal up all the cracks you can find, and clear all the leaves away from your foundation. Then put glue boards down everywhere. They’re really, really gross to throw away, but they work. Your last option will be an actual exterminator, but if the basement is dark and moist, it’s not going to do much good.
Why are people so emotional about the presence of insects? I understand wanting to get rid of them and taking the steps to do so, but why is there so much drama/shuddering/horror?
I can see a mouse and go “eek”. Cave crickets rank a Jamie Lee Curtis scream. Really didn’t know I could scream like that.
I have a crawl space and hate to think how many are under the house. I got sticky rat traps but didn’t catch any where I put them. At least you hope to pull a leg off, I’ll move the traps under the sink.
The glue strip traps work, and if you can believe the advertising, they are non-poisonous. The strips have something on them that attracts the crickets; they get stuck, can’t get loose and die. I’d still try to keep my dog and kids away from the strips, non-toxic or not. My husband used to put them in the places where crickets would congregate, and then dispose of them when I wasn’t looking. I couldn’t stand the thought of them suffering while they tried to pull free (yes I know, I’m too tender-hearted), so now that I’m in charge of such matters, when I see one, I capture it by lowering a clear drinking glass over it, sliding a stiff piece of paper under the glass to contain the cricket, and then dropping it out the nearest window to fend for itself. If they can’t survive the freezing weather, that’s not my problem, but I can’t bring myself to actually kill them.
Normally this time of year, I have to capture between 2 and 6 crickets daily. Strangely enough, I have not seen a single cricket since I started watching this thread.
Oh, THAT’S the giant cricket I saw in my house on Sunday (and again last night)! I just moved to my area in late April, and I’d never seen anything other than a regular cricket before. That thing should have been contributing to the rent! :eek:
I have no basement – there’s a crawlspace, but you can’t get to it from inside the house – so I guess what’s attracting them is all of the leaves around the foundation. I have a weekend project now.