How to Get Rid of Crickets
If you’ve got a cricket infestation, you’ll need to locate the crickets, vacuum them up, and then set traps for the rest.
Written by Patrick Price
Reviewed by Melanie Reiff
If your home has a cricket infestation, you should vacuum up the ones that you can find and then set traps for the rest. Afterward, double-check that your home is well-sealed, well-lit, and doesn’t have too much standing water.
Most of the time, crickets are nothing more than a source of soothing background noise on summer evenings. If these little hoppers decide to set up shop inside your home, however, it can cause some serious trouble. Crickets will eat away at wood, fabric, paper, and other organic materials—not to mention, they can sometimes carry disease!
If you have a cricket infestation, it’s important that you act quickly to eliminate the problem. That’s why
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What are crickets?
Before you begin your campaign against the cricket infestation, you’ll need to know a bit about your adversary.
Crickets or “Grylloidea” are a family of insects in the order Orthoptera.They’re related to grasshoppers and are similar in appearance. There are nearly a thousand different species of cricket—but the common house cricket is the one that you’re most likely to see.
Most of the time, crickets are more than happy to remain outside where their favorite plant foods are plentiful. When it gets cold outside, though, they may move indoors to stay warm.
Crickets are most attracted to warm and moist areas where they have easy access to food—they like to eat fabrics, such as wool, cotton, silk, and even synthetic cloth.
What do crickets look like?
Crickets can look pretty different depending on what species you’re dealing with. The house cricket, for instance, has a light yellow-brown coloration and three dark strips across its head. They usually grow to between one-half inch and one inch by adulthood. They also have flat wings as well as very long and thin antennae. Their most distinctive feature, though, is their large black legs—which they use to jump huge distances.
House crickets are by far the species that’s most commonly found infesting homes—but you might get an infestation of field crickets as well. Field crickets are black or dark brown and a bit larger than house crickets. They can do serious damage to crops and gardens as well as your home.
Signs of a cricket infestation
Not sure whether you have a full-blown cricket infestation or just one or two strays wandering around? To determine if you do have an infestation, watch out for these tell-tale signs:
- Unlike a lot of pests, crickets aren’t very sneaky. If you have an infestation, then you’re sure to have seen multiple crickets inside of your house.
- Even more conspicuous than their appearance is a cricket’s “song.” If there are crickets living in your home, you’ll hear them chirping—-especially at night.
- If crickets are living in your house, they’ll feed on the fabrics inside. Keep an eye out for holes or rough edges on cloth items such as rugs, carpets, curtains, clothes, and upholstery.
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How to get rid of crickets
Now that you know what crickets look like and how to tell if they’re infesting your home, it’s time to find out how to get rid of them!
In some respects, crickets are much easier to get rid of than most pests. They’re loud, relatively large, and not hard to find. So, you shouldn’t have much trouble removing them—as long as you can catch them!
Step 1: Look, listen, and locate
The first step to eliminating your cricket problem is locating the little jumpers. This is the easy part—just look, listen, and locate!
As mentioned above, crickets are pretty conspicuous and make some noise. You should be able to follow the sound of their chirping back to their nest.
Just keep in mind that, while crickets aren’t quiet, you will need to be. If crickets hear you coming, they’ll fall silent until you’re gone.
Crickets like to hang out in dark and moist areas—so you should start your search with areas like that. With any luck, you’ll find them hiding in the nooks and crannies of your house. If they’ve built a nest, it’ll just look like a mound of loose earth.
You should also check the crickets’ favorite foods, such as clothes and fabrics. If you have a linen closet, you’ll probably find them there.
Step 2: Vacuum them up!
So, once you’ve found the crickets, what do you do? Unlike a lot of pests, you don’t need to do anything too elaborate. The first and most important step is just to vacuum the whole area thoroughly.
Since crickets are pretty big and not too numerous, you should be able to catch a good number of them with the vacuum. More importantly, this will help ensure that you suck up any of their tiny eggs, which can be difficult to see with the naked eye.
Step 3: Set traps
After you’ve vacuumed up their eggs (and hopefully a good portion of the crickets themselves) it’s time to snare the stragglers with some traps!
There are a few types of traps that help eliminate crickets. To be safe, it’s best to use all of them.
- Boric acid: First, sprinkle boric acid powder or pellets around the area. It’s toxic to crickets and should finish off most of the remaining pests. Be careful, though—boric acid is also toxic to humans and pets. If it’s ingested by children or your family cat, it can cause sickness and vomiting.
- Sticky traps: You can purchase sticky traps at most major retailers and home appliance stores. Crickets who get stuck to the trap will slowly starve and die.
- Glue traps/glue boards: Place either homemade or store-bought glue traps in high-traffic areas—especially around where you found the crickets hanging out. These, combined with sticky traps and boric acid, should be more than enough to kill all the crickets.
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How to prevent future cricket infestations
Once you’ve got those pesky crickets out of your house, you’ll want to make sure that they don’t come back. Here’s how:
Keep your home as dry as you can
Crickets love warm and moist environments. Avoid leaving standing water around whenever possible. It’s also a good idea to invest in a dehumidifier—that should dry out the air and discourage any more unwelcome guests.
Keep your home well-lit
Crickets also like dark spaces. As much as practicality and electricity expenses will allow, keep your house well-lit. Try to shed some light on every part of your house for at least an hour each day.
Keep the exterior of your home clean and well-sealed
Crickets aren’t master infiltrators like mice or cockroaches—-they’ll need decent-sized openings in order to get into your home.
Make sure that gaps and cracks in your house’s exterior are sealed up. Also, avoid leaving doors and windows open for any period unless they have a good screen.
Does homeowners insurance cover cricket removal?
Unfortunately, your homeowners insurance is not going to cover any cricket-related damages that you might face.
Insurance companies view crickets (and all pest infestations) as a preventable problem. As far as your provider is concerned, it’s your responsibility to prevent and/or eliminate any pests before they cause costly damage to your house and belongings.
For this reason, you won’t be able to submit a claim for your cricket removal expenses.
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might not be able to help you with your cricket problem, but there are countless other (often much more serious) perils that it does cover! When disaster strikes, good homeowners insurance can make the difference between a minor inconvenience and total financial ruin. Moreover, a certain level of insurance coverage is a requirement for most mortgage agreements.
However, just because you need to have home insurance, doesn’t mean that you have to shell out a fortune for it. At least, not when you have
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What time of year are crickets a threat?
Crickets are usually only a threat when it’s cold outside. If you live in a climate where it’s warm all year, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about crickets.
If you live further north, you should keep an eye (and an ear) open for crickets as soon as temperatures drop in the fall and until things warm back up in the spring.
How do I get rid of house crickets?
To get rid of crickets, locate them, vacuum up as many as you can, and then set some sticky traps and boric acid pellets down.
Why are there crickets in my house?
Crickets usually only come inside when it’s cold outside. If they’ve chosen your home, it’s probably because there are one or two dark and warm places for them to hide.
Are crickets dangerous?
Crickets aren’t very dangerous, but like any pest, they can sometimes carry diseases. They also like to munch on your fabric—so they do pose a big threat to your linen closet!
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