Crickets are one of the most common household pests, especially for you who live in an area with high moisture levels. Just like the other pests, crickets can be as annoying as they can be, so you have to remove them immediately before they start invading your house.
House crickets can be easily identified by yellowish-brown color and long antennas in their heads. You can easily tell that there’s a cricket infestation around your house once you hear the persistent loud chirp every single night.
Though they mostly invade your outdoor living space (especially when you plant some vegetation), when the weather is cold and wet, they will start coming inside your house. Crickets love to shelter in the warm and damp areas just like those rooms with low traffic.
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Luckily, you can get rid of them easily all by yourself in no time. The DIY tutorial on How to Get Rid Of of Home Crickets will show you some steps that you can follow to get the job done effectively.
How to Get Rid Of of Home Crickets
Seal Everything
The very first thing that you have to do is to block every single entry that the crickets may do to get through your house. Those doors and windows should have tight-fitting screens and you don’t have cracks around your home that are not also fully sealed. You can eliminate the possibility for those crickets to invade the indoor area of your home.
If you are familiar with weatherstripping, you surely can apply this method. Weatherstripping simply means applying elastic foams with adhesive on their back that can seal the gaps around your doors inside. The main function of this weatherstripping is actually to keep the heat inside that’s why it’s called weatherstrips in the very first place.
Another method to consider is to install some insect screens which are specifically designed to prevent annoying insects to come around your house.
Eliminate Bright Lights
Crickets love lights, so eliminating the bright lights around your outdoor living space is also a good step to minimize their invasion. If you are not comfortable having your front and backyard dark, you can consider replacing your conventional outdoor lights with yellow-hued bug lights.
One thing to keep in mind when you install yellow-hued bug lighting is that you need to direct it to the area that you’d like to get lightened up. It will let them fly around the light area instead of your door or windows.
Adding blinds to your windows can also eliminate their invasion since can get attracted by the lights that they spot through the window. Let the blinds down in the night so they won’t be able to get into your house.
Take care of your garden
The beginning of crickets invasion in your home can start from a garden that is improperly maintained. Make sure that you regularly mow the lawn, trim dense vegetation, and cut the weeds that grow uncontrollably around your house. By doing all of those maintenances, they will find no place to shelter or search for food.
Some nitrogen-fixing plants can also help to keep the crickets away from your garden. Peas, legumes, and beans can absorb nitrogen from the air into their roots which crickets basically hate.
Make your own deterrent
You can make your own deterrent when you find some crickets invade your garden. Just simply spray a mixture of some home supplies and you will see that the crickets won’t come back around.
Prepare these supplies:
- Dish soap
- Blended garlic
- Chili powder
- Water
- Bottle sprayer
Follow these steps:
- Fill the spray bottle with the mixture.
- Spray the areas where you find some clusters of crickets around.
- You might want to test the mixture if it’s harmful to your plants or not by spraying a small amount to a few leaves. If you see that it burns the leaves, add more water to the mixture to ease its ‘power’.
Keep your house clean and dry
Besides keeping your exterior area as neat as possible, you should also take care of your interior. Crickets can hide around piles of rubbish so you have to make sure to clean them up.
Vacuuming the carpets and sweeping the floorboards are also important to remove the eggs that those crickets may have laid. You might want to start the areas which are rarely used since crickets tend to stay there.
In addition to cleaning the clutter, moisture reduction is the next step that you can do. Crickets love to breed around the dark and damp areas around your house which may have developed some mold. If possible, it would be best for you to use a dehumidifier or simply throw away any old newspapers or magazines that those crickets may use as shelter.
Clean up the gutters
Gutters are dark and damp, which makes them a cozy place for the crickets to shelter. Even more, they can also find some foods as organic materials are packed there.
Cleaning the gutter regularly (at least once a year) can prevent the invasion of crickets to get severed. You may need to clean the gutters more often if you already find them live inside.
Catch and release the crickets
For some of you, this step may not be comfortable to get done but it’s also one of the effective ways to get rid of the crickets. Keep in mind that you never kill them, besides it’s believed that killing crickets can attract bad luck, it’s also, of course, very inhuman.
You can also catch and release them in mass amounts at once by following these simple steps below:
- Prepare a small container.
- Put some lettuce and a battery-powered torch inside.
- Leave the container partially open and put it in an area where you find the cricket infestation.
- You should find a lot of crickets gather inside the container the next morning.
- Release the crickets which are trapped inside the container to the area with abundant vegetation which is far from your house.
