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Regular crickets don't bother me. The cave crickets do.
Same. They don't make noise, but they are creepy - especially when they jump AT you...
We've been getting them in our basement for the last few years. I did some spraying, sealed some areas I thought they were getting in - still got them.
On a hunch, I threw a drain basket in the slop sink - now I see one every once in a while. Definitely a noticeable improvement.
Will have to see heading into fall though, as that's when they seem to be around the most.
Supposedly the glue traps work well too, because they are cannibals and will try to feed off the ones that are already stuck - self-baiting. Kinda gross, but effective...
Cave crickets live on anything from pet food to dryer lint to carpet mites. In the basement a dehumidifier is a must - daughter who lives in house never emptied it. Sticky boards work well but you do not want remove dead ones as others will come by and try to eat it. Little cannibals. I called a local exterminator from Oakdale and he set glueboards and baited outside perimeter of house foundation too.
@Chalk, sounds like your guy did the same thing I did yesterday: Bought a half dozen 4-packs of glue boards, set them along the basement walls, and put Niban bait granules along the perimeter of the foundation. $2.69 per pack of glue boards at Stop & Shop, and a 4-lb container of Niban was $26 from Amazon.
When I was in the basement I saw two crickets in the same corner where an old disconnected well pump is located. Makes me wonder if that corner is an entry point. I can't see daylight along that exterior wall because we currently have a deep porch there, but that will be removed in about a month or so and then I'll be able to check that foundation wall for cracks. I bet there are some.
I see the Catchmaster glue boards are half the price per board via Amazon but I was so freaked out the other day I just wanted to get a bunch of them set out ASAP, lol. I will be ordering the 60-count batch tomorrow, lol.
You must remove all leaves from around any foundation and under porch and try to seal everything.. I'm 1400 miles away so hiring an exterminator for $250 is cheaper than airfare. Hopefully we sell house in spring and I'll be rid of cave crickets...and daughter...lol. Palmetto bugs are easier to catch.
Ah, I see. :-) I was a bit puzzled by the screaming daughter on phone rather than in the next room, LOL
I'm scrupulous about keeping all plant material (alive or dead) at least 3 feet away from a house foundation but this one porch area has been inaccessible. It runs the length of the house, is 8 ft "deep", and the prior owners put vinyl lattice around the bottom which might keep out large critters like raccoons but of course lets leaves (oaks, naturally!) blow right through and lets chipmunks, mice and rats go in and out freely like Grand Central Station. I never use the porch and so it's being ripped out in favor of a large brick-faced masonry landing and steps flanked by open space easily kept leaf-free with a blower. From the foundation to 4 feet outward will be rock mulch before any planted areas.
I like having all parts of a house foundation visible at all times. Easy to spot and quickly repair when cracks or other problems appear. Some of the "foundation plantings" I see make me cringe because they are smack up against the house like a dank, damp jungle. It's insect and rodent Club Med in there.
A healthy house foundation should have a clear, clean, dry three-foot-deep 'skirt' (ideally of hardscaping) all around it. Two feet, in a pinch, but three is better. It may not be the prettiest but it can save a lot of headaches.
Off my soapbox now, sorry.
ETA: I've heard of palmetto bugs; they're kind of the B-52 of the insect world, size-wise, right?
I use Magic Exterminators (they are in Queens and Nassau - maybe even further out). Last year my crickets were bad in the basement and now that I have an exterminator I rarely see one. They treat outside regularly and it makes all the difference. Also - make sure you have a humidifier going all the time (I set mine up to drain automatically in the laundry room).
If you don't want to pay for an exterminator, do the humidifier and glue traps (change regularly) & seal every possible crack in your foundation and garage.
I actually have a dehumidifier sitting in the garage waiting for the plumber to set it up with a permanent line out to exterior because we don't have any drains or fixtures in the basement itself. The thing weighs about 70 pounds and my back has been 'out' for more than a week so it's not going anywhere just yet.
Also found out over the weekend that an underground spring runs under part of the basement, which means until that's remediated the dehumidifier alone would be pretty much futile. And the soil around another part of the basement needs to be re-graded: an old wood patio/deck was ripped up and revealed that the dirt underneath was all graded toward the house. Rainwater was running down toward the house under the wood surface and ending up underneath the big rocks that formed a so-called window well.
Amazing what you find when you rip out old stuff that prior owners did.
Would you mind telling me which exterminator you called, and what kind of treatment they used?
I just found one in the bedroom and totally freaked out. I've never seen any in that end of the house before.
What makes me really nervous is that none of the crickets I've found in the house have chirped. That probably means they were females, because only the males chirp. Females lay eggs:
"Outdoors, under ideal conditions, the female can lay approximately 700 eggs. She places these eggs in suitable areas for the hatching of the next generation. Indoors, the females usually lay fewer eggs – up to 100 eggs."
OK, well, 100 eggs is about 100 eggs too many if any of those gals decided my house interior was a good maternity ward. :-/
Not all crickets chirp. The camel crickets do not chirp. We used to get a lot of them. I would see 3 - 4 of them every time I went into the basement. Could not figure out where they were coming from. Then I had a heating guy come by to fix something, and he found their "lair". My wife was on my to get rid of them. I procrastinated, but then I started seeing a bunch of them in my shed. They looked like an army. At this point I got worried. I bought a spray from home depot and also some poison. I sprayed inside the shed heavily and haven't seen them there since. I wanted to use the poison in my basement, but I don't see them down there anymore. I'm worried though that if I wait they will resurface. Especially in the winter time.
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