Crickets In The Night

Ahh…the sound of crickets at night. In the quiet evening, the sound of crickets is like the music of peace and serenity. It brings a calming feeling of tranquility during the spring and summer nights. But if these crickets are inside your home making these noises by your bedside, they are not so lovely and sweet anymore. Finding them chirping or lurking on your stairs or behind your couch is just gross. They are welcome to chirp their hardest near your porch swing, adding to the evening’s reverie, but inside your home they just become a nightmare. When crickets are infesting your home, getting rid of them is difficult, you definitely need professional pest control.

General Information

Most crickets are dark brown, green, red or black colored insects that are distantly related to grasshoppers. There are 900 species of crickets, 100 of which live in the United States. They have powerful hind legs, 2 pairs of wings and a flattened body with antenna that are longer than their bodies. They are typically 1-2 inches in length and move short distances by jumping. Even though they have wings, they cannot fly. It is a myth that crickets “sing” by rubbing their legs together similarly to a violin on strings. This is false, as crickets actually rub a scraping organ on one wing against a comb-like organ on another wing. This creates the high pitched cricket chirp they are known for. With most cricket species, only the males sing as they are trying to secure a mate. Other nearby males will try and out-chirp the other males by making a louder or better sound.

The Signs of an Infestation

Signs of a cricket infestation are pretty obvious as you will see the crickets everywhere and hear their chirping. Crickets love warm, moist environments and typically chirp louder and faster when the temperature is warmest. Female crickets lay 5-10 eggs per day for 100 days of her life. If you have a cricket infestations and they are laying eggs in your carpet, the infestation can get out of control really quickly. Just one female can lay up to 1,000 eggs in roughly 3 months so if you have more than 1 female cricket, you could have a very big problem quickly. You can reduce these numbers by frequent vacuuming to remove the eggs and also avoid areas where moisture builds up. If the number of crickets in your yard is growing out of control, the chances of them coming inside escalates dramatically. In order to control the number of crickets in your home, you need to also control them around your yard.

Treatment

Cricket control begins with you. Mowing and trimming long grasses, keeping shrubs manicured and moving wood piles away from the home go a long way to keeping the cricket numbers down. By making the environment less hospitable for crickets, it will help keep them away. Removing excess moisture in your yard and having it professionally treated is the best way to keep crickets at bay. Pointe Pest Control uses only the safest, most effective treatments to remove cricket infestations from your home and yard. Not only are our treatments non-toxic but they are environmentally friendly. Call us today to get rid of your cricket infestation for good.