Did you know that male crickets make the chirping to attract the females to a mating session? They do it by rubbing the forewings together, and the noise attracts females and repels the males. To you, however, it’s a nuisance. Besides that, are crickets harmful?
Crickets aren’t harmful insects. Instead, they’re just a nuisance, given their noise and jumping around when let loose. They may, however, damage some items they eat, such as curtains, and spread diseases through their feces. If contained properly, they will not be harmful.
Are crickets harmful?
Crickets aren’t directly harmful to humans because although they can bite, they hardly do. But there are several other ways that they can indirectly harm you. Here is how:
1. Diseases
Yes, when coming into contact with crickets’ feces, they harbor harmful disease-causing germs and bacteria that could harm you. In addition, if you handle foodstuffs after touching the feces, you could pass the bacteria to the food.
The most common diseases that the excrement could cause include E-coli and salmonella.
Cricket excrement is also known to harbor worms that could affect your skin once you touch it. You’ll probably notice a rash or irritation on your skin.
2. Fixtures’ Damage
Crickets have perfected the art of ruining home accessories and fixtures. They will poke holes in the curtains, seats, fabrics, clothes, and anything they lay their hands and mouths on.
Forget the financial impact that the crickets damage causes, the psychological torture of seeing your newly acquired curtains filled with holes in all the visible places is unfathomable.
3. Sleep Deprivation
The noise made by crickets as they chirp will have you losing sleep for days on end. It’s worse because crickets are elusive. Any time you move closer, they go silent making it hard to find them.
Imagine having the cricket somewhere near your bed, then just as you are about to sleep, the chirping begins. You’ll turn the house upside down in search of the cricket.
Are house crickets harmful?
No, house crickets aren’t harmful. The crickets will hardly harm you since they prefer cool, dark corners. They get annoying when the chirping becomes louder, and the noise becomes irritating.
What attracts crickets in the house?
Some pre-existing conditions within your house are magnetic to the crickets, and they include the following:
1. Stained Fabrics
Crickets are good at identifying a stained fabric from a distance and devour any type, whether made from cotton, wool, or silk.
They love it when the fabrics are stained with food. They will munch on the garment, leaving it with openings and black spots.
Sweaty fabrics are also a haven for crickets. The smell keeps the crickets coming to the fabrics. Crickets also eat plants when other food types aren’t available.
2. Light
Outdoor lighting is one sure way to attract house and field crickets to your home. If you have white neon lights or mercury lights for your outdoors, the crickets will take that as an invitation and invade your home.
Interestingly, the light attracts the crickets only at night. During the day, crickets will look for dark areas, including cracks and crevices.
3. Warm Temperatures
During the winter, crickets will wander into your house in search of warmer areas. When exposed to extreme weather, most crickets die during the fall and winter. As such, they invade your home in their quest to shield themselves from harsh conditions.
4. Food
Crickets will be looking for food in your home when they can’t have enough in their dwellings. In their pursuit of food, they get to your home and reside there in the dark, turning it into their home if not addressed.
Can crickets fly?
House crickets have wings and can fly, but they always prefer to crawl and hop. However, some species in the crickets family can’t fly, like the Jerusalem crickets.
The crickets will use their hind legs to propel themselves and jump from one point to the next.
A house cricket will only fly in a few instances, like when in extreme danger. Even so, the cricket will flap the wings a small distance before resorting to hopping and crawling.
Are crickets nocturnal?
Yes, crickets are nocturnal. This explains why the chirping and cricket activities increase at night.
During the day, the crickets sleep only to get busy at night. During the night, the crickets will be looking for food while the males will chirp more loudly to attract the females.
How to get rid of crickets in the house
Here are several ways you can eliminate crickets from your home:
1. Insect Sprayss
Get a bug spray specific to crickets. You could also get an all-purpose bug spray, which will work just as fine. Ensure you spray out the common areas where you spot the crickets.
Identify cracks and dark places where the crickets could have laid their eggs.
To eliminate the crickets, spray areas where the crickets could be accessing your home, including the window edges.
2. Traps
The market today is filled with different innovative insect traps. For the traps to work, identify the dark places they have made their home and strategically position it at that point for the best results.
You also have the option of making your own trap. Mix up a concoction of butter paper and wax to attract the crickets with the sweetness and have them trapped.
3. Vacuum Them Out
A vacuum works perfectly, especially if you’ve identified where the crickets lay eggs. However, vacuuming requires thorough cleaning in areas you haven’t recently cleaned.
Once you vacuum them out, ensure you discard the crickets and eggs in a place far away where they won’t crawl back into your home.
4. Chemicals
Use chemical bait to lure the crickets to a strategically placed bowl where you are sure the crickets will be trapped.
The chemical baits have a sweet smell and taste that attracts the crickets, but once they consume them, they perish.
Since the chemicals are toxic, ensure you place them out of reach for the children and pets.
5. Molasses
If you want to handle the infestation yourself, you could use molasses to attract the crickets and then get rid of them.
Molasses are sweet, and crickets will hop onto them when they detect the sweet smell. However, once they hop in, they get stuck, which calls for you to empty the bowl and repeat the exercise until you are sure they have all been eliminated.
You could use other insects which predate on crickets such as spiders but this method is a viable one. Spiders, while they eat crickets, don’t eat them in enough numbers to control the latter’s population.
How to keep crickets away from your house
To avoid a crickets’ infestation, you’d instead implement preventive measures such as:
- Altering your outdoor lighting. Crickets are attracted to outdoor light at night. Install yellow lighting to ward off the insects which prefer white lighting.
- Ensure your compound is properly kept. Eliminate the thickets, shrubs, and bushes. Properly mow and lawn your compound.
- Control moisturized surfaces. Crickets are attracted to moisturized surfaces. Let your faucets be firmly locked when not in use.
- Practice the highest levels of hygiene. For example, avoid leaving behind food spills on your fabrics and surfaces, as this will attract crickets.
- Identify the cracks and crevices around your home that the crickets could use as the entry point. The areas around your windows and vents are the most common routes for the crickets. You could use sealants, caulking, or patch the area up to reduce the chances of the openings becoming the entry points.
This way, you can easily keep the crickets away from your house and home in general.
Conclusion
Crickets are indirectly harmful in that they can potentially infect your household with ailments once they come into contact with the crickets’ excrement. They will also stain your fabrics and surfaces.
The chirping at night makes their presence in your home distasteful. Apply preventive measures to ward them off or eliminate them. Failure to curb the menace on time will lead to an entire swarm of crickets cohabiting with you.