How do you get rid of cave crickets??!!

[Anonymous]

Don't call an exterminator. Get some window screening and some duct tape. Cover the basement floor drain and the area around your sump pump. You will cut them off from their water supply. What you can also do after this is place a few sticky traps around. This will help get kill them a bit faster. This way you aren't dealing with poisons around your house, and the crickets will be gone forever.

I did the exterminator route, and the crickets still came ever summer. I did the duct tape and screening and I haven't seen any in years.

[Anonymous]

They are so scary! Pesticides work and we did that for a couple of years then when I got preggo and didn't want it around the house and the kids we got those sticky traps. We put them along edges of the rooms in the basesment, behind the dryer, in closets (wherever you see them) and they worked perfectly. We never see them anymore.
One note of caution! While they are not poisonous they are super sticky!!! One of our dogs stepped on one. And then ran around the house trying to get it off. Once we got ahold of her and pulled it off she ran around the house with her paw covered in the glue depositing it everywhere she stepped! What a mess! It took me many tries and many different products to get it out of our carpets! And four baths for the dog! So watch out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are so scary! Pesticides work and we did that for a couple of years then when I got preggo and didn't want it around the house and the kids we got those sticky traps. We put them along edges of the rooms in the basesment, behind the dryer, in closets (wherever you see them) and they worked perfectly. We never see them anymore.
One note of caution! While they are not poisonous they are super sticky!!! One of our dogs stepped on one. And then ran around the house trying to get it off. Once we got ahold of her and pulled it off she ran around the house with her paw covered in the glue depositing it everywhere she stepped! What a mess! It took me many tries and many different products to get it out of our carpets! And four baths for the dog! So watch out!

A few drops of canola oil is all that is needed to get a dog off the sticky trap. Then you just wash the paw, once, and you are done with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are so scary! Pesticides work and we did that for a couple of years then when I got preggo and didn't want it around the house and the kids we got those sticky traps. We put them along edges of the rooms in the basesment, behind the dryer, in closets (wherever you see them) and they worked perfectly. We never see them anymore.
One note of caution! While they are not poisonous they are super sticky!!! One of our dogs stepped on one. And then ran around the house trying to get it off. Once we got ahold of her and pulled it off she ran around the house with her paw covered in the glue depositing it everywhere she stepped! What a mess! It took me many tries and many different products to get it out of our carpets! And four baths for the dog! So watch out!

A few drops of canola oil is all that is needed to get a dog off the sticky trap. Then you just wash the paw, once, and you are done with it.

LOL. Puts things into perspective.

[Anonymous]

Ugh, OP - I feel your pain. We used to have those in our old apartment. Now, they're in the area under our porch. I just NEVER go down there. They are just gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this cricket the same one from Pinochio? Why are they gross? Do they transmite diseases or something like that?

You might be cool with leaving with large bugs that jump from floor to ceiling. I however, am not.

NP here. I used to live in a basement "apartment" (what a joke) that was filled with camel crickets, which it sounds like OP has. Are they tan with humped backs? If so,they are camel crickets. (If they are black with straight backs, they prefer living outside.) I actually think I got PTSD from dealing with crickets that year. It was truly horrifying.

That said, I am totally a live-and-let-live type and don't kill anything, not even crickets, so i won't share here what I accidentally discovered works like a charm against these things.

[Anonymous]

PP what is it that works? Please tell! I also don't kill crickets (but that's only because I refuse to get close enough), although I have been known to grab a cat and put it down right in front of the cricket. I then leave the room, come back in 15 minutes and problem solved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are so scary! Pesticides work and we did that for a couple of years then when I got preggo and didn't want it around the house and the kids we got those sticky traps. We put them along edges of the rooms in the basesment, behind the dryer, in closets (wherever you see them) and they worked perfectly. We never see them anymore.
One note of caution! While they are not poisonous they are super sticky!!! One of our dogs stepped on one. And then ran around the house trying to get it off. Once we got ahold of her and pulled it off she ran around the house with her paw covered in the glue depositing it everywhere she stepped! What a mess! It took me many tries and many different products to get it out of our carpets! And four baths for the dog! So watch out!

A few drops of canola oil is all that is needed to get a dog off the sticky trap. Then you just wash the paw, once, and you are done with it.

LOL. Puts things into perspective.

My dog got stuck on one too. Only after a snake came in an open door and had gotten stuck on one, which is how I know this trick.

[Anonymous]

I have immobilized little crickets with spray starch, though I expect it wouldn't work as well with these monstrous cricket/toad hybrids. Spray Lysol sure irritates, then stuns "waterbugs", which are almost as freaky big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this cricket the same one from Pinochio? Why are they gross? Do they transmite diseases or something like that?

Perhaps the OP can lock you in her basement for a little while so you can discover why they are so gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
One note of caution! While they are not poisonous they are super sticky!!! One of our dogs stepped on one. And then ran around the house trying to get it off. Once we got ahold of her and pulled it off she ran around the house with her paw covered in the glue depositing it everywhere she stepped! What a mess! It took me many tries and many different products to get it out of our carpets! And four baths for the dog! So watch out!

I read this quickly and thought I read that the cricket was super sticky and had become stuck to your dog!!! I was imagining the dog running through the house with a big, nasty, sticky bug on it

[Anonymous]

Hey OP, I posted this same sort of post about 18 months ago I think! Cave crickets are repulsive - they are more like little animals than bugs - and they jump AT you. My children call them "the monsters that live in our basement."

Like PPs, we sealed up everything in our basement. I meant to buy a dehumidifier, but honestly I forgot. We had an exterminator come once, and it seemed to work. We had a few "babies" jump around earlier this summer, but I think they're all gone now. I leave the basement light on a few nights a week, and I think this helps.

Good luck!!! They are GROSS.

[Anonymous]

Dehumidifier + lots of glue traps = no camel crickets (at least for us).

[Anonymous]

We also got a dehumidifier and an exterminator (who sprays the perimeter fo the house every 3 months, mostly for ants). I'm not sure which one worked, but I suspect it was the dehumidifier, so maybe try that first.

[Anonymous]

Dehumidifiers and glue traps worked for us as well. Does anyone have any tips as to what to do about those disgusting centipede-looking things with the hair-like legs? We get them from time to time -- they are fast enough and react to people quickly enough that they are hard to kill, and they seem to stay away from the glue traps better than the crickets, although we get a few that way from time to time.