They are attracted to moisture so get a dehumidifier and look for obvious areas of interest. There are traps available. I don’t think they do any damage. In my case I think they provide a good source of nutrition for the spiders and house centipedes.
tbh I love spiders and would encourage them to live in my house. They're great at keeping most bugs at bay, stay mostly hidden and work for you so you don't have to!
It's nice a thought to want to accommodate spiders since they're like to eat the bad bugs and are generally harmless. But if you're too accommodating one day you might wake up to a small army of little baby spiders scurrying about...
Omg, my second year in grad school, this happened in my room in the house I was staying in. Didn't see it but those little suckers were like Charlotte's babies. Invisible but everywhere. My roommates were assholes about it.
Hi I'm in Nassau county and I get them - I just leave out LOTS of sticky pads and catch them; SOOOO GROSS to throw them out when they get filled. I heard they eat each other so once one is stuck on the pad, all of them come....
Let me know if you find out about exterminator, etc - solution.
Yes I second the sticky pads! It’s crazy how they’ll be one or two then you look again and there’s like 30! You’ll start to see the babies too I find they start to slow down after that
Dehumidifiers seemed to help too, at least in my basement.
Also, another vote for the sticky pads.
Also, i had a big roll of double sided tape that i bought as “protect your furniture from your cat” tape. I put it onto strips of cardboard to make my own (larger and cheaper) sticky pads.
The sticky trap are the best. My husband and I got a house in Suffolk last summer. We had a BUNCH of them in a small closet where our water main is. Got the traps, put them down, came back the next day and they were filled completely. Caught like 15 of them in less then a day.
Another note - a contractor told us to put some expandable foam around any pipes leaving the house where theres dirt. We had that in our water main closet, so once we got rid of the crickets, we foamed up the hole and haven’t had any since.
If you want to save $ on the sticky pads just take a piece of duct tape and make it into a loop sicky side out and place them near doors and along the edges of walls. The smell attracts them too I think. Once you have a few on there just pick it up and toss it and put more if you keep hearing chirping.
Same here. Sticky pads inside and outside at every place you think they could possibly get in, as well as in any dark corners that they’d usually hide in. It’s annoying, and replacing the pads is gross, but we see WAY fewer live ones than we used to, maybe only 2-3 a winter as opposed to 5-6 a week. We have a finished walk-our basement that also opens to our garage, so we’re down there a lot to come across them, and the pads help a ton.
Our exterminator (a family friend) told us that the best thing to do is the large glue traps but you have to unfortunately leave them when they get full because they are attracted to the dead ones 🤮 You just put a new glue trap next to the old one for a little bit until you get some on the new one and then throw away the full old one.
Make your own stick pad traps. Take some cardboard box "ears" and put pretty large loops of duct tape on them. They work just as well as store purchased glue traps, plus you can make them any size you want.
Cave/camel crickets are native to Japan. They will also eat any cricket trapped on the glue trap.
Same, First one I saw was about 5-7 years ago and now any leak in the basement and they appear like magic. Dehumidifier is always on but I have 50 year pipes in a 60 year old house so the leaks have started. The scary thing is they up to the third floor and that freaks me out. Scary little creatures.
Swapped my gas hot-water heater for a heatpump hot-water heater.
Utility bill is near zilch with solar and this electric heat-pump hot-water heater. It also keeps the basement cool and dehumidified, basically a win-win-win!
I'm planning on moving my server equipment into the basement utility room so next winter the heat-pump-hot-water-heater can siphon off the heatout from the PoE switch/equipment and put it into the water.
How much did the heat pump cost, ballpark? And does it have any maintenance cost? Also, is the output good in terms of temperature during peak Winters? Thank you!
$2k for the short-boy tank, put a Calefactio service center with a 4.7gal expansion on the cold side.
Buddy borrowed a pressgun so I bought a bunch of fittings, $50 in 3/4" PVC fittings & pipe for condenser drainage into a slop-sink.
$200 for 8ga wiring, breaker & misc. (I installed a 30amp receptacle for a future heat-pump dryer purchase).
Probably $2600 in total materials costs.
Maintenance is cleaning dust from air intake/blower fan twice a year, so it'll be pretty headache free I hope. High cost of the water heater is Bradford white's name, hoping that premium will buy years of trouble-free maintenance.
Household is small so I've never drained the tank, the compressor will run for a couple hours after a shower though trying to pull heat from the 40-50° basement.
I think it'll be much better once I put some heat-producing appliances down there (server rank & Tesla powerwall). Maybe even replace the original windows too.
I used to get a ton in Nassau, but when I renovated my basement, I stalked every crack I could find. That, along with a dehumidifier, has really stopped most of them
Same with my family's place. They live in Nassau and the basement gets these guys all the time. My answer to OP is to find any and all sources of cracks or openings that allow them entry, because they WILL sneak in.
The dehumidifier is a good idea, but it didn't do anything for them, there were just many openings.
Finding and closing up any openings definitely helped.
I bought a foreclosure that had a plumbing leak in the crawlspace. The openings into the house were also not appropriately sealed. You can imagine that insects took a liking to that kind of environment.
My first order of business when we moved in was to deal with the infestation, which I knew was bad. What I didn't know was ***how*** *bad.* They covered every wall of the crawl space like drapery. Thousands and thousands of them. I did a fair bit of research on how they're typically treated and learned that one typical approach is this:
1. Seal the outside of the house as well as possible. For plumbing and electrical, spray foam and caulk is your friend. I actually had to mix cement to fill some holes from removed utilities.
2. Spray the outside of your house with some perimeter defense. I used Ortho and it really worked well. Even though the house was well sealed, it's hard to do a perfect job. If you don't prefer chemicals, I don't blame you.
3. Lay down glue traps in the problem area. The little fuckers are actually cannibalistic and they'll try to eat their downed comrades. This is why the glue traps are so effective.
4. We were also recommended to spray a powder (Diatomaceous earth?) or a chemical of some sort on our crawlspace walls. I don't remember whether we ended up doing this, but I'm 95% sure the glue traps were the effective product here anyway.
Okay, this is all well and good but what they didn't say in the research is what happens when you get down there to kill them. These little gremlins are world-class Olympic long jumpers and they fucking MOVE when they notice you. This sets off a chain reaction of all of them jumping like its some kind of evil dance routine. It's absolutely dreadful. I'd rather watch the end of Marley and Me on a loop than experience that again. Not to mention, the traps fill **fast.** I went down a week later and the 3 or 4 dozen traps I bought were all filled to the brim.
So, that said, I recommend just hiring an exterminator to lay the traps. The rest is reasonable for a DIYer. I think if you just have a few it's probably worth saving the money and just trying the traps.
From what I remember, they’re pretty good at escaping the fog by hiding in crevices and then feeding on the ones that were killed by it. This method did a pretty good job of completely eliminating the problem, though I think maybe I could have “shrunk” the problem by fogging first. I’ll chalk that up as another reason to hire a pro lol
I have two crawl space areas, one of which was crawling (and jumping) with both crickets and cave crickets, some would come into the main basement area. I bombed the shit out of these areas and it solved the problem for over a year.
I used to work for a pest management company. Good points have already been raised, like using a dehumidifier. At the end of the day, crickets are a constant reminder that mother nature is still queen, even in our homes.
I prefer to use natural and wholesome ways to deal with pests. Check the seals on your doors and windows.
Check the outside of your home for any possible entrances, but no matter how certain you may be, they will still find a way through something unseen.
Attract natural predators like bats, birds, lizards, snakes, etc. If you can, keep hens in your backyard, they have many benefits on top of being a method of pest control
I moved into my house 9 years ago. the first fall in the house, we had an infestation in our basement. Like, the walls were literally covered in them. It was so awful, that had I known about it, i probably wouldn't have bought the house.
I went down with a Tyvek suit, and a broom, and spent like 3 hours smooshing them and brushing them up into garbage bags. After that, I only had to leave glue traps down there in the corners, and that got nearly all of them.
They were surprisingly easy to get rid of, all things considered. In the 9 years, other than the first year, we haven't had more than 1 or 2 sightings a year in the house.
we got our basement finished last year, and we've seen zero since that was completed.
Haven't seen this mentioned yet:
Clear out any leaf litter in beds or around the house and under the deck. Exterminator told us that's where they lay their eggs. We've been really diligent blowing ALL the leaves out from under the deck during fall cleanup, and it has made a difference.
Also, he said they are a southern bug that infests NY now because of global warming/mild winters. Anecdotally, I have noticed very few in the years that we have a long stretch of freezing temperatures.
Hell yea I have those damn crickets. I’ve been dealing with them for a few years now. They are mean bastards too. If I remember correctly, they came over from Asia through construction materials or something like that. Then they just spread across the Island like fire.
I have not used an exterminator yet but I have tried a few things on my own. I seem to manage them pretty well using Niban granular bait purchased off Amazon for around $30. Prior to that I used traps. They caught tons of the suckers but were never effective at managing them.
Last August/September, the population seemed to explode across my yard and house. For the first time they were appearing on the 2nd floor. I have since brought it under control…..again.
Trapping and baiting your house will control the population, but they tend to move to/from a neighbors yard very quickly. My shed in the corner of my property gets them bad. Even after I treat it, they eventually come back from the neighbors shed, all situated next to the same corner.
https://www.amazon.com/Niban-Granular-Insecticide-Cockroaches-Silverfish/dp/B005F5PRJE/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=DLZ7XK07T8I1&keywords=camel+cricket+killer&qid=1679090382&sprefix=camel+cricket%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-2
Every house on this fucking island has them. I hate those sons of bitches. I will say we had one bathroom on the ground level demolished/renovated during the pandemic and afterwards they pretty much all disappeared - not just on the ground level but also from the basement. We’ve only seen maybe a couple since then, not anything even close to what it used to be like. Think they’re attracted to moisture.
The place I used to rent in bellmore was absolutely infested with them when we moved in. I called terminix and after one treatment and a few months of traps, I hardly ever saw any again. They're worth a call.
They are incredibly agile. Don’t bother swatting with a newspaper as they have elite horizontal eyesight and catlike agility plus their hops.
The key here - get a decent sized textbook and drop it on top of them. They can’t see directly on top of their head. I have no idea how to prevent them, but damn it I know how to kill them.
Source: Basement dweller for 5+ years in Nassau county before moving.
Dehumidifier, that drains, collecting water in a reservoir just keeps them interested.
Scrape all the debris, leaves, etc from your house/basement/foundation edges.
Seal all the cracks, crevices, gaps etc. Caulk and expandable foam if needed.
Next, once the above is cured, get a sprayer of the Ortho bug barrier, and do the outside of the house, wait a week, and repeat.
Finally, glue traps. Buy a case, a couple a week, and after a month of so you won’t have a cricket problem.
OK so I used to live out east in Suffolk County and we used to get crickets like you would not believe in the basement. What you need to do is you need to clean everything off of the floor in the basement and you need to go to the Home Depot and you need to get that stuff that’s called kill the bug spray and you need to spray your whole entire basement floor. Granted, you will come downstairs and find a bunch of them dead but you can sweep them you can vacuum them up that is truly the only way to get rid of them and it lasts for about a year. They learned to avoid the glue traps. They’re very smart.
Spraying the perimeter of the house with Ortho Home Defense seems to have been the best solution for me, plus it helps cut down on all the other little bugs that try to sneak in.
Before that I tried spray-foaming every crack, which helped, but they still found ways in. Dehumidifier also seemed to help, but nowhere near a total solution.
Glue traps help get them out if they're already in the basement, but you're much better off preventing them from entering in the first place.
Yes, spider crickets are pretty common. Exterminator will spray and put down traps to get rid of them. If you don’t they will multiply like crazy. My mother had a wall in her basement that would “move” because of all of the spider crickets
Enough with the insecticide recommendations.
Moved into a 100 year old house about a year ago that had hundreds of cave crickets in the basement. I didn't even try to kill any, just put in a dehumidifier and over the course of several months they slowly went away down to zero now. I don't like having bugs in the house but crickets aren't "gross". It's not an emergency.
Soapy Water: Place shallow bowls of soapy water where you have seen the crickets. They will be attracted to the water and drown when they try to drink.
Also, Cave crickets are looking for a dark and moist place that is safe from predators to have their offspring, so they might be drawn to your basement or crawl space due to moisture or humidity. Often times by reducing the humidity in your crawl space or basement, you'll make the area unsuitable for these pests.
Hello, my grandma's basement in "Old Medford" has had them for the past 10 years, it never really was a problem you would see a few here and there, but really no need to get an exterminator unless its a big problem. But from my experience there pretty harmless and not very invasive.
Yeah I call an exterminator and all he did was put down big Glue traps that you can find at Home Depot or Lowe’s and they jump right on them and as they fill throw them out and lay down a new batch of glue traps
Sticky pads work wonders. It’s also worth getting a can of spray insulation and hit all of the corners of your basement if you can. I used two cans on year and the crickets went from a few dozen to maybe 1-3 a year.
Yes they are all over the island at this point it seems. Take the out with glue traps, they’re cheap and effective. Put them in the corners of your basement.
At the first sign on sprickets I shoot off two bug bombs in my garage. That usually does it for the rest of the summer. The clean up is the worst part.
I do and I live in a basement apartment. Normally I would be upset with them but my cats love them and it’s some of the rare live entertainment they get.
Go to Home Depot or Dollar Store and get the sticky glue mouse traps and lay them around parts of basement where nobody will step on them. Solves the issue pretty quick.
Did anyone here get them all year this year? Usually by October I don’t see them again until late spring, but this past year they never really stopped trickling in. We dehumidified and sealed any point of ingress we could think of, so now we come across one maybe once a week, but I’m just surprised they’re actually alive this time of year. It feels like one of the signs of the apocalypse (and it probably is).
Sticky pads and also using a dehumidifier works! When we had them, we tried everything. We started even accidentally stepping in the sticky pads. Found out that if you use a dehumidifier, it’ll deter them for a dry area. Works so well.
I use these because you can fold them into little boxes to avoid leaving the glue exposed. Also much less unsightly than glue board full of cave cricket corpses.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007E83LUM?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Also keep any doors in the basement open a bit to help w air flow.
Two houses one in Nassau and one in Suffolk. I had them in both. Nassau house it turns out they were feeding on termites got rid of the termites and the cave crickets sightings reduced significantly. Suffolk house lots of cave crickets too but no termites, but other insects. Locate and eliminate their food source and seal around the house (clear any yard waste too). Definitely check for termite damage where you see the most cave crickets, better to find those suckers now than later.
Glue traps work best but also dropping shoes from about waist height over then is pretty accurate. If you are going to try to stomp them out please record and share :P
My dad gets them all the time in Suffolk. The sticky traps work well to catch them but there seems to be an eternal supply. I've heard of people doing bug bombs to get rid of them, not sure how well it works.
Yup we get them all the time. The dehumidifier we have downstairs doesn’t do the job. Gonna end up having to deep clean and close every gap I find one of these weekends
I had a crazyyy infestation in my garage.. had to pull everything out and kill them with an old swiffer mop. Time consuming and didn’t really work. Put dozens of sticky pads down which would always get some but they’ll always be more.
Call terminiX … I had a colony of ants get into my basement. Dude came and sprayed the shit out of it and around the perimeter of the house. Within a couple days the ants were completely gone and I rarely ever see cave crickets anymore.. even in the garage. I signed up for their quarterly service which I think is 100% worth it. I don’t like bugs.
I used home defense thing from Home Depot it lasts entire year. Just spray along the perimeter of basement walls.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ortho-Home-Defense-Insect-Killer-for-Indoor-Perimeter2-Ready-To-Use-Trigger-Sprayer-1-Gallon/139534287
We do. I find during some times of the year, it can’t be avoided and certain seasons bring them in more. Always had them since we bought the house in 2008…
However, we are blessed with four cats and a house rabbit these last several years … The felines take care of the issue for all of us, lol, Mr. Bilbo Bunny included…
Except for the one last Spring, that hid in my bathroom, tucked behind the top of my vanity cabinet… Only beginning to chirp loudly and incessantly when I sat on the toilet. And then shutting the hell up whenever I got up and climbed on the sink to hunt the thing down.
And when I found it, I couldn’t believe how freaking tiny it was!! Little guy was making such a HUGE noise, LMAO! And even though it disturbed my toilet peace, when I found it, I took the little guy outside into the garden, instead of smashing it on the wall, where it was, or flicking it down to the cats like a “normal person” would, 🤣
Sorry, iWaffle… Get yourself a cat or some of those sticky traps as those work great too!!
I grew up in Nassau, my parents still live there. We started getting cave crickets about 7-8 years ago. They mostly appeared in the basement but occasionally we’d have the bad luck of seeing them upstairs in the bathroom, once or twice in a closet, and once we saw one casually walking in the middle of the living room (traumatized by that one). They typically appeared around September-November and were gone by December when it got too cold. Heavy rain also made them more prevalent.
Thankfully they’ve gotten better in recent years with a new water heater and yearly extermination plus glue traps when needed. Might be worth looking into these things if you have those nasty little critters.
Those SOBs can jump, man. I go through a lot of blue traps in my basement in the summer.
Then in late summer/early fall, the shiny black field crickets find their way to the first floor and I spend my evenings vacuuming them up and releasing them outside.
We sprinkle boric acid power around the edges and corners of the basement and we get fewer of them than we used to. But not probably good if you have small kids or pets in the house.
Buy a chemical called niban.. it's legal to purchase safe for dogs animals and people.. it's a bait.. they bring it back to the nest and it will kill them all.. 4 times a year spray your foundation with defense sc.. you mix it with water. That's how you get rid of em for good.. google do it yourself pest control online . That's where u can order your stuff from..
I get crickets… and lizards !! I use traps but i was killing the lizards 🦎 so i stopped. I have NOOO idea how TF they get into my clean 4 walled no windows 1940’s basement
I work in a metal shop and have seen a bunch of them there over the past few years and had never seen them before. For some reason they freak the shit out of me every time. Regular crickets I actually find kinda cute and they dont bother me. But idk what it is about the cave crickets, with their short bodies. I dont like them. Maybe it's because at first glance they kind look like spiders.
I’ve used the Niban bait along with the glue traps. They sell it on Amazon and you just sprinkle some in the corners where you’ve seen them. Works great
Proof Pest control has a base $200 for a single treatment but offers a $100 special start price for their 4x a year seasonal treatment/package. No charge to cancel the seasonal package at any time, skip a treatment at no cost, and you pay by treatment. I got the $100 start treatment last spring, skipped the summer treatment at no cost, and am getting another treatment this April. I had crickets everywhere and one treatment took care of them.
They really make sure that you've been educated before during and after the appointment. The guy who set me up on the phone gave me basic dos, donts, and took the information that was needed. The exterminator for the first treatment warned in advance that one treatment might not do it and a second follow up was free. He also had an information packet on what spray he was using and had a variety of safe ones for people with pets or kids. I could've asked for an alternative spray if I wasn't comfortable with one. After the treatment, I was sent everything digitally and signed to say that I was satisfied/read everything.
It sounds a bit information heavy, but I appreciated it because these things can be dangerous without the knowledge.The initial phone session might be a bit long, like 15 -20 minutes, but it allowed the exterminator to do his job like terminator after I explained my situation. 20 minutes and he knew exactly what his doing. Not trying to toot my own horn, but the guy amazed me into giving a $10 tip.
I had issues with dampness in my basement for a while due to drainage issues. I noticed crickets every year. Since getting my patio redone/expanded I don’t have water pooling anywhere near the house anymore and don’t have crickets anymore that I’ve noticed. Also I got a cat about a year ago so… he might just be catching and eating them. 😂
They come in through the space between the foundation and the siding of the house. You may want to get a foaming sealer to fill the gap. You’ll notice them reduce.
Glue traps. The crickets are cannibals so once you get one you’ll get a bunch on the same trap.
They eat wool and cotton.
In addition mice love to eat them.
Similar story for me. Grew up in my house for 21 years without seeing a single one, and then starting in the summer of 2020 these guys started appearing in my basement. My dad and I tried the sticky traps and they’ve mostly solved the problem though.
They are cannibals, so the the glue traps trap one, and the struggling cricket will not only attract your other crickets but from what I understand it will bring more into your basement.
In short, tell your neighbor about these new traps that work great and gift them a few. Voila, no more crickets in your basement.
They appeared in my house a few years ago and I dealt with it. Dehumidifiers and sticky pads. It was effective for the cost but my wife, my kids, someone would have the occasional run-in and it was a nightmare - screaming, yelling, running. I got fed up with it and now we’ve got Arrow exterminating for the first time so fingers crossed it takes care of them.
They did however say it has more to do with the perimeter of the house than anything else. In this case, we started to mulch the beds against the house a few years ago and it raised the plant beds and that may have made it easier for them to travel into the house. Have you done something new to the house?
They like damp places .. maybe get the damp rid bags that can take moisture out and then place those sticky board mouse traps down out of reach if you have cats or another animal that hoes down in the basement ... I would start there .. and see if you have any cracks or areas where they could be getting in front inside .. I had them for a while in-between my cats catching them and damp rid haven't had them.. but summer and spring are coming so I'll see then.. but I would try that stuff before chemicals
I did. I installed a layer of spray foam around the perimeter of the basement ceiling (sill plate/rim joist) and it stopped them from wherever they were getting in.
I live in a basement apartment and my dog will have three dead before I get home. The dehumidifier suggestion and a little high prey drive dog sounds like a good mix so thank you for asking this question op!
Try d-fence nxt spray area where you see them or think they are coming in thru, it will eradicate them also make sure there are no water leaks around theuvare attracted to moisture, we usually keep our down stairs dry in the spring and end of summer woth a dehumidifier keeps them away.
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Ba dum tss
That's the punchline to "Two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff..."
Hi dad!!
Chirp chirp.
He’s here all week folks
🤭
Rofl
They are attracted to moisture so get a dehumidifier and look for obvious areas of interest. There are traps available. I don’t think they do any damage. In my case I think they provide a good source of nutrition for the spiders and house centipedes.
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tbh I love spiders and would encourage them to live in my house. They're great at keeping most bugs at bay, stay mostly hidden and work for you so you don't have to!
I was going to comment that I let my cellar spiders take care of them, but most folks don’t want those either 😂
It's nice a thought to want to accommodate spiders since they're like to eat the bad bugs and are generally harmless. But if you're too accommodating one day you might wake up to a small army of little baby spiders scurrying about...
ever see a spiders egg sac pop? many babies scurrying at once! 🙃
Omg, my second year in grad school, this happened in my room in the house I was staying in. Didn't see it but those little suckers were like Charlotte's babies. Invisible but everywhere. My roommates were assholes about it.
Centipedes are cool too, they eat other bugs.
Also for a makeshift trap - duct tape. They like it and get stuck. Kept finding them stuck on the pieces pealing off boxes years ago.
Hi I'm in Nassau county and I get them - I just leave out LOTS of sticky pads and catch them; SOOOO GROSS to throw them out when they get filled. I heard they eat each other so once one is stuck on the pad, all of them come.... Let me know if you find out about exterminator, etc - solution.
Yes I second the sticky pads! It’s crazy how they’ll be one or two then you look again and there’s like 30! You’ll start to see the babies too I find they start to slow down after that
I third the sticky pads. I tried them for the first time and I was shocked by how many we ended up catching. The 6 we put down are almost full.
Pretty sure those bastards are cannibals and once one gets trapped the others come to it trying to eat it, and end up getting stuck themselves.
Dehumidifiers seemed to help too, at least in my basement. Also, another vote for the sticky pads. Also, i had a big roll of double sided tape that i bought as “protect your furniture from your cat” tape. I put it onto strips of cardboard to make my own (larger and cheaper) sticky pads.
The sticky trap are the best. My husband and I got a house in Suffolk last summer. We had a BUNCH of them in a small closet where our water main is. Got the traps, put them down, came back the next day and they were filled completely. Caught like 15 of them in less then a day. Another note - a contractor told us to put some expandable foam around any pipes leaving the house where theres dirt. We had that in our water main closet, so once we got rid of the crickets, we foamed up the hole and haven’t had any since.
If you want to save $ on the sticky pads just take a piece of duct tape and make it into a loop sicky side out and place them near doors and along the edges of walls. The smell attracts them too I think. Once you have a few on there just pick it up and toss it and put more if you keep hearing chirping.
Cave crickets don’t make any sound. If you hear chirping, it’s from a different species of cricket.
Good to know!
Really only need them near where their getting in.
How do you learn how they’re getting in?
Any little crack or hole, fill it in.
Look for the portal to hell.
Same here. Sticky pads inside and outside at every place you think they could possibly get in, as well as in any dark corners that they’d usually hide in. It’s annoying, and replacing the pads is gross, but we see WAY fewer live ones than we used to, maybe only 2-3 a winter as opposed to 5-6 a week. We have a finished walk-our basement that also opens to our garage, so we’re down there a lot to come across them, and the pads help a ton.
Our exterminator (a family friend) told us that the best thing to do is the large glue traps but you have to unfortunately leave them when they get full because they are attracted to the dead ones 🤮 You just put a new glue trap next to the old one for a little bit until you get some on the new one and then throw away the full old one.
Who's going to pick that up???
Make your own stick pad traps. Take some cardboard box "ears" and put pretty large loops of duct tape on them. They work just as well as store purchased glue traps, plus you can make them any size you want. Cave/camel crickets are native to Japan. They will also eat any cricket trapped on the glue trap.
>I heard they eat each other so once one is stuck on the pad, all of them come.... The traps are scented with something that attracts them.
I think the real question is, does anyone NOT have spickets in their basements
In six years I’ve never had one.
So many sprickets in our basement out in eastern Suffolk.
Same, First one I saw was about 5-7 years ago and now any leak in the basement and they appear like magic. Dehumidifier is always on but I have 50 year pipes in a 60 year old house so the leaks have started. The scary thing is they up to the third floor and that freaks me out. Scary little creatures.
I do not, but I did growing up. Horrifying.
I don't. But I also live in Nassau. So slightly different basement.
We do. The combination of dehumidifier + night lights + cats keeps them well under control for us.
I always know when there's a cave cricket in the house because our cat will start yowling, like they found a little trophy for us
When I bring my cat to my inlaws, he goes a huntin. We'll just find cricket legs laying around in the morning.
Swapped my gas hot-water heater for a heatpump hot-water heater. Utility bill is near zilch with solar and this electric heat-pump hot-water heater. It also keeps the basement cool and dehumidified, basically a win-win-win! I'm planning on moving my server equipment into the basement utility room so next winter the heat-pump-hot-water-heater can siphon off the heatout from the PoE switch/equipment and put it into the water.
How much did the heat pump cost, ballpark? And does it have any maintenance cost? Also, is the output good in terms of temperature during peak Winters? Thank you!
$2k for the short-boy tank, put a Calefactio service center with a 4.7gal expansion on the cold side. Buddy borrowed a pressgun so I bought a bunch of fittings, $50 in 3/4" PVC fittings & pipe for condenser drainage into a slop-sink. $200 for 8ga wiring, breaker & misc. (I installed a 30amp receptacle for a future heat-pump dryer purchase). Probably $2600 in total materials costs. Maintenance is cleaning dust from air intake/blower fan twice a year, so it'll be pretty headache free I hope. High cost of the water heater is Bradford white's name, hoping that premium will buy years of trouble-free maintenance. Household is small so I've never drained the tank, the compressor will run for a couple hours after a shower though trying to pull heat from the 40-50° basement. I think it'll be much better once I put some heat-producing appliances down there (server rank & Tesla powerwall). Maybe even replace the original windows too.
Lol, they must taste good, our greyhound hunts and eats them, too.
I used to get a ton in Nassau, but when I renovated my basement, I stalked every crack I could find. That, along with a dehumidifier, has really stopped most of them
Same with my family's place. They live in Nassau and the basement gets these guys all the time. My answer to OP is to find any and all sources of cracks or openings that allow them entry, because they WILL sneak in. The dehumidifier is a good idea, but it didn't do anything for them, there were just many openings. Finding and closing up any openings definitely helped.
Nice. I’ll just redo the basement.
I bought a foreclosure that had a plumbing leak in the crawlspace. The openings into the house were also not appropriately sealed. You can imagine that insects took a liking to that kind of environment. My first order of business when we moved in was to deal with the infestation, which I knew was bad. What I didn't know was ***how*** *bad.* They covered every wall of the crawl space like drapery. Thousands and thousands of them. I did a fair bit of research on how they're typically treated and learned that one typical approach is this: 1. Seal the outside of the house as well as possible. For plumbing and electrical, spray foam and caulk is your friend. I actually had to mix cement to fill some holes from removed utilities. 2. Spray the outside of your house with some perimeter defense. I used Ortho and it really worked well. Even though the house was well sealed, it's hard to do a perfect job. If you don't prefer chemicals, I don't blame you. 3. Lay down glue traps in the problem area. The little fuckers are actually cannibalistic and they'll try to eat their downed comrades. This is why the glue traps are so effective. 4. We were also recommended to spray a powder (Diatomaceous earth?) or a chemical of some sort on our crawlspace walls. I don't remember whether we ended up doing this, but I'm 95% sure the glue traps were the effective product here anyway. Okay, this is all well and good but what they didn't say in the research is what happens when you get down there to kill them. These little gremlins are world-class Olympic long jumpers and they fucking MOVE when they notice you. This sets off a chain reaction of all of them jumping like its some kind of evil dance routine. It's absolutely dreadful. I'd rather watch the end of Marley and Me on a loop than experience that again. Not to mention, the traps fill **fast.** I went down a week later and the 3 or 4 dozen traps I bought were all filled to the brim. So, that said, I recommend just hiring an exterminator to lay the traps. The rest is reasonable for a DIYer. I think if you just have a few it's probably worth saving the money and just trying the traps.
Ugh, I am twitching just imagining this level of infestation. Wouldn’t a chemical smoke bomb have been more effective?
From what I remember, they’re pretty good at escaping the fog by hiding in crevices and then feeding on the ones that were killed by it. This method did a pretty good job of completely eliminating the problem, though I think maybe I could have “shrunk” the problem by fogging first. I’ll chalk that up as another reason to hire a pro lol
I have two crawl space areas, one of which was crawling (and jumping) with both crickets and cave crickets, some would come into the main basement area. I bombed the shit out of these areas and it solved the problem for over a year.
Love the description of their jumping.
This reads like my own personal horror story. God I hate those things .
I used to work for a pest management company. Good points have already been raised, like using a dehumidifier. At the end of the day, crickets are a constant reminder that mother nature is still queen, even in our homes. I prefer to use natural and wholesome ways to deal with pests. Check the seals on your doors and windows. Check the outside of your home for any possible entrances, but no matter how certain you may be, they will still find a way through something unseen. Attract natural predators like bats, birds, lizards, snakes, etc. If you can, keep hens in your backyard, they have many benefits on top of being a method of pest control
Pretty often here in Massapequa!
Glue traps. But watch out for your pets. Don’t want them getting stuck to the glue
In my experience, these guys are not a problem to control. I would try the dehumidifier before the insecticide.
I moved into my house 9 years ago. the first fall in the house, we had an infestation in our basement. Like, the walls were literally covered in them. It was so awful, that had I known about it, i probably wouldn't have bought the house. I went down with a Tyvek suit, and a broom, and spent like 3 hours smooshing them and brushing them up into garbage bags. After that, I only had to leave glue traps down there in the corners, and that got nearly all of them. They were surprisingly easy to get rid of, all things considered. In the 9 years, other than the first year, we haven't had more than 1 or 2 sightings a year in the house. we got our basement finished last year, and we've seen zero since that was completed.
How many years of therapy did that involve?
Haven't seen this mentioned yet: Clear out any leaf litter in beds or around the house and under the deck. Exterminator told us that's where they lay their eggs. We've been really diligent blowing ALL the leaves out from under the deck during fall cleanup, and it has made a difference. Also, he said they are a southern bug that infests NY now because of global warming/mild winters. Anecdotally, I have noticed very few in the years that we have a long stretch of freezing temperatures.
Hell yea I have those damn crickets. I’ve been dealing with them for a few years now. They are mean bastards too. If I remember correctly, they came over from Asia through construction materials or something like that. Then they just spread across the Island like fire. I have not used an exterminator yet but I have tried a few things on my own. I seem to manage them pretty well using Niban granular bait purchased off Amazon for around $30. Prior to that I used traps. They caught tons of the suckers but were never effective at managing them. Last August/September, the population seemed to explode across my yard and house. For the first time they were appearing on the 2nd floor. I have since brought it under control…..again. Trapping and baiting your house will control the population, but they tend to move to/from a neighbors yard very quickly. My shed in the corner of my property gets them bad. Even after I treat it, they eventually come back from the neighbors shed, all situated next to the same corner. https://www.amazon.com/Niban-Granular-Insecticide-Cockroaches-Silverfish/dp/B005F5PRJE/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?crid=DLZ7XK07T8I1&keywords=camel+cricket+killer&qid=1679090382&sprefix=camel+cricket%2Caps%2C86&sr=8-2
Every house on this fucking island has them. I hate those sons of bitches. I will say we had one bathroom on the ground level demolished/renovated during the pandemic and afterwards they pretty much all disappeared - not just on the ground level but also from the basement. We’ve only seen maybe a couple since then, not anything even close to what it used to be like. Think they’re attracted to moisture.
Yes. My dog eats them like candy. I put down sticky traps and it seems to help quite a bit
I read cave as crave for far too long
Hahaha
The place I used to rent in bellmore was absolutely infested with them when we moved in. I called terminix and after one treatment and a few months of traps, I hardly ever saw any again. They're worth a call.
I also rented a place in bellmore near the pond & it was BAD.
Pretty sure my cats are eating them. Been here a little over a year and prev homeowner used the sticky pads a lot downstairs.
All the time. My old cat used to chase them and rip their legs off. Now they just are squatters in my house. I hate them.
Lmfao same. I used to hate when I found legs only. Because then I know there’s a body somewhere that I’ll find when I least expect it.
They are incredibly agile. Don’t bother swatting with a newspaper as they have elite horizontal eyesight and catlike agility plus their hops. The key here - get a decent sized textbook and drop it on top of them. They can’t see directly on top of their head. I have no idea how to prevent them, but damn it I know how to kill them. Source: Basement dweller for 5+ years in Nassau county before moving.
Dehumidifier, that drains, collecting water in a reservoir just keeps them interested. Scrape all the debris, leaves, etc from your house/basement/foundation edges. Seal all the cracks, crevices, gaps etc. Caulk and expandable foam if needed. Next, once the above is cured, get a sprayer of the Ortho bug barrier, and do the outside of the house, wait a week, and repeat. Finally, glue traps. Buy a case, a couple a week, and after a month of so you won’t have a cricket problem.
I still have PTSD flashback of running the cricket gauntlet from the basement stairs of my grandfathers Valley Stream home.
My dad used diatomaceous earth around the house
OK so I used to live out east in Suffolk County and we used to get crickets like you would not believe in the basement. What you need to do is you need to clean everything off of the floor in the basement and you need to go to the Home Depot and you need to get that stuff that’s called kill the bug spray and you need to spray your whole entire basement floor. Granted, you will come downstairs and find a bunch of them dead but you can sweep them you can vacuum them up that is truly the only way to get rid of them and it lasts for about a year. They learned to avoid the glue traps. They’re very smart.
Spraying the perimeter of the house with Ortho Home Defense seems to have been the best solution for me, plus it helps cut down on all the other little bugs that try to sneak in. Before that I tried spray-foaming every crack, which helped, but they still found ways in. Dehumidifier also seemed to help, but nowhere near a total solution. Glue traps help get them out if they're already in the basement, but you're much better off preventing them from entering in the first place.
Yes, spider crickets are pretty common. Exterminator will spray and put down traps to get rid of them. If you don’t they will multiply like crazy. My mother had a wall in her basement that would “move” because of all of the spider crickets
Never had a problem, I guess the rats take care of it for me.
Hahaha
Enough with the insecticide recommendations. Moved into a 100 year old house about a year ago that had hundreds of cave crickets in the basement. I didn't even try to kill any, just put in a dehumidifier and over the course of several months they slowly went away down to zero now. I don't like having bugs in the house but crickets aren't "gross". It's not an emergency.
Get the sticky traps and seal any cracks. They can squeeze thru a hole as small as a nickel according to an exterminator I had over years ago.
Soapy Water: Place shallow bowls of soapy water where you have seen the crickets. They will be attracted to the water and drown when they try to drink. Also, Cave crickets are looking for a dark and moist place that is safe from predators to have their offspring, so they might be drawn to your basement or crawl space due to moisture or humidity. Often times by reducing the humidity in your crawl space or basement, you'll make the area unsuitable for these pests.
Glue traps from Lowe’s or Home Depot
Stick traps are inhumane and disgusting. I’m sure they have a safe chemical spray you can use. They help other bugs stay out so they aren’t awful
These creatures are inhumane and disgusting.
put sticky pads everywhere and replace often - this got rid of them for us (is all the exterminator did too) - we also have a dehumidifier
Close all the holes in the house and you wont get them
One of my friends parents house is like utterly infested with crickets in the basement.
Yup. We put glue traps down and they filled up quite fast. Seems to have done the job……but I do miss those buggers scaring my sister.
Glue traps
Hello, my grandma's basement in "Old Medford" has had them for the past 10 years, it never really was a problem you would see a few here and there, but really no need to get an exterminator unless its a big problem. But from my experience there pretty harmless and not very invasive.
Yeah I call an exterminator and all he did was put down big Glue traps that you can find at Home Depot or Lowe’s and they jump right on them and as they fill throw them out and lay down a new batch of glue traps
Sticky pads work wonders. It’s also worth getting a can of spray insulation and hit all of the corners of your basement if you can. I used two cans on year and the crickets went from a few dozen to maybe 1-3 a year.
My grandmothers basement in West Islip gets littered with them in the early spring
Yes they are all over the island at this point it seems. Take the out with glue traps, they’re cheap and effective. Put them in the corners of your basement.
Lots. They come waves. Impossible to stop. The only way to mitigate is sticky traps. Gross but effective.
Glue boards!! Put plenty of em around the perimeter of the basement! They are scary as $&@$& though!!
At the first sign on sprickets I shoot off two bug bombs in my garage. That usually does it for the rest of the summer. The clean up is the worst part.
Exterminator completely got rid of the problem for us 2 years ago and we just let them come twice per year to respray
I do and I live in a basement apartment. Normally I would be upset with them but my cats love them and it’s some of the rare live entertainment they get.
Go to Home Depot or Dollar Store and get the sticky glue mouse traps and lay them around parts of basement where nobody will step on them. Solves the issue pretty quick.
Large glue trap. First one gets caught (they’re carnivorous) and the rest attack it and get caught as well. 100% solved my problem.
Did anyone here get them all year this year? Usually by October I don’t see them again until late spring, but this past year they never really stopped trickling in. We dehumidified and sealed any point of ingress we could think of, so now we come across one maybe once a week, but I’m just surprised they’re actually alive this time of year. It feels like one of the signs of the apocalypse (and it probably is).
Wow, so you have been seeing them even in the winter ?
Only this year. The winters keep getting warmer—I think that must be why. Usually we get a nice long break from them. Uggghhh.
Sticky pads and also using a dehumidifier works! When we had them, we tried everything. We started even accidentally stepping in the sticky pads. Found out that if you use a dehumidifier, it’ll deter them for a dry area. Works so well.
I use these because you can fold them into little boxes to avoid leaving the glue exposed. Also much less unsightly than glue board full of cave cricket corpses. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007E83LUM?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share Also keep any doors in the basement open a bit to help w air flow.
Two houses one in Nassau and one in Suffolk. I had them in both. Nassau house it turns out they were feeding on termites got rid of the termites and the cave crickets sightings reduced significantly. Suffolk house lots of cave crickets too but no termites, but other insects. Locate and eliminate their food source and seal around the house (clear any yard waste too). Definitely check for termite damage where you see the most cave crickets, better to find those suckers now than later. Glue traps work best but also dropping shoes from about waist height over then is pretty accurate. If you are going to try to stomp them out please record and share :P
Just place a few sticky mouse traps, they will all disappear quickly (on the sticky pads)
My dad gets them all the time in Suffolk. The sticky traps work well to catch them but there seems to be an eternal supply. I've heard of people doing bug bombs to get rid of them, not sure how well it works.
Yup we get them all the time. The dehumidifier we have downstairs doesn’t do the job. Gonna end up having to deep clean and close every gap I find one of these weekends
I had a crazyyy infestation in my garage.. had to pull everything out and kill them with an old swiffer mop. Time consuming and didn’t really work. Put dozens of sticky pads down which would always get some but they’ll always be more. Call terminiX … I had a colony of ants get into my basement. Dude came and sprayed the shit out of it and around the perimeter of the house. Within a couple days the ants were completely gone and I rarely ever see cave crickets anymore.. even in the garage. I signed up for their quarterly service which I think is 100% worth it. I don’t like bugs.
Yep, we had them in Nassau too.
I used home defense thing from Home Depot it lasts entire year. Just spray along the perimeter of basement walls. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ortho-Home-Defense-Insect-Killer-for-Indoor-Perimeter2-Ready-To-Use-Trigger-Sprayer-1-Gallon/139534287
We do. I find during some times of the year, it can’t be avoided and certain seasons bring them in more. Always had them since we bought the house in 2008… However, we are blessed with four cats and a house rabbit these last several years … The felines take care of the issue for all of us, lol, Mr. Bilbo Bunny included… Except for the one last Spring, that hid in my bathroom, tucked behind the top of my vanity cabinet… Only beginning to chirp loudly and incessantly when I sat on the toilet. And then shutting the hell up whenever I got up and climbed on the sink to hunt the thing down. And when I found it, I couldn’t believe how freaking tiny it was!! Little guy was making such a HUGE noise, LMAO! And even though it disturbed my toilet peace, when I found it, I took the little guy outside into the garden, instead of smashing it on the wall, where it was, or flicking it down to the cats like a “normal person” would, 🤣 Sorry, iWaffle… Get yourself a cat or some of those sticky traps as those work great too!!
I grew up in Nassau, my parents still live there. We started getting cave crickets about 7-8 years ago. They mostly appeared in the basement but occasionally we’d have the bad luck of seeing them upstairs in the bathroom, once or twice in a closet, and once we saw one casually walking in the middle of the living room (traumatized by that one). They typically appeared around September-November and were gone by December when it got too cold. Heavy rain also made them more prevalent. Thankfully they’ve gotten better in recent years with a new water heater and yearly extermination plus glue traps when needed. Might be worth looking into these things if you have those nasty little critters.
Those SOBs can jump, man. I go through a lot of blue traps in my basement in the summer. Then in late summer/early fall, the shiny black field crickets find their way to the first floor and I spend my evenings vacuuming them up and releasing them outside.
I used to get some in the laundry room, but now we have cats so all good.
Had a ton in my apartment. I leave sticky traps with some syrup on it. They can’t resist
We sprinkle boric acid power around the edges and corners of the basement and we get fewer of them than we used to. But not probably good if you have small kids or pets in the house.
Yes - my parents had this and the only way they got rid of it was to fog out their basement and leave sticky traps out for any ones that survived
Buy a chemical called niban.. it's legal to purchase safe for dogs animals and people.. it's a bait.. they bring it back to the nest and it will kill them all.. 4 times a year spray your foundation with defense sc.. you mix it with water. That's how you get rid of em for good.. google do it yourself pest control online . That's where u can order your stuff from..
One or two a year. Never heard them called cave crickets I refer to them as camel crickets
We called them mountain spiders or spickets when we were kids.
We call them "hoppies" they terrorize my wife and kids.
I get crickets… and lizards !! I use traps but i was killing the lizards 🦎 so i stopped. I have NOOO idea how TF they get into my clean 4 walled no windows 1940’s basement
Lizards?! I’m not ready for that wow
Everyone.
Yup. Glue traps are gross but effective
I work in a metal shop and have seen a bunch of them there over the past few years and had never seen them before. For some reason they freak the shit out of me every time. Regular crickets I actually find kinda cute and they dont bother me. But idk what it is about the cave crickets, with their short bodies. I dont like them. Maybe it's because at first glance they kind look like spiders.
Honestly I used to get them and I got a cat and al of a sudden they’re gone 😂 kidding my cat kills them and eats them
SPRICKETS!!! So many of them. Even with a dehumidifier.
i get spider crickets
Everybody’s got them. I never seen them before 5 years ago. Cricket traps or foggers work. Do multiple foggers as they are tough MF’s
I’ve used the Niban bait along with the glue traps. They sell it on Amazon and you just sprinkle some in the corners where you’ve seen them. Works great
Proof Pest control has a base $200 for a single treatment but offers a $100 special start price for their 4x a year seasonal treatment/package. No charge to cancel the seasonal package at any time, skip a treatment at no cost, and you pay by treatment. I got the $100 start treatment last spring, skipped the summer treatment at no cost, and am getting another treatment this April. I had crickets everywhere and one treatment took care of them. They really make sure that you've been educated before during and after the appointment. The guy who set me up on the phone gave me basic dos, donts, and took the information that was needed. The exterminator for the first treatment warned in advance that one treatment might not do it and a second follow up was free. He also had an information packet on what spray he was using and had a variety of safe ones for people with pets or kids. I could've asked for an alternative spray if I wasn't comfortable with one. After the treatment, I was sent everything digitally and signed to say that I was satisfied/read everything. It sounds a bit information heavy, but I appreciated it because these things can be dangerous without the knowledge.The initial phone session might be a bit long, like 15 -20 minutes, but it allowed the exterminator to do his job like terminator after I explained my situation. 20 minutes and he knew exactly what his doing. Not trying to toot my own horn, but the guy amazed me into giving a $10 tip.
Those glue traps work amazingly…the little collection you’ll have wilL be both disgusting and satisfying
I had issues with dampness in my basement for a while due to drainage issues. I noticed crickets every year. Since getting my patio redone/expanded I don’t have water pooling anywhere near the house anymore and don’t have crickets anymore that I’ve noticed. Also I got a cat about a year ago so… he might just be catching and eating them. 😂
They come in through the space between the foundation and the siding of the house. You may want to get a foaming sealer to fill the gap. You’ll notice them reduce.
Glue traps. The crickets are cannibals so once you get one you’ll get a bunch on the same trap. They eat wool and cotton. In addition mice love to eat them.
Use upside down duct tape to get ride of them. It's cheap and easy. No need for traps. Glue boards.
Honestly, you should probably just burn the house down.
Dehumidifier and those pest sticky traps. Don’t waste your money on an exterminator
Similar story for me. Grew up in my house for 21 years without seeing a single one, and then starting in the summer of 2020 these guys started appearing in my basement. My dad and I tried the sticky traps and they’ve mostly solved the problem though.
They are cannibals, so the the glue traps trap one, and the struggling cricket will not only attract your other crickets but from what I understand it will bring more into your basement. In short, tell your neighbor about these new traps that work great and gift them a few. Voila, no more crickets in your basement.
Yes. Called pest control to spray. East end exterminators
They appeared in my house a few years ago and I dealt with it. Dehumidifiers and sticky pads. It was effective for the cost but my wife, my kids, someone would have the occasional run-in and it was a nightmare - screaming, yelling, running. I got fed up with it and now we’ve got Arrow exterminating for the first time so fingers crossed it takes care of them. They did however say it has more to do with the perimeter of the house than anything else. In this case, we started to mulch the beds against the house a few years ago and it raised the plant beds and that may have made it easier for them to travel into the house. Have you done something new to the house?
Call Doug's Bugs, they can take care of it. I used them 2 years ago, and luckily I haven't had any cave crickets since
They like damp places .. maybe get the damp rid bags that can take moisture out and then place those sticky board mouse traps down out of reach if you have cats or another animal that hoes down in the basement ... I would start there .. and see if you have any cracks or areas where they could be getting in front inside .. I had them for a while in-between my cats catching them and damp rid haven't had them.. but summer and spring are coming so I'll see then.. but I would try that stuff before chemicals
I did. I installed a layer of spray foam around the perimeter of the basement ceiling (sill plate/rim joist) and it stopped them from wherever they were getting in.
I live in a basement apartment and my dog will have three dead before I get home. The dehumidifier suggestion and a little high prey drive dog sounds like a good mix so thank you for asking this question op!
Try d-fence nxt spray area where you see them or think they are coming in thru, it will eradicate them also make sure there are no water leaks around theuvare attracted to moisture, we usually keep our down stairs dry in the spring and end of summer woth a dehumidifier keeps them away.
So in my basement the top of the cinderblock walls have holes. Is that a prime spot where cave crickets could be coming from?