The last thing you want to hear just as you are beginning to settle down for the night is the chirp of a cricket reverberating off the walls of your house. Outside, as dusk arrives, the song of the cricket can be a soothing, familiar sound that reminds you that darkness is about to fall. However, the once pleasant trill of the cricket outside in your garden can become an annoyingly incessant bleeping if a cricket has entered your home.
Crickets invade your home generally due to the abundance of warmth and food within and are attracted from a distance by bright light. The critter responsible for the never ending bleat that keeps you up at night is the male black field cricket, which calls out to females by rubbing its wings together from the safety of a dark spot in a corner of your home.
What makes things worse is that the moment you think you've discovered the general location of their hiding place, they fall silent. So how do you find and remove this noisy pest? Try these solutions to rid yourself of this nocturnal nuisance.
Place Cornmeal in the Centre of a Glue Board
Once you have figured out the general location of the cricket keeping you up at night, place some cornmeal in the centre of a glue board (which can be purchased in a hardware store), and leave the board in the vicinity. As crickets traditionally eat vegetables like wheat, barley and corn, they won't be able to resist the scent of a pile of cornmeal. Within 2 days you should have nailed (or glued) your cricket into stillness.
Send in the Hunters
Crickets irritate the sensitive ears of cats and dogs. If you don't own a cat or dog, borrow a neighbour's or friend's pet and send them in to seek and destroy. If the cricket is within easy reach, they'll find it after a period of frantic searching.
Drown them in Sweetness
Crickets cannot resist the overpowering scent of sugar. Take a bowl of water, add vanilla extract and molasses, and then leave the bowl in the area where you think the cricket may be hiding. By morning, you should find that the cricket has drowned in the mixture.
Crickets live for up to three months and in some cases can breed in your home. If this happens, you'll have more than just the noise to worry about as they will eat whatever they can find, from books to clothes and even your favourite curtains. If you think your house may be infested with crickets, and the noise is driving you up the wall, seek the help of a professional pest control firm in silencing those pests once and for all.
Share24 October 2016
Every year as soon as summer hits, the bugs come calling. We have a sandy soil and have a recurring issue with ants getting into every piece of food or moist area in the house. Sometimes they even chew through the packaging to get to our food! It drives me crazy. After trying every home remedy and insecticide in the shop, we decided it was time to call in the big guns and got some exterminators in. It was a really good move because we are finally rid of those pests. This blog is all about the best ways to get rid of ants.