Signs point to a big jump in crickets this year

Temperatures may have warmed back up to late-summer range, but recent nighttime forays into the 50s have already brought the chirping of crickets around the outside of houses, and sometimes even indoors.

“We had two in the office this morning,” extension agent Rebecca McMahon said Thursday. “We were sitting in the office going, ‘Where’s the crickets?’ It’s that time of year.”

And by the time the weather takes a definitive turn toward fall, the din may reach a fever pitch this year.

“There are quite a few piling up around houses, but they won’t be coming into houses too terribly bad until it’s between 40 to 50 degrees, and I think there’s going to be quite a few this year,” said Chad Betts of Betts Pest Control.

The reason: this year’s relatively wet weather.

“I think we’ve had more of everything than normal,” Betts said. “I’ve got lots of calls on spiders, and earlier this year we had a lot of calls on ants.”

Bob Bauernfeind, extension specialist in horticultural entomology at K-State, says he’s seen more than ever in his yard.

“This year I noticed early in the year, because I was doing a lot of yard work, a lot of little crickets,” Bauernfeind said. “That was five to seven weeks ago, and now the crickets are medium-sized.”

Since it’s a lot easier to keep the chirping jumpers outside than to chase them down and kill them inside — as extension agent Matthew McKernan did at the Extension office on Thursday morning — the warm weather gives us a chance to try to prevent them now.

“The No. 1 thing that they can do is keep their grass mowed real short and keep their vegetation thinned out close to their house,” Betts said, and that goes not only for keeping crickets out but other pests as well. Spiders, for instance, love to get into the bushes where gnats and aphids cool off in hot weather, because the spiders eat the bugs. “They have to go where their food source is,” Betts said.

Also pick up things like tarps, wood piles, old boards or lumber that are laying around near the house, Bauernfeind said. “Those are all hiding places. If you deprive them of a hiding place, maybe they won’t be near your house to come into your house.”

The crickets that move inside as the weather cools usually are field crickets, most of which are the standard black. They detect heat and so move in toward house or other foundations that exude warmth. They then can easily hop into open doors or squeeze through cracks.

Check for cracks and gaps in the foundation, ill-fitting doorways and garage doors, overhang louvers, chimney vents, roof ducts, soffits, air-conditioner connections, outdoor faucets and siding, Bauernfeind says in K-State’s Kansas Insect Newsletter. Use caulk to seal cracks and crevices, weather stripping to make doorways and garage doors tight-fitting, and metal screening over, under or behind other entry points, he writes.

The way you keep out crickets also will apply to other pests that may try to get into the house in the fall, including boxelder bugs, elm leaf beetles, multicolored Asian lady beetles and spiders. Mice do not fall under Bauernfeind’s expertise, but they are perhaps the largest potential invaders.

Even though he considers his own house sealed up, Bauernfeind said he’s sure he’ll still get some cricket incursions. A cricket’s preferred environment outside is a cool, dark, moist area. “It sounds like the basement,” Bauernfeind said, and that’s usually where they go in a house. They don’t eat anything in particular indoors, but they might nibble on food crumbs that are left around or taste a piece of fabric, leaving stray holes in, say, a cushion or curtain.

If you see a lot of crickets outdoors and expect an indoor invasion, you can apply an insecticide labeled for crickets in a 6- to 12-foot band around the house as a barrier, he says. Pest-control companies also can do the job. It won’t necessarily keep all crickets out, however, Bauernfeind says.

Once crickets are inside, an insecticide labeled for indoor use may not be effective, because you don’t know exactly where the crickets may be hopping around, Bauernfeind said.

“I would rather see people, if a cricket is making a racket, find it and get rid of it,” Bauernfeind said.

“I can see indoor treatments for insects that live and breed in the house,” but not for a casual invader like a cricket, he said.

Before the big advent of crickets hits, the No. 1 pest problem for Betts Pet Control right now is spiders, mainly brown recluses, Chad Betts said.

When the company treats for spiders, it usually does the outside of the house, including the perimeter of the foundation and oftentimes the eaves. If there’s a problem with spiders indoors, the treatment is usually pretty extensive, Betts said. Garages and basements also are treated.

“Once you get spiders controlled, you can keep them out pretty easy by doing exterior treatments,” Betts said. Maintenance customers have their house treated outside every 60 days and usually don’t have to worry about insects and spiders coming in.

But Bauernfeind thinks people’s reactions about spiders can be overblown.

“Don’t be really concerned about spiders. People view them as dangerous, but they’re shy, they’re timid,” he said, and they try to stay away from people. While spider bites can cause big problems for some people, for many people a bite isn’t that bad, he said. His wife has been bitten by brown recluses a few times, and it’s only been a minor annoyance that clears up pretty quickly, Bauernfeind said.

Mice problems, which also start to show up as weather cools, usually can be traced to people who leave dog or cat food out or who feed wild birds, Betts said.

This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 12:29 PM with the headline "Signs point to a big jump in crickets this year."