What do spider crickets look like?
Spider crickets are crickets with long spider-like legs. They have a hummped back that looks like a spider’s abdomen.
Unlike regular crickets, spider crickets don’t have wings.
They are grayish or light brown. They also have black spots around their body.
The spider cricket looks similar to a wolf spider in terms of size and color.
Spider Cricket vs. House Cricket
Legs: Spider crickets are crickets with long spider-like legs. They have a hummped back that looks like a spider’s abdomen. House crickets have prominent back legs but they are not longer only thicker than their other legs.
Size: One of the biggest differences between a spider cricket and a spider is their size. Spider crickets grow almost double the size of house crickets. In particular, Spider crickets grow between 13 and 33m. Compare that to house crickets, which only grow between 15 and 20 mm long.
Wings: Another big difference between these two is, unlike house crickets, spider crickets don’t have wings.
Color: They are grayish or light brown. House crickets are typically a darker shade of brown. Spider crickets also have black spots around their body. House crickets don’t have this pattern.
Where Do Spider crickets Live?
Spider crickets are spread across the U.S. They are common in moist and humid environments.
Spider crickets are common in the East Coast and western states, including, California, Oregon, and Washington.
Where Do Crickets Hide?
Spider crickets hide in dark, moist areas. They also like to be near water sources.
They generally live outdoors but may stumble into your home in search of water. They may also seek shelter during the summer
when temperatures get too high.
Some common areas you’ll find, insider, your home include basements, crawl spaces, and attics.
Outside, they like to be in piles of leaves, tall grass, and under decks or patios.
What Do spider crickets Eat?
Spider crickets are omnivorous. They eat small insects. They also consume organic materials such as fungi, leaves, wood, carpet, and cardboard.
How To Get Rid of spider crickets?
1. Eliminate Moisture
Moisture provides spider crickets with an ideal place to live and reproduce.
To keep Spider crickets away, remove any excess moisture from your home.
Make sure to fix leaky faucets. Dump any standing water.
Places to check for a leak or standing water:
- Pipes
- Sprinklers
- Gutters
- Downspouts
- Birdbaths
2. Glue Boards
Glue boards are traps you can place where the Spider crickets frequent.
They are pretty easy to use and quite effective.
Place the glue boards in dark, humid areas.
Ideal places to target around your home are basements, crawl spaces, and attics.
You can also place glue boards around key entry points in your homes such as doorways and windows.
3. Seal Entry Points
Cricket infestations always start outdoors. To ensure that they don’t make their way inside your home you should seal potential entry points.
Inspect the outside of your house if you have a spider cricket infestation. Key areas you want to ensure that is sealed properly include:
- Window sills
- Doors sills
- Foundation
- Cracks
- Holes
Another common way that spider crickets enter homes is under doors or through the small gaps on doors and windows.
One way to eliminate this entry point is to weatherstrip your home. This includes adding door sweeps and using foam strips along the door and window frames.
This will make it impossible for spider crickets to enter your home.
It’s important that you inspect any old weather strips you have around your home. These strips can wear down or tear and become ineffective.
Replace any areas that are damaged or not holding their form.
4. Apply Insecticides Outdoors
Using insecticides is also a highly effective method that you can use to get rid of spider cricket infestations.
Broad insecticide applications around the outside of homes are unnecessary unless infestations are large. Smaller infestations can be handled with natural methods.
When using insecticides you can use liquid insecticides or granules.
Granules are great for treating areas that are difficult to reach with a spray bottle. They are activated with water and allow you to treat areas that are covered by plants or other structures.
Liquid insecticides are easy to use and allow you to create a barrier on and around structures.
I recommend applying insecticides to 3 feet on the wall of your structures. This will create a protective barrier and prevent spider crickets from crawling on your walls.
Applying liquid insecticides around your windows and doors is also a great way to get rid of spider crickets.
5. Vacuum
Vacuuming spider crickets is a fast and effective method that you can use to get rid of small infestations or single spider crickets.
Rather than trying to catch it with a container or smashing it and getting bug guts everywhere, you can vacuum it.
Vacuums with pole attachments are handy because it makes it easier to get spider crickets. Since spider crickets often hide in hard-to-reach places, vacuuming ensures that you can capture them before they jump away.
Vacuums are also effective because they allow you to trap them even if they initiate their jump.
Shot vac vacuums are the most effective because you can place water and soap, or other chemicals to kill any crickets you capture.
It’s important to note that you should be cautious when using a vacuum around spider crickets when frightened spider crickets will jump away.
I recommend that you find the spider crickets before turning on the vacuum to avoid scaring them away.
6. Use Diatomaceous Earth Around Your Home
Diatomaceous earth is an all-natural alternative that will help you get rid of spider crickets.
For DE to be effective, two things must happen.
It must remain dry. If the DE gets wet, it’s not effective.
Crickets must come in contact in direct contact with the DE.
You can apply DE to corners and edges outside and inside your home.
These are common areas where crickets tend to travel. This makes it more likely that the crickets will travel through the DE.
Placing it in the corners and edges also helps make sure that the DE does not get suspended in the air.
When DE is suspended in the air, it can cause respiratory issues for humans and pets.
When applying outdoors or to gardens, creating a slurry is the most effective way to eliminate crickets.
Combine in a water solution and apply using a spray bottle or pressurized sprayer.
Spray this solution in corners and edges, and over any surfaces, you expect crickets such as grass, gardens, and your house foundation.
Once this solution dries, any crickets that come in contact with the areas will eventually die.
This method does result in slower deaths, but it’s highly effective if the area remains dry for extended periods.
DE is very effective if you live in dry climates that don’t experience much rain or activity.
Remember, when applying this to your yard, it will inadvertently kill other small insects with exoskeletons as well.
One huge benefit is that DE is non-toxic. It’s safe to use around humans, children, and in gardens without posing any serious dangers.
7. Use Motion Activated Lights
Spider crickets and crickets are attracted to light. While they prefer to hide in moist dark areas they will often approach and hide where there is light at night.
One of the most common sources of light that attracts crickets is porch lights or other outdoor lights.
Outdoor lights tend to stay on at night which attracts crickets around your home.
One way you can eliminate this issue is by using motion-activated lights. These lights will turn off when they are not in use. Ensuring that your lights are never on if they are not needed.
This will make the surrounding area around your home less appealing to crickets.
8. Keep Your Yard Well Maintained
Spider crickets thrive in clutter and debris. These conditions create hiding spots for spider crickets that allow them to hide and reproduce.
One great way to get rid of spider crickets is to make your yard less attractive. The fewer hiding spots there are, the more likely it is that spider crickets will seek shelter elsewhere.
Some steps you can take to keep your yard well maintained includes:
- Remove piles of leaves and debris.
- Clean gutters
- Dispose of branches and fallen logs
Store firewood properly and away from your home - Keep grass and bushes trimmed.
- Reduce the use of mulch near your home
- Cover compost piles to prevent crickets from accessing them.
How To Prevent spider crickets?
1. Use De-umidifiers
Moisture is a universal attractand for most insects including spider crickets and other species of crickets.
Eliminating moisture inside your home will help prevent spider crickets by making your home less attractive.
The best way to eliminate high moisture areas around homes is to use a humidifier.
These rooms are often humid due to natural conditions which make it difficult to reduce moisture without an active and working plan.
The best way to do that in humid locations is using a dehumidifier.
Common areas that are humid and contain moisture that spider crickets tend to target include:
- Basements
- Boiler rooms
- Grage
- Kitchens
- Bathrooms
- Attics
Using a dehumidifier in these rooms wil help reduce humidity and make these rooms less attractive to spider crickets.
2. Eliminate Clutter
The fewer areas there are to hide for a spider cricket the less likely they are to stay around your home.
This is especially true for larger infestations. When infestations become large not only will it be easy to determine the severity of the infestation but spider crickets will likely seek other places to hide.
This is because with a large infestation there may not be enough space for the spider crickets to hide. This will leave them feeling vulnerable and unsafe and they will likely look for somewhere to hide.
Eliminating clutter both indoors and outdoors is a great way to prevent spider crickets.
Clutter gives spider crickets places to hide, without a dark place to hide spider crickets are likely to look for other places to live. This is especially true with large infestations.
Eliminating clutter will also make it easier to determine if there are spider crickets inside or outside your home.
3. Keep yard well maintained
Spider crickets thrive on moisture and hiding spots. The fewer landscaping issues you have in your yard the less likely spider crickets will invade your yard.
- Some key tasks to consider include
- Storing wood properly
- Racking all fallen leaves
- Keeping grass, bushers, and trees trimmed
- Monitor watering levels of your yard to limit residual moisture
4. Reduce Moisture Issues
Moisture is one of the primary reasons that spider crickets will invade a home. It’s important that you make sure you don’t have any drainage issues.
You want to avoid any buildup of water anywhere around your home.
Common areas that accumulate moisture are:
- Drainage pipes
- Downspouts
- Broken gutters
- Unleveled yard
- Leaking sprinklers
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Are spider crickets Poisonous?
Spider crickets are not poisonous. They don’t bite or inject any venom. They also are not capable of transmitting any diseases through physical contact.
Do spider crickets Bite?
Spider crickets are capable of biting but it’s unlikely that you will ever be bitten. They don’t pose fangs or mandibles that would cause any serious damage to humans.
Even in most cases, spider cricket’s first defense mechanism is to jump away rather than to bite or attack.
While they can’t cause any serious harm to humans by biting certain species can damage clothing, fabric, and furniture due to their consistent chewing.
How Serious Are Spdier Crickets?
Spider cricket infestations should be taken seriously because they can grow very quickly. Spider crickets reproduce quickly if conditions are ideal.
If you provide ideal conditions outdoors, such as plenty of hiding spaces, food, and moisture, then spider cricket infestation can thrive and begin to look for ways to enter your home.
Are Spider Crickets Nocturnal?
Yes, spider crickets are nocturnal just like most other species of crickets. Spider crickets are most active at night where they can take advantage of the darkness to look for food, moisture, and shelter.
Does vinegar kill spider crickets?
No, vinegar will not kill crickets. The acid inside vinegar is not strong enough to kill spider crickets. There is no research to demonstrate how much vinegar is needed to kill spider crickets.
Vinegar is often combined with essential oils to use as a repellent. The essential ingredient in these repellents is the essential oil. Countless studies confirm the repellency of essential oils, although they are short-lived.
Vinegar is not an effective method to kill or repel spider crickets.
Why Should You Get Rid of spider crickets?
Spider crickets don’t cause any immediate dangers or damage to homes.
This doesn’t mean that you should allow them to thrive around your home.
Spider crickets can reproduce rapidly. This means that small infestations can grow very fast.
why do spider crickets jump at you?
Spider crickets typically don’t intentionally jump at people. Their jumping is a defense mechanism.
They use this when they feel threatened.
If they happen to jump and land on you it’s unintentional. While some species can jump as high as 3ft they don’t have the greatest control over the direction.
what eats spider crickets?
Spider crickets have much of the same predators as house crickets.
Some of the most common predators of spider crickets are:
- Spiders
- Moles and Voles
- Mice
- Rats
- Bats
- Lizards
- Turtles
- Frogs and Toads
- Snakes
- Salamanders
- Shrews
- Birds
Does borax kill spider crickets?
Borax can be used to kill spider crickets, but they need to eat the borax for it to be effective. This can be difficult because, unlike ants or cockroaches, you can add borax to food to attract them.
Spider crickets are not as attracted to human food. Spider crickets tend to consume decaying organic matter or other insects.
While borax can kill spider crickets, it’s not always an effective method. There are other safer methods that you can use indoors and outdoors, especially if you have children or pets around your home.
Do Spider Crickets Chirp?
Spider crickets don’t chirp because they don’t have any organs design to chip like house crickets. This cricket species is silent, and if you do hear chirping, you likely have house crickets around your home.