cave crickets! centipedes! archived

ooooh , Beppolina! Blame it on the wet weather, global warming and harmonic conversion.

Hope Jerry makes short work of them. You have my sympathies.

Glue traps!
Got all mine

Saw a large gathering of carpenter ants outside front door yesterday so I sprayed. Now I'm spending the morning picking off the remaining lurkers in the house. Guess I'll be spraying some more.......

Or, you can lay out lots of duct tape sticky side up to trap them. Unless you can seal all the possible ways for them to get in, you'll have to deal with them. They are big! Aren't they?

Another thing to try is lining cardboard boxes with sticky-side-out duct tape on the inside and lay them on their side so they're like a cave.

Oh boy, cave crickets really, really, REALLY give me the heebie-jeebies! When it comes to critters of just about any kind, I'm a live and let live kind of girl. But those damn things look like something out of a horror movie, and if they're IN MY HOUSE, well, all bets are off!

I've gotten pretty adept with a fly swatter on the cave crickets, but you have to be really fast. Luckily I only see one occasionally.

Yep cave crickets Mr. Buckingham just came to my house i saw a cricket in my basement looked like it was on steriods. EWWWWWWWYUCK thank god he sprayed everywhere to get rid of them ugly things

If you've seen cave crickets in your home, do not wait to see them again. Throw some poisonous bait around in places you know they like (crawlspaces, basements behind things like washers/dryers, anywhere dark and moist, even outside in your window wells - also clean leaves and debris out of window wells bc they LOVE that).

Here is an article that will educate you too well about cave crickets (aka camelback crickets) - http://www.bugspray.com/articles98/camelcrickets.html

You can call the "pros" each time, at great expense, or you can learn how to deal with many household pests on your own for little effort and for much, much less money in the long run. (I still would call the pro to deal with all bees except carpenter bees, which are generally harmless to people and easy to treat.)

Here is what I use for cave crickets, which is the same exact thing your exterminator will use. It is a light, fluffy, grain-like dry bait. http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page424.html

We also bought a bunch of pest traps to leave in areas where we've seen insect activity to monitor whether it is time to reapply bait or treat some other issue. I recommend buying a bunch of them at once and checking every month or so to see what you've caught. Even if you don't want to DYI pest treatments, this is something every homeowner should use around their home to help the exterminator know exactly what they need to deal with. http://www.accountwizard.com/clients/shop.asp?web=bugspray&outsidelink=item&value=823360 If someone who has seen a single cave cricket puts a few of these glue traps around in choice areas, they will be horrified to see how many crickets they really have, including many that are incredibly tiny babies. If you have one, you have hundreds.

It's also a good idea to spray the outside perimeter (2' up the foundation and about 2' along the soil around your house with something like this http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page1502.html This will help prevent many pests from entering your home in the first place. This particular product lasts a few months between applications, although something like permethrin will need to be reapplied more frequently especially after heavy rains.

In order to apply a liquid pesticide, it's a good idea to have a dedicated sprayer to use only for that purpose. We use a sprayer purchased from this website - see here if interested. http://www.bugspray.com/item/sprayers.html#pump

Good luck!

here's the millipede/centipede article

http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page328.html

PDG: Thank you!!! This is just the incentive I needed to get Mr Bep to agree to a thorough cleaning out of the basement -- we needed to get rid of some junk before we bring in Buckingham.

The only problem is that now I'm too spooked to go down in the basement. "If you have one, you have hundreds" -- NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

beppoina - cave crickets won't hurt you! They are scary bc they look like giant spiders and they have an annoying habit of "running away" by jumping toward you, but they won't bite.

(sorry to scare anyone - they are really easy to deal with and it is best to proactively treat every time you see any stuck to a glue trap.)

Aren't centipedes as useful as spiders? I've been leaving them alone. Should I be eradicating them?

dude, catch these critters instead of killing them. My kids just caught a pet frog and we have to feed this fraking thing....I will come get them....

Rorschach, will do!

Does it eat spiders? How about cicadas or worms?

I just looked up a photo of a cave cricket and think that if I ever see one in person I might die! Holy crap - that is one insect that this insect phobic girl does not need to meet! I would seriously, never go in my basement again. Never. Ever.

mr. lars accidentally let in some HUGE green thing two nights ago.

I didn't know what it was because it was flying around the kitchen light superfast and looking "scary" to me. he told me to leave it alone (not knowing immediately what it was either).

I ran out and came back in and it was definitely trying to attack me so I took a broom to it and it fell to the ground.

Grasshopper.

He freaks out and starts shrieking that killing a grasshopper is THE unluckiest thing you can do. EVER. I start crying because just what I want to hear at 8 months pregnant.
suddenly, grasshopper gets up and starts moving across floor. I put a tupperware over it, slid some paper underneath and tossed it outside.

phew!!!

I will focus my kill spree on those horrid eyelash-looking centipedes.

scrubb816--my cat dragged one of those things up from our basement some 10 years ago, shortly after we moved here, and was chasing it around the house. Man, can those things hop. That damn bug literally sent me running and screaming from my house, in to the dark street, just in time to encounter a neighbor driving up the street. He stopped and went in the house and killed it for me--hubby wasn't home. I am so not that helpless female. I'm all good with mice and rats and snakes and bats (would love me a pet bat) and most bugs, even most spiders for the most part. But NOT this thing. Particularly, as pdg said, because they jump AT you!

Oh my god! I would die - literally, right there on the spot..... I want bugs nowhere near me. I get all panicky and cry and my heart races - like a bug induced panic attack. And now that I know that the bugs look like small frogs and jump like them too.... I shudder at the thought.

Maybe you should get someone to put some glue traps down in the basement, just in case?

Don't worry too much though. Haven't seen one in my basement since. Like I said, that was some 10 years ago!

Jerry Buckingham is coming over Friday! Mr. Bep actually culled his massive collection of rags and styrofoam in the Mr. Bep Testosterone Zone in anticipation of much sprayin' and stompin'.

Two big bugs I've been privileged and honored to see, and would happily host if they weren't so rare: praying mantises and luna moths.

But centipedes (lars you are SO right, they look just like eyelashes) are plain evil. Also, Tom - centipedes BITE. They have a venomous bite that hurts like a wasp sting, and some people have severe allergic reactions to the venom. (PDG, I've been doing my homework.)

The cave crickets don't bite.....but they apparently love cloth and can do as much damage as a bad moth infestation.

OK I just read the lice thread and feel like a big sissy for complaining about bugs that a) I can see, and b) are not laying eggs in my hair. yet.

beppolina - if you get lice, I've got advice for that too...:wink:

Uh-oh! pdg is goin' all BUGGY on us!

Posted By: beppolinaMr. Bep actually culled his massive collection of rags and styrofoam in the Mr. Bep Testosterone Zone in anticipation of much sprayin' and stompin'.

hysterical! mine also collects cardboard!!

and good to know that centipedes bite. They never live long enough in this house for me to have found out. smoosh.
but they always give me quite a start when I come around a corner and one is hanging out on the wall.

ARGH!!

Posted By: Tom ReingoldRorschach, will do!

Does it eat spiders? How about cicadas or worms?

spiders yes, not sure about cicadas or worms....alli was told by my wife is that it likes living things...ants, etc....learning this as we go....thanks for the help but it isnt necessary......

Hoppy seems content....I never realized how cool a frog's life is until we got one. I use to catch tyhem all the time as the kid but never thought about it. All they do is hang, all liad back and stuff. It is kind of funny.

-R

Hoppy. That's cute.

I'm sticking with my decision not to be afraid of centipedes, even now that I know that they bite. They're very afraid of me. All I have to do is wave my hand near one, and it will run very fast and hide. As far as I'm concerned, we have a symbiotic relationship. They don't know it, but that's OK.

The infestation I really hate is earwigs. We've had more than usual this year, and I hate them hate them hate them. Also, we had a HUGE bug I couldn't identify on the kitchen floor the other night. It was about two inches long, black, had big rustling wings, and its body was quite fat. I'm so grateful the cats didn't spot it, because they would have turned into a three-ring circus. Mr. PeggyC escorted it outside, but I'm still wondering what the heck it was.

We had crickets last year, including one under a pillow on the sofa that I had just picked up. Talk about moving FAST! Anyway, the cats really enjoyed the crickets, and this year we don't have them (yet) so I am counting my blessings. For now.

Ugh. we have those cave crickets. Sometimes I come downstairs in the morning and just find a leg or two or a half of one. Then we see which cat gets sick........

PeggyC, could it have been a cicada?

I'll take those critters any day. We currently have a flea infestation at our house! Any advice, PDG? I've washed the dog (twice, with flea shampoo), cleaned all the linen, put Frontline on the dog and both cats and had PSEG turn off the gas in order to set off a total of 6 bombs in the past week. All this has substantially reduced the population but we're still getting some new bites.