Tuesday, April 30, 2024

How to Get Rid of Earwigs: 12 Steps with Pictures

earwigs in house

Before handling boric acid, always wear protective gloves, follow instructions, and never use it around children or pets. Contrary to its name, earwigs are really known as pincher bugs (and have nothing to do with our ears!). This is due to their two long pincers protruding at the end of their body, which makes this a distinct pest. Specific problem areas can benefit from dehumidifiers and vapor barriers. During the day, they bide their time in dark, damp areas; they love to lounge under leaves, firewood, mulch, or other organic material.

How do I get rid of earwigs permanently?

Use a dehumidifier in the basement to help remove excess moisture, and repair any leaky faucets both inside and out. Earwigs come into our homes seeking food or to escape the weather. You will usually find them in places where there is water, like the kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, or in cool, damp places like basements and crawl spaces. The good news is earwig infestations inside your home are very rare. To kill earwigs you find inside your home use Ortho® Home Defense Max® Indoor Insect Barrier with Extended Reach Comfort Wand®, following label directions. Earwigs, or pincher bugs, can be a nuisance but it is possible to get rid of them.

Tempt them into a soy sauce trap

This article is an earwig identification guide to help recognize these annoying creatures. Description and picture of the slender brown insects will help to identify them as they scurry across the floor. Additionally, learning about their life cycle and habitat in yards will help you take steps to control the pincher bugs. In addition to not crawling into peoples’ ears at night, earwigs also do not spread diseases.

How to Kill, Control & Prevent Earwigs

So we polled a pest-pro to find out how to get them out of your house fast. Earwigs want a safe home to hide in throughout the day while they go out and feed at night. Get rid of leaf piles, old wood, mulch build up, and other excess vegetation.

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However, if they become destructive to your plants, or if they infest your home, try the following methods to get rid of them. I'm going to try them to keep away the spiders and see if it helps with the earwigs. If you want to put some in the house, they say to put them in a bowl or on foil. According to one article they bring a rustic farmhouse look and feel and last a couple of months or more.Who would have guessed that. The pincers at the end of an earwig’s abdomen look rather formidable. They are capable of pinching (and sometimes biting) humans, but the pinch is not particularly powerful.

The same goes for drains—while they are necessary for rain run-off, make sure they are pointing away from your foundation. Pesticides that are especially destructive to earwigs will contain malathion, pyrethrins or sevin. You might find earwigs repulsive, but they are delectable to birds. Add a birdhouse or birdbath to your garden and the resulting birds will be treated to an earwig buffet. Luckily, there are some simple things you can do to get rid of earwigs, and stop them from coming back. And unlike commercial repellents, they won’t cost you a fortune, and are safer for the environment.

What Do Earwigs Eat?

Boric acid is a natural insecticide you can use to kill earwigs and other nuisance bugs. All you need to do is sprinkle the white powder wherever you think earwigs have been active. For example, apply it along baseboards, under furniture, or in crawl spaces. Female earwigs typically lay between 30 and 50 eggs in burrows during the spring but actual numbers depend on species. Unlike other insects, a female earwig will tend to her eggs until they hatch.

What do earwigs eat?

earwigs in house

While quite harmless, an earwig might not be a pest you want to keep around the home. For more advanced earwig control treatment, contact your local pest exterminator to evaluate and provide solutions for your unique situation. As omnivores, earwigs eat whatever organic material they can scavenge, anything from leaf litter to small insects. Earwigs rarely bite, though if you pick one up and handle it, it may try to pinch you. However, earwigs have no venom, and their pinch is not strong enough to break the skin.

How to Find Earwigs in Your Garden

The yellow-brown liquid they excrete when disturbed has a distinguishably foul odor as well. If you take the following steps to prevent earwigs from entering your home, you will also avoid infestations of other nasty bugs. Researchers at the Utah State University advise that DE becomes ineffective when it’s damp. So, you will need to reapply it after it rains and the soil dries. Earwigs are normally outside insects and rarely infest a home in large numbers.

Earwigs don’t pose a serious threat to the health and well-being of plants, people, or pets. They are definitely a nuisance, however, and once they have taken up residence in your backyard, it’s not unusual for them to make their way inside the house. Luckily, these pests aren’t particularly difficult to eliminate.

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As annoying as an infestation of earwigs in the house is, you might actually end up thanking them for alerting you to a major issue. If you use mulch for weed control, ensure it’s not directly against your home’s foundation. Earwig control to prevent earwigs from getting into your home is the most effective way of dealing with the problem.

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Keep earwigs out of the house by keeping moisture out of dark, protected, moist spots using a dehumidifier or vapor barrier in a house crawlspace. Fix moisture issues around the home that could be attracting earwigs. Earwigs will hide under cedar siding, so check for wet spots and areas with standing water.

According to the pest control company Orkin, there are more than 1,500 species of earwigs, with about 20 existing in the U.S. They typically range in size from one-fourth of an inch to two inches in length. Earwigs will come into your house looking for food and shelter. Usually they like to eat rotting vegetation, with many living in plants and flowers, doing a useful job. If they are coming inside, it may be that conditions outside are unfavorable – perhaps it is very dry and hot – and that conditions inside are more inviting.

Its possible to find a few together in places such as leaf or wood piles where there is an abundance of food and protection. Start by making sure there aren't piles of wood, leaves, and rocks around the home to help keep these pincher bugs away. Earwigs like to stay around mulch and vegetation so it's important to keep the area around your home clean.

This will help prevent any moisture build up that might attract earwigs. It's much easier to prevent earwigs in your house than it is to get rid of them once they've already taken up residence. "The key to prevention is to remove mulch, leaf debris, splash guards, stones, and landscape timbers from around the structure," Dobrinska says. Earwigs mating season typically occurs in the fall and early winter months.

Once you have sucked them up, make sure you either discard the vacuum bag immediately or empty the canister into a bucket of soapy water. It is important to note that most earwigs prefer to thrive outside, so knowing how to get rid of earwigs in your yard is important. However, they are occasionally tempted by moisture inside a home. That said, though, if you find earwigs a nuisance, there are easy cleaning tips and prevention methods to help you get rid of this pest for good.

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