What bug is this?

What you've got is the all too common camel cricket:



This time of the year, they are poking around, looking for a
warm place to winter over... a warm, dampish basement
with some dark hidey-holes is their idea of paradise.

Generic info on killing them:

Camel Cricket - Pest Control, Facts & Information | pest-control.com

 

We get those in the colder weather starting now.
I've had some luck with those sticky traps for mice, I realzied the traps in my garage are getting filled with the crickets. So I am going with that approach.

 

Alternate Eco-Exterminator:



Directions:
1. Place cricket on either brick.
2. Crush cricket with second brick.
3, Wash both bricks.
4. Repeat as necessary.

 

Before you go to all the trouble of burning the house down, you might consider getting a pet. (Bigger than the ones you already have, I mean.) I've known both cats and dogs who find crickets and other such morsels to be quite tasty.

 

crickets are harmless, don't kill jiminy!

 

my basement is full of crickets, i think they eat the spiders.

 

Crickets are omnivores, but I don't think they'll eat a live spider. Actually....they would, but the spider would probably turn the tables on them pretty quickly.

The sticky mice traps work well if you want to eschew chemicals. The bricks work too...but crickets and other pests including.......you have to wait for it!......mice, will actually come to the sticky trap, instead of the other way around.
They smell pretty good to a hungry pest, I suppose.

Good luck!

 

Malathion. Kills pretty much everything. Handle carefully. Spray around the baseboards, since most bugs go for the edges. Should last for a couple of weeks. Sold for use in gardens. Do not use it if you have pets or if children will be in the area, and don't touch treated areas. Use it only if you hate the bugs enough that the idea of spreading poison around your house seems like the lesser evil.

I lived in an older house in rural North Dakota. Great quantities of flies got in the house. I sprayed the insides of the upstairs window screens, and the flies all died.

I quit using poison when I got my cat. I repeat: Do not use it if you have pets.

Do not confuse with Parathion, which is far too toxic for home use and which you shouldn't even be able to get without a crop sprayer's license. (I don't even want to think about the stuff they spray on our food. Makes Malathion seem pretty mild by comparison.)

 

I'm surprised and a little disappointed that poison would even be suggested. How many crickets are we talking about? Unless you're suffering from an invasion, force, a few sticky traps will likely suffice.

 

CHOCOLATE CRICKETS 2 c. sugar
2/3 c. cream
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
Salt to taste
1/8 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. dry roasted crickets, chopped (see note)
In a saucepan, mix sugar, cream, chocolate and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until chocolate is melted and sugar is dissolved. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until candy thermometer reads 234 degrees, or until a small amount of mixture forms a ball when dropped into ice water.Remove mixture from heat and add butter. Cool mixture to 120 degrees without stirring. Add vanilla and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until candy is thick and no longer glossy, about 7-10 minutes. Stir in insects. Spread evenly in a buttered loaf pan. Cook until firm. Cut into 2-inch squares.
NOTE: Walnuts can be substituted for the insects, if desired.

Cooks.com - Recipe - Chocolate Crickets

 

Now you're talking.

An enterprising local restaurant has crickets and grasshoppers on the menu. They're apparently quite nutritious, tasty, and require only a fraction of the feed necessary to produce beef.

In all seriousness, insects could be an important part of feeding a hungry planet.

 

It only hurts if you leave your thumbs between the bricks.

 

Advertised with the claim: "KILLS ALL CRICKETS WITHIN TWO BLOCKS!!!"

Tom

 

not to Force specifically, more so to everyone else: WHY???

they are completely harmless creatures. they do not bite, spread disease, eat your food, destroy or cause harm otherwise. Why is the cry for unnecessary killing, esp coming from self-proclaimed environmentalists??

 

I suggest you act quickly Bra... before they're full grown...


I mean... they can get big...



Some say... that they can get HUGE...

 

I'm not familiar with this specific type of crickets, but in rural North Dakota I got crickets in the house. Their high-pitched chirp is intensely piercing, and quite nearly drove me insane. It's extraordinarily difficult to locate them. It was impossible for me to sleep while they were chirping. Though I prefer not to use poisons, I am not an absolutist on the subject. I was willing to use poison if it was necessary to preserve my sanity, and with crickets, my sanity was very much at stake.

It's at times like this that I'm even more happy than usual that I'm a vegetarian. (Sort of. Except for fish. But I don't eat bugs. I recognize them to be a nutritional food. Just like corn smut. But I don't eat it or them.)

I did eat roasted grasshoppers once, as a child. They tasted exactly like very burnt toast. And I ate corn smut once, at a good restaurant. I very nearly barfed. Gawd, it was disgusting! My Mexican friend enjoyed hers. And I'm sure she'd eat crickets too, if offered.