How to Get Rid of Crickets (and Get Some Sleep)

It's 2:47 in the morning. You're lying in bed listening to a single cricket somewhere in your house chirping every two seconds with the precision of a metronome. You can't find it. You turn on the light and it goes silent. You turn off the light and wait. Thirty seconds. A minute. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

One cricket shouldn't be this maddening but here you are, googling "how to get rid of crickets" at 3am. Fair enough. Let's fix it.

Which Cricket Are You Dealing With?

Field crickets are the classic black ones. About an inch long, shiny, and they're the ones chirping. Only males chirp. They rub their wings together to attract females. They live outside in grass, mulch, and leaf litter, and wander indoors through open doors and foundation gaps in late summer and fall. A field cricket that gets inside your house is lost, not nesting. It'll usually find its way out in a few days or die trying.

House crickets are lighter, tan or yellowish-brown. Originally from Asia, they've been living alongside humans for thousands of years. These can actually establish themselves indoors if conditions are warm and damp enough. Bakeries, restaurants, and heated commercial buildings sometimes get long-term infestations. In a typical home, they behave like field crickets: accidental visitors.

Camel crickets are the weird ones. Also called spider crickets or cave crickets. Humpbacked, long legs, no wings, completely silent. They don't chirp at all. They live in basements and crawl spaces, love darkness and moisture, and if you startle one, it jumps erratically. Straight at you sometimes, which is fun. They're harmless but they freak people out more than any other cricket by a wide margin.

Finding the Chirper

Crickets chirp from concealed spots: behind appliances, in gaps between the wall and baseboard, inside boxes, behind furniture. The sound is ventriloquial. It bounces off walls and sounds like it's coming from everywhere.

Wait until it's dark and quiet. Use a flashlight with a red lens or cover the lens with red cellophane. Crickets can't see red light well and won't go silent when you approach. Move slowly toward the sound. Check behind the refrigerator, along basement walls, under the water heater, inside closets. When you're within a few feet, the sound will have a clear direction.

Keeping Them Out

Outdoor lighting is the biggest attractant. Crickets, like most night-active insects, navigate by light. Standard white bulbs and bright porch lights pull them right to your doors. Switch exterior bulbs to yellow or sodium vapor ($4 each at any hardware store). These wavelengths attract far fewer insects. Move lights away from doors when possible, or angle them to illuminate the area without shining directly on the entry.

Seal gaps under doors. A standard door sweep stops crickets, field mice, and a dozen other pests. Caulk foundation cracks. Reduce moisture in the basement. Move mulch, leaf litter, and firewood away from the house. Our pest-proofing guide has the full rundown on sealing a house properly.

Traps and Baits

Glue boards catch camel crickets in basements better than anything else. Catchmaster or Trapper brand sticky traps placed in corners and along walls where camel crickets travel will catch them overnight. About $8 for a 12-pack.

For crawl spaces and garages, Niban granular bait ($15 for a 4-pound jug) is a boric acid bait that crickets eat. Scatter it lightly in corners and along walls. It's low-toxicity for mammals but effective on crickets, roaches, and silverfish. Lasts for months as long as it stays dry.

Do You Need an Exterminator?

Rarely. A single chirping cricket inside your house is a nuisance, not an infestation. Give it a few days. It'll quiet down when it dies or finds a way out. If camel crickets have colonized your crawl space in large numbers, a one-time perimeter treatment from a pest control company runs $100 to $150 and will clear them out. But the long-term fix is always the same: reduce moisture and seal entry points.

By the way, you can figure out the approximate temperature from cricket chirps. Count the chirps in 14 seconds and add 40. That gives you the temperature in Fahrenheit. It's called Dolbear's Law. Not useful for getting rid of them, but it might take the edge off at 3am knowing your uninvited houseguest is also a thermometer.