Seeing one of these insects creeping on your patio or having one hiding away beneath a potted plant could really make you cringe! The earwig’s body looks long and segmented and its pincers curved, which make them seem threatening – and makes the average person’s immediate conclusion that they can hurt you likely the most popular misconception related to this insect; that being the old wives tale that earwigs would be more likely to go in one’s ears. This story can, by all accounts, be proven as false: These bugs just can’t crawl into a human ear canal at any given time and they also pose no disease risk.
Even so, a growing earwig population can become a nuisance. These insects may invade homes during hot or dry weather, damage young garden plants, and hide in damp areas around your property. If you’re searching for how to get rid of earwigs, the most effective solution isn’t simply spraying insecticide it’s eliminating the conditions that attract them in the first place.
By reducing moisture, removing hiding places, and using targeted control methods, you can significantly reduce earwig activity and help prevent future infestations while following effective home pest control tips.
What Are Earwigs?
Earwigsare skinny, segmented bugs typically ranging from a half inch to 1 inch long. Their most distinguishing physical characteristics are the pair of pincers at the rear of the abdomen that looks like the front of scissors, though in this case, the “forceps” are mainly for hunting small prey, defense, and breeding activities.
These creatures are nocturnal and hunt for food primarily during the night, coming out of their daytime resting places to scavenge. These buggies will usually look for refuge underneath mulch, rocks, decoration items in your garden, a pile of firewood, or a moist area such as inside your garage or basement.
Earwigs generally consume plant debris, fungus, insects, and soft plants, while also feeding on aphid control in gardens when populations are low. If found in relatively low densities, earwigs can prove beneficial to plants, such as eating small aphids, for example. On the other hand, numerous earwigs can feed in flowers, vegetables, herbs and fragile young plants, leaving them riddled with holes.
Why Are Earwigs Attracted to Your Property?
Earwig Identification 1. Know what attracted earwigs into your ear. Earwigs don’t usually target food sources inside your home (as is common for roaches and ants). These creatures are attracted to locations that provide shelter and enough moisture to maintain their hydration.
Some of the most common conditions that attract earwigs include:
- Wet mulch around flower beds
- Leaking outdoor faucets
- Overwatered lawns
- Damp compost piles
- Thick layers of leaves
- Firewood stacked against the house
- Poor drainage around the foundation
- Cracks and gaps that allow easy entry indoors
When outdoor conditions become too hot or dry, earwigs often move inside to find cooler, more humid places.
How to Get Rid of Earwigs Naturally
If you’d rather avoid chemical pesticides, several simple strategies can greatly reduce earwig populations.
Reduce Excess Moisture
The number one way to prevent earwigs is to eliminate the moisture these insects need to live and reproduce. Repair any leaky hoses, faucets or irrigation lines immediately to improve outdoor moisture control and make your property less attractive to earwigs. Maintain good drainage at the base of your house, dump any standing water you find in and around the property, and don’t water your lawn or garden in the late evening hours.
Indoors, run a dehumidifier in humid basements or crawl spaces.
If your crawl space or basement remains damp even with a dehumidifier, ensure you seal all small cracks and crevices in its walls that could lead to moisture intrusion. A dry house is an unattractive house to earwigs.
Remove Their Favorite Hiding Spots
Earwigs spend most of the day hiding under objects that provide shade and moisture.
Walk around your property and remove unnecessary clutter, including:
- Piles of leaves
- Grass clippings
- Old flowerpots
- Cardboard boxes
- Damp newspapers
- Lumber stored directly on the ground
If you use mulch in your landscaping, avoid placing thick layers directly against your home’s foundation. Keeping a small gap between mulch and exterior walls helps reduce insect activity near entry points.
Seal Entry Points
Most often, earwigs spend their lives outdoors; they can crawl into houses and come inside through cracks, openings in walls or floors and holes that serve as access points for utility pipes or ventilation systems. Examine doors, windows and foundations to spot any holes in your house’s walls or flooring that the insects could exploit for entry. A simple coat of paint on baseboards or a run of clear sealant around the window frame or a utility entry point can prevent hundreds of the tiny pests from venturing indoors. Likewise, door sweeps can deter entry under the basement, main or service entryways.
Use Traps to Reduce Earwig Populations
Traps are a low-cost and efficient means of detecting and reducing earwig populations. Unlike an overall infestation treatment, this approach focuses on only a small area. One approach is to use a rolled-up slightly damp piece of newspaper or a short section of cardboard tubing. Earwigs tend to hide in dark, humid places, so leaving such an object out over night will often attract large numbers. In the morning, collect the trap, remove the bugs, and replace it with fresh material if necessary.
A variety of shallow containers can be used as traps filled with a small amount of vegetable oil and soy sauce. The aroma is attractive to earwigs, and the oil traps them once they enter. Ensure these are placed where there is no chance that pets or children might get into them, and you may need to empty and refresh them periodically.
These methods, in particular, should be implemented along with efforts at moisture control and general yard maintenance, as they are not always highly effective by themselves.
Should You Use Insecticides for Earwigs?
Earwig Insecticide Treatment When DIY efforts are insufficient Fortunately, with these other earwig extermination methods you often won’t have a need for a product in your home. But if you’ve done the above steps – reduced moisture, eliminated hiding spots and set traps – yet you are still seeing too many of them, an insecticide may be effective. If you decide to go the route of a product for earwigs use a crawling insect spray.
Read and follow instructions exactly and remember you need only to target problem spots, not spray all over your house.
Your efforts should focus on entrances like door thresholds, windows, and even foundation of the house, along with any outdoor cracks. If treating outdoors, particularly if your issue is in the garden, try to spray the ground and not necessarily blooms (which can attract beneficial pollinators) if possible. Broader spectrum garden insecticides could also have a negative impact on garden predators helping control the problem for you already.
Long-Term Prevention Tips
The best way to learn how to get rid of earwigs is to make your property less attractive to them in the first place. Since they rely on damp, sheltered environments, a few simple maintenance habits can significantly reduce future infestations.
Here are some effective prevention strategies:
- Maintain a gap of at least 6 to 12 inches between the mulch and your home’s foundation.
- Water your lawn and garden early in the morning instead of late evening.
- Prevent organic debris from building up by cleaning it away on a regular schedule.
- Trim shrubs and dense vegetation away from exterior walls.
- Place firewood on a rack and keep it several feet away from your home.
- Clean gutters to prevent water from collecting near the foundation.
- Repair leaking outdoor faucets, hoses, and irrigation systems promptly.
- Install weatherstripping and door sweeps to reduce entry points.
Small changes in outdoor maintenance often make a noticeable difference in earwig activity.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Despite the best efforts, some homeowners still tend to create the perfect conditions for earwigs to invade their homes.
Here are some things to avoid:
Overwatering your landscape
Standing water is a major attractor for earwigs, so only water when necessary and make sure the top layer of the soil is dry enough before you water it again.
Leaving junk around the yard
Piles or junk, leaves, mulch, sticks, or anything else littered around the yard creates the perfect damp and shady retreat for earwigs to hide during the day. A little routine cleanup can significantly reduce the number of earwigs entering your home.
Only using pesticides
Pesticides are great for killing off any remaining earwigs, but they won’t do much if you still have plenty of moisture and places for them to hide.
Not caulking around the house
Little cracks and crevices around the house can be used as an entryway by earwigs and other insects. Sealing them up keeps the unwanted critters out of your home.
How to Know It’s Time to Hire a Pest Control Service
Most earwig problems can be managed using home maintenance and simple control methods. However, professional assistance may be worthwhile if:
- Large numbers of earwigs continue appearing indoors.
- DIY treatments haven’t reduced the infestation after several weeks.
- Earwigs are causing extensive damage to valuable plants.
- Moisture problems around your property are difficult to identify or repair.
A licensed pest control professional can inspect your home, locate breeding areas, and recommend targeted treatments that address the source of the problem instead of only the visible insects.
Conclusion
Knowing how to get rid of earwigs involves more than eliminating the insects you can see. Keeping your yard well maintained, reducing damp areas, and blocking entryways is the most reliable way to keep earwigs away. Using traps made from petroleum jelly and cardboard boxes will also help eliminate the pests. In case of a serious infestation, insecticides might be necessary, but they should be used as a last resort and in combination with other methods.
By reducing the level of humidity in the living area and eliminating potential nesting sites, you will be able to prevent future infestations and keep the insects away for good.It helps promote a safer, healthier environment for your household.
Often Asked Questions
1. Are earwigs dangerous to humans?
Earwigs pose no danger to people. Moreover, they rarely use their pincers, so even if they do, the damage they can cause is minimal. In addition, these pests do not carry any diseases.
2. Can earwigs crawl into your ears?
This is a common misconception, but there is no scientific evidence to prove that earwigs are capable of invading human ears and laying eggs inside them.
3. What attracts earwigs to a house?
Moisture, mulch, leaves, compost, woodpiles, and cracks are some of the things that attract earwigs to a house. Creating a dry and tidy yard devoid of clutter will prevent the pests from nesting there and invading your home.
4. Does vinegar kill earwigs?
Vinegar can keep earwigs away because it eliminates their sense of smell, but it is not an efficient method to get rid of an infestation.
5. What is the fastest way to get rid of earwigs?
The most efficient solution is to remove moisture, eliminate nesting sites, make your home inaccessible to the pests, and use traps to catch them.
