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Many people worldwide are suffering from earwigs and think about how to be successful and safe in their way to control earwigs. Health-conscious people are advised to be aware of the insects and how to get rid of harmful insects from their premises. It is the right time to find and use one of the best and natural methods to control earwigs. You can focus on the basics of the earwig bug first and make sure about the effective methods suggested to control earwig.
What’s an earwig bug?
An earwig is a slender insect that gets its name from the outdated European myth that it crawls into the human’s ears and tunnels into the human’s brains while the human is sleeping. This is an odd-looking insect with pincers or forceps available for protruding from the abdomen. In general, earwigs are not poisonous and spreading diseases.
The adult earwigs’ size is from 5 to 25mm based on the 2,000 species in twelve families. These bugs make up the insect order of Dermaptera and have some unique characteristics. Though they look terrifying, they do not harm humans. These insects have the pinchers used to defend themselves from various insects. These insects do not bite humans in their sleep.
Can Earwigs fly?
Some earwigs can fly, but people who do this in a nutshell, sporadic bursts. On the ground, they move very quickly.
Best Methods of Earwig Control
Nobody wants creepy crawlers such as earwigs in their residence or commercial property regardless of whether they are harmless. You have to be aware of things that attract earwigs towards your place and focus on how to be successful in your way to get rid of earwigs. You must be conscious about preventing earwigs and enhancing your way of keeping the property free from insects.
Earwigs prefer to stay in the warm damp areas and hide under flower pots, mulch, leaf litter, woodpile, crawl spaces under houses. They usually enter the property to escape from dry or cold weather. They also come inside the house for food. They often follow the water from leaky pipes and usually gathered around the A/C unit outside.
There are different suggestions about how to catch earwigs. You need to fill the cat food cans with fish oil and drop them into the land near plants where earwigs usually appear. You have to empty such cans every day and set out some crumpled, lengths of old hose, damp newspaper, boxes with a small hole cut insides and baited with tasty oatmeal, cardboard filled with some straws and taped shut at an end soon after you have geared up to place earwig traps near places to control earwigs.
Do not forget to dump such contents into soapy water in the morning. You can place a light-colored cloth under any infested plant and shake branches of such a plant to let earwigs fall onto such fabric. You can dispose of such material with earwigs almost immediately.
The overpopulation of the earwigs leads to different problems. You have to reduce the possibilities of the overpopulation of earwigs in your premises hereafter. You can clean up the garden debris and mulches regularly and ensure that places around your property’s foundations are inhospitable to earwigs. You need to extend the dry gravel as mulch around the property and get rid of daytime hiding spots for all nocturnal earwigs. You must eradicate the lighting nearby the foundation as the earwigs are easily are attracted to lights.
You can lay one-foot sections of garden hose or bamboo in the beds between plants and look at such traps in the morning. You must dump the earwigs into soapy water. You can use the petroleum jelly around the plants’ stems as earwigs cannot crawl over it. The oil pit trap is an excellent option to get rid of earwigs. You have to test the insecticidal spray on a single leaf first and ensure to use the safe method to get rid of earwigs.
Check our article about How to Get Rid of Cockroaches In Kitchen Cabinets
How to Get Rid of Earwig Naturally
- Oil Traps
There are several natural methods to control earwigs. You can use the soy sauce and oil trap to get a good improvement in your approach to control earwigs. The soy sauce’s scent attracts almost any earwig species. You can use the soy sauce and create an effective little trap to get earwig in.
You can use the container with a lid like a mason jar with a metal screw-on lid to poke some holes in its top and let earwigs. Do not forget to put the same parts of the soy sauce and vegetable or olive oil in and mix them well. The soy sauce lures the earwigs into it, and the oil prevents earwigs from crawling back out.
- Use Alcohol and Water
A combination of alcohol and water can be sprayed to kill earwigs. You can combine Isopropyl Alcohol 70% and water in the same quantity and shake them well before spray it on earwigs. You can spray it around the property, plants, flowerbeds, and other places where earwig infestation is high.
Keep in mind that alcohol can be used as a useful surfactant and stick to earwigs’ shells when these insects are eating.
- Birds
Birds love to eat all insects, especially earwigs. You can use birds in your garden by hanging some bird feeders in places where a substantial earwig population. You have to gradually reduce the birdseed when birds regularly come to your places and let birds start hunting earwigs.
- Neem Oil
Neem oil is one of the most suggested and safest methods to kill insects, especially earwigs. If you wish to kill and repel earwigs, then you can use the neem oil. Azadirachtin is an active element in the neem oil and used to disrupt the earwigs’ hormone balance. This element suppresses the insects’ desire to feed and kills them.
You can mix a teaspoon of this neem oil with warm water and spray it everywhere you see earwigs. Do not forget to spray it around any crack and crevices along the baseboards and also around doors and windows. You will get the result from this pest control method and be confident to recommend it to others.
- Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth is non-toxic and is useful for digestive issues. It’s from microscopic ocean creatures named diatoms. It is a desiccant that triggers living things to shed water. The smaller the animal or perhaps plant, the much more pronounced the effect.
Grab the diatomaceous earth and make use of a spreader to spread the right level of it all around the plants and the house. When the earwigs crawl across it, it’ll begin sucking the moisture from them. And the microscopic sharp edges will even cut the shell, hastening the damage of moisture.
This can also prevent infestation by some other garden pests attempting to eat your flowers and plants.
- Adjust the Outdoor Lights
Adjust the outdoor lighting to shine from home rather than directly onto decks and patios. Earwigs are drawn to light and can usually get a comfortable area under chair/seat cushions, welcome mats, floor mats, etc.
- Humidity
Alleviate too much humidity in cellars or basements, which appeals to the earwigs, providing a great place to reproduce.
How to Prevent Earwigs in the Future
When you’ve removed all of the earwigs located in and around the home, ensure they do not come back again. Allow me to share some suggestions to avoid earwigs from returning to the premise of yours.
- Trim Branches – Trim tree, as well as shrub branches, extend to the structure and also can lead to moist, shady areas across the perimeter.
- Get rid of the leaf, stone, as well as timber piles – Earwigs prefer a pure home out of doors which has an excellent food supply and protection. Get rid of piles of foliage, stone, along with old wood that makes a secure home for earwigs.
- Tidy Up – Get foliage, decorative stones, logs, landscape timbers, clutter, and firewood from your home’s foundation.
- Fill house cracks and gaps – Check the basis around the house, particularly those near the entrances. Fill some holes and blows to the home with caulk; therefore, the pincher bugs cannot find those little crevices.
- Gutters that are Clean and drainpipes – Be sure to clean the gutters and point completely drains multiple foot clear. Backed up sewers which create wet areas near and against the home are ideal places for earwigs to go.
- Dehumidify – A dehumidifier is able to help bring down pests in a damp cellar.
- Crevices and seal cracks with silicone caulk
- Fix leaky pipes
- Manage Exterior Lights – Change outside bulbs to yellowish lights to attract a lot fewer insects.
