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Yuk. I have sprickets in the basement -- spider crickets. Do you know these critters? As you might surmise, they look like huge spiders. Their only good attributes are that they can’t chirp and they aren’t out during the day. Their nocturnal existence might make it easy to ignore them, if I didn’t sometimes have to go down to the basement at night. I put the light on and routinely see one at the bottom of the stairs. This is a predicament. They don’t run and hide just from the light. In fact, I can tromp rather heavy-footed down a few stairs and they still don’t spook. Their defense mechanism is to wait until you are closer and then without warning, jump right at you! There is no defense to this. Even though I am expecting it, I scream every time and wildly flail at my hair making sure it didn’t land there. (OK; rationally I know they don’t jump that high, but still…)
I fight a spricket war every year now, but it wasn’t always this way. These are new invaders – another non-native bug getting a foothold in the area…more bad crap from Asia. Maybe getting rid of the mice allowed the sprickets to increase. I briefly wondered if it’s time for a cat, but I set out to poison the buggers instead, using a general purpose house spray. Still seeing them, I moved on to sticky glue traps. Those definitely trap the villains, but I always wonder – if these traps are attractive enough to get a spricket to step on it, aren’t they just attracting more of them into the house? Dampness is bad too. As basements go, mine is super-dry because it’s a walkout. It’s never had any water, but because I’m on a well, the cold water coming from 500’ below ground into the house makes the pipes sweat in the summer. That’s wet enough to be attracting these guys. I have to figure something out there.
They don’t bite. They aren’t poisonous. They can eat your stuff…though I’ve never detected any damage (seriously, how much can a cricket eat?). But I need them to go away before the next largest predator comes in looking for them. And God help me if I ever see one on the basement stairs!
I fight a spricket war every year now, but it wasn’t always this way. These are new invaders – another non-native bug getting a foothold in the area…more bad crap from Asia. Maybe getting rid of the mice allowed the sprickets to increase. I briefly wondered if it’s time for a cat, but I set out to poison the buggers instead, using a general purpose house spray. Still seeing them, I moved on to sticky glue traps. Those definitely trap the villains, but I always wonder – if these traps are attractive enough to get a spricket to step on it, aren’t they just attracting more of them into the house? Dampness is bad too. As basements go, mine is super-dry because it’s a walkout. It’s never had any water, but because I’m on a well, the cold water coming from 500’ below ground into the house makes the pipes sweat in the summer. That’s wet enough to be attracting these guys. I have to figure something out there.
They don’t bite. They aren’t poisonous. They can eat your stuff…though I’ve never detected any damage (seriously, how much can a cricket eat?). But I need them to go away before the next largest predator comes in looking for them. And God help me if I ever see one on the basement stairs!