You try your best to make your home hospitable for guests—but not the insect kind. Earwigs will seek shelter in your home—often in the bathroom, basement or kitchen, as these places offer ideal conditions to hide with plenty of opportunities for food. So, how does one evict these unwanted houseguests?
While they cause relatively little damage to your home (and in fact can be an indicator of other problems) you still don’t want any creepy crawlers lurking inside your home. Below, our experts detail several options for eliminating earwigs around your home and garden, as well as how to prevent their return.
How to Identify Earwigs
These little buggers have a particularly distinct feature: earwigs have small pincers on their hind end, a feature that no other common household bug possesses. “Earwigs are about one-half to three-quarters of an inch long, brown in color with light brown legs, and elongated with their cerci pinchers on the hind end,” explains certified entomologist Ray Hess, “These pinchers also give them their common name of ‘pincher bugs.’ Their young nymphs are basically miniature versions of the adults.”
The pincers at the end of their body are to capture prey and defend themselves. “If they feel threatened, they will use their pincers to pinch and hold on to the skin—and sometimes their bite can break the skin and cause bleeding,” adds Jim McHale, entomologist and president at JP McHale Pest Management. “When some species of earwigs feel threatened, they emit a foul odor by releasing a liquid from their abdomen.”
How to Identify Earwig Damage
Earwigs usually don’t cause damage to a home—they’re more often the result of it. “Earwigs sneak inside if it’s damp around the foundation and there are gaps they can slip through,” says pest control expert Nicole Carpenter. “Most of the time they don’t even touch anything indoors.”
You’ll often spot them in damp, shady spots like under mulch, trash bins, flowerpots, or in bathrooms and basements. If they do cause issues, it’s usually nibbling on houseplants or paper—but the damage is minimal. “On paper, it’s more like tiny chew marks or ragged edges,” Carpenter explains. “They might leave holes in leaves or petals, but it’s rarely enough to kill a healthy plant.”
In the garden, you’ll see earwig damage to leaves from their feeding. “Leaves will have holes similar to snail and slug damage—but without the slime trails that snails and slugs leave,” notes Hess.
How to Prevent Earwigs from Getting Inside
Like many insects, earwigs like moist and humid environments with an abundance of food. “Having yard debris, mulch, gardens and moisture will surely attract them and allow them to thrive,” says Hess. “Birds, frogs, toads and lizards are all predators of earwigs, so having them around will help.”
Eliminate all possible entry points and avoid standing water near the foundation. “Skipping this step is a big mistake to make,” warns Carpenter. “If you don’t want to see earwigs in your home, you need to remove the conditions that drew them inside.”
When earwigs lose both the entry points and the reason to enter, you solve the problem without ever touching chemicals. A few upgrades Carpenter says you might want to consider:
Replace old floors: Old wooden floors often have gaps, cracks, and damp subfloor spaces that give earwigs both easy access and the cool, moist hiding spots they like. Replacing them with concrete floors eliminates those entry points and deprives them of shelter.
Add proper drainage: This reduces overall moisture—removing one of the biggest things attracting them in the first place.
Seal their entry points: Check for gaps under doors, loose weatherstripping, cracks in baseboards, or spaces around pipes and cables. Close them up with caulk, sealant or new weatherstripping.
Eliminate other attractions: Fix leaks, run a dehumidifier in basements, improve drainage around the foundation, and pull back mulch, wet leaves or stacked wood from the house.
“This set of practical steps, if done in this sequence, clears out the current pests, blocks new ones from getting in, and removes conditions that drew them there in the first place,” Carpenter says.
How to Get Rid of Earwigs Indoors and Out
To eliminate earwigs, first deal with any visible inside the home. “Vacuum them up or drop them in soapy water,” Carpenter says. “You don’t need to worry about eggs, because earwigs lay them outdoors in damp soil, mulch or under debris—not inside your home.”
Then, choose one of these methods to get rid of hidden insects.
Diatomaceous Earth
Diatomaceous earth is an effective measure against many pests, including earwigs. “It can be used by placing a ring around the base of affected plants,” Hess says. “But don’t use DE in wet areas, as the moisture causes it to clump and become ineffective.”
You can also use diatomaceous earth indoors, but remember to thoroughly vacuum it up afterwards.
Oil Trap
To create an oil pit trap, Hess suggests the following steps:
Combine equal parts of soy sauce and olive or vegetable oil in a plastic container with a lid.Punch holes in the top of the container under the lid big enough for the earwigs to get through.Bury the container in soil up to the holes.
“The soy sauce attracts earwigs inside, but the oils prevent them from escaping,” Hess explains. “Once these pests have been caught, then you just change it out whenever needed.”
Garden Trap
Create natural garden traps by laying one-foot sections of bamboo or garden hose in your garden beds. “Check them every morning,” Hess instructs. “Dump out any earwigs that nest inside into a bucket of soapy water.”
Earwigs and Chemical Intervention
Chemical-free methods are simple, effective and non-toxic, Carpenter says—but can take weeks before a population noticeably drops. “Using chemicals to kill earwigs is fast and even more effective,” she says, “but can be toxic to people and pets if not used correctly.”
Chemical earwig control products should start outside, notes Carpenter, because that’s where the insects come from. “Apply a residual insecticide containing bifenthrin or lambda-cyhalothrin,” she says, “in a three- to five-foot band around the foundation and in damp, shaded spots like mulch beds and woodpiles.”
Treat entry points next, such as door thresholds, window frames, vents and any gaps around pipes or cables so that any earwig crossing into the house picks up the insecticide. “Then move indoors and spray deltamethrin or permethrin along baseboards, behind appliances, and into cracks where earwigs have been seen,” Carpenter says. “Use boric acid dust in hidden areas where sprays can’t reach.”
There are plenty of chemical pesticide products available online, says Hess, along with mixtures made from essential oils. “Please make sure to read and follow the labels on any pesticide for the best results and safety,” he says.
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