How do you get rid of noisy crickets in our backyard?
Hardiness Zone: 10a
By JayJayKay from Los Angeles, CA
Short of poisoning the heck out of your back yard, (and what an ecological disaster, not to mention the potential harm to you, kids, pets, beneficial insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians....), I am not sure there is much you can do to discourage them outdoors. If you have any heavily mulched or untrimmed areas that might be harboring them, you could try to trim or use a stone mulch there. (Eliminate food sources and hiding places.) Good luck.
We had the same problem this summer. They were all over the place this year. All over outside, so loud they would wake us up. Then they started getting in the house too! It was driving us crazy, it was like camping outside in a loud field! It was just getting worse & worse.
We'd had this problem a few years ago & got 'cricket bait' granules at Walmart, but I couldn't find anything anywhere this year. Finally, at Ace Hardware I found "Terro Multi-Purpose Insect Bait". It is long lasting, weather resistant & works on ants, cockroaches, crickets, earwigs, silverfish, slugs & snails. The stuff I found was in a 3 lb. shaker can with a handle so you could hold it at the top & shake the granules out of the bottom.
I went around the entire outside perimeter of the house shaking the stuff against the base of the house. I also took a plastic spoon & tossed a few granules near the doors & behind the bookcase in the room where we were getting them (our bedroom!) & kept the door shut so the cat wouldn't get in there. Literally within 24 hours the sound of singing crickets was nearly gone! We found only 1 dead cricket, but within the week, we achieved peace again & so far it's been about a month & it's stayed that way!
If you have pets that like to catch & eat crickets, be very careful as this is not supposed to be used indoors & they could catch a poisoned cricket.
I moved to my house 2 years ago, I had lovely established roses in the garden and had bought my potted roses from my rental with me, and within a year the crickets/grasshoppers had killed all my potted roses and decimated my established ones. I pruned well this year, weeded well, fed the roses with Black Marvel, and they are ready to flower. They look so lovely, and the crickets are back badly, hundreds of tiny green ones and a couple of massive big greyish brown ones, so far.
Last year I used to pick off everyone of them, whilst watering by hand, and killing them, but to no avail. I obviously have to treat the soil as well as the plant, but they have had their way here for years I'd say. I need to kill them and quickly before they kill off my roses before they even put out a rose! Help.By Jules from Perth
Diotomaciouc earth is a very good alternative to rid pests without poision
Spray with insecticidal soap.
