Not Always On

i'm an earwig and you're a murderous criminal. shame on you. i pray for you.

ah yes, you must be an enlightened earwig. may i suggest that if you smell bacon fat in a sea of olive oil that you restrain any impulses of greed and run the other way? and while you're at it, please stay out of my garden; you've been eating my lunch.

thank you for your prayers.

:-)

Hi there, I have these little guys visiting me nside my house...what do they find so attractive in my old house? Will the oil cans work in the house as well?

Hi Liz,
I think the oil cans would just attract more earwigs to the inside of your house. What they like to eat is outside - plants, flowers, other bugs. But apparently they can eat just about anything and can survive quite well indoors where it is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I have read that they do not nest indoors, so that's helpful. Like preventing ants, you need to seal up any cracks that may lead indoors. We get a few of them in the house as well. They get thrown in the toilet. Drowning is quite effective for killing them, especially once flushed.

They will hide out in newspapers. So if you get a newspaper delivered in the morning. Shake it out first, before bringing it indoors. Earwigs love to hide between the pages.

I keep finding these things in my house mostly near cool or wet items. I now just found a couple in my shower. How do you get rid of them in the house??????

http://www.whitneyfarms.com/guide/faqs/faq_pest.shtml

has some good tips for organic pest removal

and the copper tape found here

http://www.naturalcollection.com/natcol/group.asp?bID=2479363&midGroupid=20&group=40

is good for slugs

I heard from the Ag dept. that a goose will eat all the snails & slugs in the yard. If I did not live in the city limits, that would be my choice.

Apparently chickens love snails too.

I've been at war with earwigs for years now. They've already chewed up my radishes, Marigolds and even pumpkin plants!
I looked up some home remedies for controlling the insects and found that washing machine soap mixed with water seems to work, but it's most effective when you go to your garden at night and pour it directly on the pests while they're feeding. I applied the solution to my radish plants early last night (yes, some plants survived), then went back out after about four hours and didn't find one earwig on them. The soap mix doesn't harm plants, but I recommend washing it off when you water the next day nevertheless.
Before this, I tried Insecticidal Soap and it wasn't nearly as effective (I used up the bottle in about one week!). Washing machine soap is cheaper and it appears to do the trick. Just mix about half a cup to every gallon of water.

I have earwigs in the house. I find them in laundry baskets, crawling across the counter in the middle of the night and in the basement. I don't want to use a commercial pesticide in the house because of the kids, what can i do to get rid of them?

I live in Atlantic Canada. Earwigs are a total nuisance in the flower beds, I see them eating marigold and now my sunflowers. I have not seen any benefit to having these pests in my flowers.

i just read that boracic acid is a natural pesticide which is not harmful on humans nor pets

Boric Acid can be harmful or fatal to humans and pets. You need to find something else if you have children or pets.

Actualy,
They do nest indoors. In my home my family and I recently noticed all the ear wigs crawling on the walls, moldings and floors. we then cleared everything and found a nest behind a peice of furniture. It looks like little clumps of dirt. And whatever you do, do not vacume them up, because they will make a nest inside the vacume! your best bet its so sweep it up and flush it down the toilet. we still have earwigs crawling around though. Not as much as it used to be before we got rid of the nest, but still a good amount. How do we get rid of the rest?

oh my god I feel like I'm going crazy, we had a childs play structure outside that we took apart to give away and found inside it was infested with hundreds of earwigs, it was so disgusting but we got rid of them and cleaned it all up...only problem now is ever since this they are raiding my home like mad, they are everywhere..please help what do I do....

I just started getting an earwig problem recently. I live in a very wet area of my city (on swamp land actually). I CAN'T STAND EARWIGS! Speaking to a few of my friends who also live in this area I have found that beer in a 1 inch high dish placed infront of the area where the earwigs are getting in helps quite a bit but it does have to be flushed regularly.

My house is bran new and I have Earwigs in it already! I just find them dead in dark spaces between boxes of stuff that I still need to get into place. Then they atract ants that come and eat them, ths is insane, my house is infected with Earwigs and ants! I have a garden but it's at the back end of my lot a good 3 yards from my house so how would they get from my garden to my house! Where I find them there is no food and water around for at least two rooms and there is no way that they could have came with me in the boxes because I lived in a condo before and have never seen one up till I moved. My newspaper is always in a plastic bag so they can't come from there, the only place I think they can come from is the window because some other bugs came thru them before but the rooms that I find them is on the second floor.

Hi Mark, I notice from your email that you are coming in from Hawaii? If so, Hawaii as a tropical area has its own challenges with bugs. A friend of mine in Maui told me that the only thing that worked on the ant problem he had was Grant's Ants. Pic Liquid Bait Ant Killer is also pretty effective. Don't know what to tell you about the earwigs, if you have wall-to-wall carpeting, that might be an issue. ~Elise