Spent half the morning paying some more dumb tax. 🙄 Last night not one but two amorous gentleman crickets took up residence in the family room, where they filled the night air with serenades to every lady cricket within miles. At night, when it’s quiet and still, these elegant little bugs sound less cheery than they do in the daytime and more, well…like they’re screaming.
Even with the bedroom door shut, way down at the other end of the house, their shrill fiddling kept me awake. Wide awake.
Interestingly, they can sense you approaching, even if you sneak up on them quiet as a stalking cat. As soon as you get close enough to maybe spot where they’re hiding, they clam up. So I couldn’t find them…were they in the fireplace? in the cracks around the Arcadia door? in the plant pots? They were impossible to find.
Finally I gave up, tromped out to the garage, and grabbed a can of bug spray.
I hate bug spray. I hate the stink of the stuff, hate the way it makes my stomach upset, hate having it anywhere near the dog, hate using it near the bug-eating geckos around the yard, and especially hate using it inside the house. But the hour was growing later and later, I wasn’t getting any sleep, and I couldn’t see any other way to shut the critters up. So I tried to restrain myself, spraying it only where I thought they probably were ensconced.
Even a little of a bad thing is too much of a bad thing. What a stench!
The dog and I raced to the bedroom and slammed the door, hoping to keep the fumes out. This worked marginally. We were trapped, but at least we weren’t gagging in there. And the noise quieted down enough for me to get to sleep.
Come this morning, though…ugh! The front part of the house still stank to high heaven.
So, by dawn’s early light I was throwing open all the windows and doors, turning the fans to “tornado,” and scrubbing the floor on hands and knees. Scrubbed the floor twice with Simple Green and vinegar but still didn’t get all the stinky stuff up.
The smell still lingers, to some degree. It’ll be a day or two, I suppose, before it’s no longer noticeable to the human schnozz. Who knows how long a dog can smell it?
So annoying. I wish there was a better way to do in a noisy cricket. If you can’t catch it, swat it, or vacuum it, you’re kinda stuck with applying noxious chemicals.
One site I found said diatomaceous earth will kill the little guys. The pool filter uses that stuff. I’m less than thrilled about getting it around the dog—it’s irritating to the nose and dangerous if you breathe it into your lungs. And it’s really messy…sprinkling it around the house seems kinda counterproductive.
Here’s some folksy-sounding advice: pour a little pile of cornmeal in the middle of a glue board, the type you use to catch mice and rats. Comes from the University of Nebraska, so who am I to argue? Still, it takes a couple of days. What does one do for sleep while waiting for the cricket to stroll onto the glue board?
For that matter, Rattie wasn’t fooled by glue boards. Is there a reason to expect a cricket is any less wiley than a roof rat?
Anybody got any better ideas?
Image: Gryllus assimilis (common black cricket), from Robert E. Snodgrass,
Insects: Their Ways and Means of Living. New York: Smithsonian Institution, 1930. Public domain.
earplugs for a temporary measure to get some sleep, then the food trap you spoke of. I have to wear ear plugs every night bc of hubby’s snoring. When the kids move out, I will get my own bedroom.
I second the earplugs. I keep some beside my bed for when hubby wants to “watch” television while he’s snoring. Some nights I turn the television off once he’s commenced to sawing logs, only to have him wake with a disgruntled, “Hey, I was watching that!” 😉
Mrs. Accountability, I thought I was the only one who had to deal with that! We have gotten into many fights over it. I tried using the sleep timer but that then begins the longest hour of my life.
@ Barb & Kitty & Mrs. A: Snoring spice are a huge problem in marriages. Actually one of the main reasons I left my marriage is that I got mighty tired of sleeping on the sofa, it being impossible to sleep in the same bed with former DH.
He had sleep apnea. I knew this and told him that I had seen him stop breathing while he was trying to sleep. In fact, during the (relatively brief) times that I’d try to stay in the bed with him, several times I had to wake him to get him to start breathing.
At my insistence, he went to a doctor, who little-womaned me by proxy: he came home from the quack bearing the news that middle-aged men just naturally snore and their wives just have to get used to it.
Fortunately, he found a second wife who was a bit more assertive than I. NW (New Wife) must have raised Hell & put a block under it. Eventually he went to a doctor who bought the reports that all was not normal. They did a bunch of sleep tests on him and discovered the poor man was waking THREE HUNDRED TIMES A NIGHT when his breathing would stop. He wasn’t conscious of it–would wake just long enough to inhale and slip back into unconsciousness. But I sure was aware of it: some evenings he would start snoring literally before his head hit the pillow…and no, that is not an exaggeration.
If you have the clout to get your snoring husband to a doctor, ladies, by all means use it. You could save his life.
Funny – you are right on the money. He had sleep apnea and got the surgery for it not too long before we met. He says his snoring now is a massive improvement (!). I do find though that as long as i fall asleep first, I am fine.
My problem has actually more to do with that darn tv. I just don’t understand why a person can’t shut the tv off when they are sleepy instead of leaving it on. All. Night. Long.
Oh the woes of marriage!
By the way, I absolutely love your blog. It’s one of favorite reads and I’ve actually been following for awhile now; it just took me forever to comment. 🙂
Do not use the pool diatomaceous earth. It is toxic. Get food grade diatomaceous earth