For some people, the chirping noise of cricket is soothing. While for some, it’s a nuisance. If you are not used to hearing crickets chirping all night, you might face difficulty in sleeping. If that’s the case with you, you must get rid of crickets soon.
You can set different kinds of traps to attract crickets like light, food, shelter and use them as bait to feed cats and dogs. Since these elements are what attracts crickets, eliminating them would be a better method of keeping crickets at bay.
If you are looking for ways to stop crickets’ chirping or get rid of crickets, you have come to the right place. Continue to read the various ways discussed below and get rid of crickets’ sound.
10 ways to get rid of cricket noise at night
Different people have tried out different tricks to keep crickets at bay. Below enlisted are 10 such useful methods that have been found to be effective several times.
Keep your garden clean
Crickets are active at night. During the daytime, they hide from predators in dark places like logs, piles of leaves, under rocks, below plant pots, inside the holes found in the stem of trees, inside burrows on the ground. In short, crickets can hide in any dark spot in the garden. Therefore, it’s ideal to eliminate these dark spots to make sure crickets don’t find a place to hide.
Keep your lawn clean and tidy. Remove any heaps of leaves, cover the holes in the stem of trees, etc. Make it a point to mow your lawn to make it difficult for crickets to find a place to hide around your house. Keep your surroundings clean. Dump clutter in the dustbin every day.
Piles of logs, heaps of leaves, rocks, plant pots, etc. serve as an ideal dark and humid spot for crickets to hide. If you notice any of these in or around your garden, remove them. Also if there are any cracks in walls or stairs, you must get them sealed immediately.
You must remember that crickets love to hide. Therefore, it’s best for you to remove any potential hiding place inside the perimeter of your house. Once crickets find no suitable place to hide, they would possibly shift to other locations in search of a hiding place.
Trap Them
If you know where the crickets might hide, the best way to catch them is by setting a cricket trap. You can lure crickets into the trap by placing food. Crickets are omnivorous animals. Any kind of rotten plant matter, fruit, or fungi are ideal to attract cricket into your trap.
You would be surprised to know that crickets also enjoy feeding on damp cardboard since its texture is very similar to rotten plant matter. The next item that crickets can’t resist is honey.
Dropping two drops of honey on damp cardboard and leaving it inside the cricket trap is a sure-shot way to capture these creatures easily and get crickets to stop chirping at night.
Use vinegar & salt
If you don’t know, salt and vinegar are dangerous to crickets and can kill them immediately. If you are willing to kill crickets using vinegar, follow the following steps:
- Mix water with vinegar, maintaining a ratio of 110 ml of vinegar per liter of water.
- Take that mixture into a spray bottle.
- Spread the mixture around your garden, especially in areas where crickets might hide.
The next time you come to check those areas, you are sure to see a number of crickets lying dead. Within a minute of contact, vinegar is sure to kill crickets.
If you don’t have vinegar available, you can use salt to kill crickets though salt is less effective than vinegar. That’s why it is important to mix a greater proportion of salt into the water. Roughly you should mix 170 ml of salt into 1 liter of water.
The next solution that can also work well in this regard is lemon juice. Mix about 110 ml of lemon juice into water and spray it around your garden well.
Use scents
Essential oils are also dangerous for crickets. Crickets hate the smell of essential oils and it will surely drive them away.
That’s why essential oils are used to manufacture natural pesticides. For this purpose, one can use either rosemary oil or thyme, or sage to get the best results.
Using DIY sprays made by combining essential oils with garlic and chili powder will repel crickets.
Besides these mixtures, crickets also hate lemon, peppermint, and cinnamon. Spray good amounts of these mixtures in and around your garden.
So the next time you don’t have essential oils in-store, use the alternatives and keep crickets quiet at night outside. With time, you might as well get rid of them completely.
Allow pets to prey on crickets inside your garden
There are a lot of animals that feed on crickets. Introducing some of them is another great way to reduce the noise of crickets chirping at night. Some of the creatures that feed on crickets happily have been mentioned below:
- Birds
For birds, crickets are the ideal snack. Why don’t you lure more birds into your house and allow them to feed on crickets? You can construct hedges and grow trees that would provide shelter to birds. You can also install bird feeding tables and nest boxes to make your garden an attractive spot for birds!
Once birds realize that there are delicious crickets inside your garden, it wouldn’t be long before you find your house filled with various kinds of birds.
- Frogs
The next creature that also loves to feed on crickets is a frog. A large part of frogs’ diet comprises crickets. That’s so because crickets constitute a protein-rich diet for frogs.
To attract frogs into your garden, what you can do is install an artificial pond. Encourage frogs to visit your pond. Soon more frogs would hop into your garden in search of crickets.
Creating a natural pond is a time taking process. Therefore, if you are looking for easier and quicker options, make arrangements to place an artificial pond and cultivate an ideal habitat for frogs. This strategy would definitely fetch you desired results in the end.
- Cats
Cats generally don’t prefer hunting crickets, but sometimes they might enjoy feeding on crickets. Once your cat figures out where the chirping noise is coming from, it can turn into an effective cricket-killing machine.
The problem with cats is that while some would enjoy feeding on crickets, some wouldn’t even be interested. So if you don’t have a pet cat at your house, we suggest you prefer the first two options rather than this one.
Try to keep temperatures cool
Crickets tend to live in hot and humid places. The ideal temperature range they prefer is 26 to 36 ° C. Probably this explains why crickets are seen mostly in summers rather than on cold, winter nights. To make a cricket shut up, you must turn on the cooling mode of your AC and get rid of them.
Some people keep live crickets as food for their pets. Such people regulate the temperature of the crates in which crickets are kept. Maintaining a low temperature automatically quietens crickets. This is a good way to get crickets to shut up.
Keep your garden dark
An effective way to keep crickets quiet at night outside is by keeping all lights off. A lot of people don’t know this but crickets are drawn to lighted areas at night.
If you hear a lot of chirping noise of crickets, that’s because they are drawn to the light inside your house.
If you don’t want that to happen, you must switch off all lights inside your house at night. A dark place will stop crickets from chirping.
You can follow any of the three methods mentioned below to prevent crickets from getting drawn to your house:
- Hang yellow bulbs
If you have placed white bulbs outside your house, replace them with yellow ones. For some unknown reason, crickets aren’t as attracted to yellow lights as they are to white lights.
- Turn off all lights
Turning off all lights before going to bed might be a bit inconvenient for homeowners. At least switch off all lights in your garden. Even then crickets might be attracted to the light inside your house. Before you retire to bed, you might face problems because of their constant chirping. But, after going to bed, switch off all lights inside and outside your house. That will allow you to sleep peacefully.
- Light blocking curtains
If you work till late at night and the never-ending chirping noise of crickets is disturbing you, you can try hanging extra-thick blackout curtains. These curtains are expected to block inside light from escaping. It will prevent crickets from being attracted to your house any further.
If you have heard about blackout curtains, it’s time to utilize them. These wouldn’t help light from escaping but would muffle outside noise highly.
White Noise
Sometimes, when none of the tricks work, it’s best to use a white noise machine for distraction. These types of machines are found in abundance in today’s market. However, don’t get confused between a sound and a white noise machine. They are entirely different and serve different purposes.
White noise machines produce a sound quite similar to a fan. Whereas, sound machines produce electronic noises just like the sound of nature and melodies. Needless to say, both these kinds of machines are expensive. If you are looking for an affordable option, we suggest you buy a sleeping fan.
However, we would like to warn our readers about a major aspect of using white noise machines or sound machines. After using any of these machines for months, you might become so dependent, that you might face difficulties trying to sleep without the sound. In that case, you might have to carry it wherever you go and that’s certainly not a convenient thing to do.
Isolate Your Ears
Suppose your partner finds the chirping of crickets soothing whereas you don’t. In that case, you can use noise cancellation earphones while sleeping at night. There are varieties of them available in the market.
They are expensive but quite effective. With noise cancellation earphones, you no longer have to tolerate the irritating chirping of crickets in the background. You can play your favorite playlist and fall asleep. The only disadvantage is with earphones on, you might have difficulty sleeping on your side.
The next option you can try is using earplugs. If you are used to sleeping in complete silence, we suggest you use foam earplugs. They come with a better fit. They are cozy, soft, and worth the price.
There is another alternative for people. Some might find earmuffs to be a better alternative than the other two mentioned above. Earmuffs don’t have great noise cancellation properties, but would definitely tone down the background noise.
Soundproof Your Home
If you have tried all the methods but crickets are still coming in and making noise, you must try to soundproof your house.
Obviously, it’s an expensive method, but once you soundproof your house, outside noise, irrespective of the source, wouldn’t bother you again.
In this case, you must soundproof the doors and windows specifically. You must first seal all the holes, gaps, and cracks present on doors and windows with the Green Glue compound. Next, you can also hang noise-blocking curtains.
There are various DIY methods following which you can do a basic level of soundproofing.
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Verdict
As you can see from the above discussion, there are multiple ways to get rid of cricket noise at night. Most of them are affordable and easy too. Find out a suitable method to silence a cricket that is convenient for you and take the necessary measures. The best would be to combine different methods.