Escondido Earwig Pest Control
There is an old wives tale that earwigs crawl into people’s ears while they are sleeping and keep moving forward to try to eat their brain, but it is not true. Earwigs lack the ability to back up, so if there was truth to earwigs going into ears, this would explain where the tale came from.
Earwigs have pincers at the back of their abdomens that they use for defense and for sparing with rival earwigs. There are more than twenty species of earwigs in the United States, and are found on all continents except Antarctica. Depending on the species, adults range in size from 5-25 mm. They are slender insects with two pair of wings. The Immature earwigs look just like the adults but they don’t have wings yet.
Behavior, Diet & Habits
Earwigs are nocturnal which means “active at night”. During the day they hide in cracks in damp dark areas like plumbing voids or sub areas of houses. They live under rocks and logs and under mulch. Earwigs eat plants and insects.
Outdoors, earwigs spend the winter in small burrows in the ground. In spring the female lays eggs and she tends the eggs until they hatch. Then she cares for the nymphs until they can find their own food.
Earwigs are attracted to lights. They can be found under couch cushions, door mats, and other areas of things left out overnight. They generally enter homes to find food or shelter from the weather or predators.
Reproduction
Females typically lay between 30 and 50 but actual numbers depend on species. After hatching, the nymphs undergo four to five molts until they become adults.
Control
There are so many different techniques that each company varies from or does the same type of treatment just with a different product. Most liquid pesticide bonds to whatever it first touches. It will stay at the top of the mulch and blades of grass instead of getting to the ground, which is where they harbor and live. I use a combination of liquid and granule. The granule will sift through mulch and grass to get to the ground where the insects are, and a liquid above helps to knock them down and provide a long lasting barrier to provide the best control possible.
