You can limit their invasion of your home by removing damp articles and debris from around the house. Block ways of entry with screening and caulking. Keep mulches, especially organic ones, and leaf mold away from your foundation, doorways and window wells.
Create a dry, clean area immediately around the foundation. Try to eliminate moist situations in crawl spaces and around faucets and air conditioners.
Outside use of lights at night can attract earwigs to the area. Special yellow sodium vapor lights are less attractive to most insects, including earwigs, than white, neon or mercury vapor lights.
Partial control of an earwig problem also may be obtained by trapping the little buggers. You do this by leaving damp burlap, newspapers, canvas or other materials in areas where you know earwigs are a problem.
The earwigs will hide in and under these coverings during the day. In the morning, these traps can be recovered and large numbers of earwigs destroyed.
Some people suggest shaking or dropping the earwigs into boiling water, burning the newspaper, spraying the area with insecticide or squashing them. I would use a insecticidal soap spray or a pyrethroid insecticide spray.
Insecticides also may be used in areas where earwigs are numerous. However, chemical control of the problem usually requires an extensive insecticide program. Treat infested outside areas and hiding places with diazinon or dursban sprays or dusts, carbaryl (Sevin) spray or bait, or bendiocarb dust.
Use only in the areas allowed on the label and follow all label directions. In the garden, only use those pesticides labeled for use on the appropriate crops. Around home garden fruit trees, apply carbaryl or diazinon products (labeled for use on fruit trees) to the trunk and around the base of the trees.
Inside the home, restrict pesticide application to earwig-infested areas or suspected hiding places. A product containing carbaryl or chlorpyrifos labeled for use indoors may be effective. Again, be sure to read and follow the label.
Keep in mind, as offensive as we find earwigs, they really don't do much damage inside the home, and their control with pesticides is really only needed if they are numerous and troublesome. Try the other methods of control mentioned before relying on pesticides.
-- Marianne C. Ophardt is a horticulturist for the Washington State University Cooperative Extension Office in Benton County, 735-3551.
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