If you’re a human, crickets aren’t particularly harmful. But if you’re a curtain, a piece of upholstered furniture, wallpaper or a plant, you might want to take some precautions. Crickets love to chew on fabrics, paper and vegetation. This is one of the many reasons you probably shouldn’t have crickets hopping around inside your house.

A House Cricket Bite

House crickets can bite, but they aren’t inclined to bite humans and it is rare for their mouthparts to be able to break the skin. This doesn’t mean these critters are harmless. The danger with house crickets isn’t their bite; it is the diseases and parasites they can carry in their bodies and in their waste, like E.coli and salmonella. They are also capable of carrying worms that can come out in their feces. If you handle a cricket or touch its feces, there is a chance you may develop a painful rash or sores on your skin, and if you handle food, you could accidentally introduce harmful bacteria that may later be ingested.

The greatest problem with pest-borne disease is that symptoms often get blamed on the flu. If you have a flu-type outbreak in your home and you have been having pest problems, consider the possibility that the two events may be connected.

House Cricket Damage

This is the more obvious harm house crickets cause. These pests can be like locusts in your garden and leave holes all over your house plants. They chew on clothing, bedding, couches and also your wallpaper. You can know one thing for sure when it comes to house crickets: they have no idea what you consider valuable. They are indiscriminate destroyers.

Harm Can Mean Many Things

We’ve looked at the bite of the cricket, the potential for diseases and the damage these pests can do inside your home. There is one more facet to the damage and harm that these invaders can bring. Let’s talk about psychological trauma for a second. House crickets are known for the sound they make when they rub their back legs together. When you’re walking outside in nature this cricket song can be somewhat soothing. But in your house, this sound gets old quickly, especially at three in the morning, when you have to wake up early for work. A few days of this and you’re probably not going to think those house crickets are so harmless.

If you’re dealing with crickets, we can help. At Schendel, we know how to keep pests out. That is why we back our service with our PestZero Guarantee. House crickets may have the word house in their name, but they don’t belong there. Get zero pests, with PestZero from Schendel Pest Services.