Lansing, Have You Been Seeing Way More Earwigs in Your Home Recently?

I need to vent for a moment, because here's the deal; I have been finding a TON of earwigs in my home lately.

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And I'm not talking about one or two here or there, I'm talking about a mess of them that I've been finding over the last week or so.

Finding Earwigs in Your Home

I've been finding earwigs in my basement (particularly near my washer and dryer, even inside some dirty clothes piled on the floor), in my bathroom, and even one in my sink trap last night!

Typically, my relationship with creepy crawlies is this: You stay in your space and leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone too. However, that notion goes out the door as soon as they come through mine.

In search of what might be causing this, I learned that I am not alone in my plight. It seems that lots of Lansing area residents are dealing with this too. Here's what I found on the Lansing subreddit...

Lansing Residents are Dealing with Excess Earwigs

Other Lansing residents are dealing with the same problem I am. They're finding earwigs everywhere. Under campers and grill covers, inside mailboxes, and on top of life jackets.

If you're in a similar boat, I learned why we're seeing so many of them in our homes; it's because it's been so wet lately.

Why are Earwigs in my Home?

Earwigs like moist conditions. And Lansing has had a lot of rain lately, making moist basements, bathrooms, and the like perfect spots for earwigs to hang out.

They can also enter the house if you bring them in accidentally. They can come in on cut flowers. Or, if you grab your mail and bring it inside, an earwig could have been chilling in your mailbox and hitched a ride on that bill.

How to Get Rid of Earwigs?

Knowing why earwigs are in your home is half the battle. If earwigs like dampness, remove that from the equation. Here's what you can do to combat these unwelcome guests:

• Invest in a good dehumidifier.
• Don't leave damp items around the house, like towels or swimsuits.
• Get rid of hiding spaces - rake fallen leaves, prune branches, move wood piles away from the home, clean out your gutters
• Patch any cracks you find in the walls or foundation of your home, seal windows, fix leaky pipes
• Hire an exterminator

One user on the Lansing subreddit suggested putting some Borax in corners and cracks of the home, and that seemed to work well for them.

At the end of the day, yes, earwigs are gross and a bit of a nuisance, but they don't mean any harm. And don't worry, that myth about them crawling in your ear and laying eggs in your brain is a myth.