Bug in your ear? Earwigs

With the rains we have had lately there is one scary looking bug found crawling outside our homes and sometimes inside our homes. It’s the “earwig.” They are an elongated, flattened insect with adults ranging from light red-brown to black in color. They measure anywhere from half an inch to an inch long. They are easily identified by their forcep-like pincers at the end of their abdomen. They have mouth parts that chew and slender, long antennae.

Some earwigs are wingless while others may have wings.  While earwigs may sometimes have wings, they rarely fly. The female’s forceps are straight, and the male’s forceps are very curved (caliper-like), and they are larger than the females.  The forceps are used to defend themselves, and they are used to hold food or prey. Young earwigs look just like their parents except they are white to olive-green, and they always lack wings in that stage.

The name earwig came from a European superstition. They believed earwigs would enter the ears of a person while they were sleeping and bore into their brain. This belief is totally unfounded. Any small crawling insect can possibly end up in your ear, but it is purely by accident. The earwig does not hunt for ears so it can bore into the brain to lay its eggs.  They are harmless to humans and animals, but if you do handle them carelessly, they can give you a slight pinch with their forceps (pincers). If one of them pinched me, no matter how little it hurt, I guarantee you it would take a long flying lesson.  They also sometimes emit a foul smelling odor when disturbed.

Earwigs do not establish themselves inside our homes, but as most of us know they do get into the house occasionally.  Earwigs are active at night and hide during the day.  There are several species of earwigs. The most common one is the European earwig. It was not found in the United States before 1900.  Since they rarely fly and do not crawl long distances, it is amazing how far they have spread. Their means of travel is as a hitchhiker. They are transported long distances when before dawn they crawl into things like newspapers, cut flowers, crated merchandise, lumber, luggage, building supplies, automobiles, and even in mail. In the winter these amazing creatures will sometimes dig as deep as six feet below the ground to escape cold temperatures. They can be found under stones or boards, in moist shady places around sidewalks, or around buildings and in all kinds of debris. 

Every creature created here on Mother Earth has a reason and or a purpose for being here.  Earwigs are primarily scavengers feeding on dead insects and rotted plant material.  Because they are feeders of decaying material, they are contributors to biodegration of decaying organic matter. Their role is important to the ecosystem.  If you are finding a lot of earwigs in your home you have to control them outdoors first.  They will not take up residency in your home and breed there. They get into our homes  by mere chance. They are attracted to lights, so use the yellow bulbs in outdoor lighting since these bulbs do not attract insects.  They are attracted to moisture, so it is important to eliminate damp, moist conditions around and in your house.

Check that your outdoor faucets are not leaking. Check to see if your crawl spaces are dry. Check along the house’s foundation for moisture and if found, make sure it is eliminated. Keep boards, firewood, and other things stored away from the house. They enter homes through openings. Seal your pipes going in and out of the house. Seal your windows and doors with caulking and weather stripping.  Try to create a dry, clean border around your house. Earwigs can be trapped with cardboard boxes baited with bran or oatmeal. After the meal is added, seal the box and punch a pencil sized hole near the bottom.  You can place burlap bags or newspapers around their favorite habitat like shrubs, boards, large stones. After they are trapped in the box, you can drown them or place them in plastic bags and put them into your garbage cans.

Earwigs are omnivorous - they eat plant and animal. They eat algae, fungi, pollen, mosses, insects, spiders and mites both dead and alive. The bulk of their diet is plant material so they can damage flowers, vegetables, fruits, and the foliage on trees, and shrubs. They have even been known to attack the honey in beehives. I never recommend chemical insecticides because they kill very beneficial insects along with the earwigs.  Also, insecticides when sprayed or set down in or near the house, they can find their way into the mouths of our very precious children and our pets. However, there are a lot of safe ways to tackle a pest problem.

Boric Acid powder controls earwigs. It is a natural insecticide and is fairly harmless to human beings and pets. Other names for this colorless powder are; Boric acid, Sassolite, and Orthoboric acid.  The powder should be spread around the outside foundation of your house, near baseboards, in cracks, and hard to reach places.  Put the powder wherever the earwigs may cross to get into your dwelling. When the earwig walks through the powder, it is doomed.  It is important to disrupt their migration from outdoors to indoors. If you have landscaping mulch such as gravel or wood chips against your house, consider removing it immediately. You can also set earwig traps. Put some vegetable oil in a small dish. Bury the dish up to its rim near your house and in your gardens especially near new seedlings. The earwigs love the oil, but it doesn’t love them. They will die after they ingest the oil.

You can also put some beer in a jar. Earwigs love beer. Lay the jar on its side where you know or think earwigs are active, the earwigs will crawl in and have a party all night that will end up killing them.  If you find a large colony of them, they can be vacuumed up, the bag sealed, and then thrown away. Their eggs are small white egg shaped objects, so be sure to dispose of them when you see them.  Earwigs are a first-rate nuisance, but they can be controlled safely.  Chemicals put on the market, and promised to be safe, are recalled months, years, or decades later after they have done their damage to the environment and to humans.

The product Sevin in the 70s was used to supposedly safely take care of the Gypsy moth problem in New York. Later it was found that the toxicity of Sevin when it reached water ways like rivers, lakes and streams, became several times more toxic and extremely deadly to man and animal. When there are safe and natural ways to control pests, ways that are often less expensive ways, why not use them. It is up to all of us to protect our home, our environment, our precious Mother Earth.