Earwigs are easily recognizable by their pincers at the ends of their abdomen. They are dark reddish-brown, with light brown legs, and are about 5/8 inch long.
In a season, females reproduce up to 20-60 eggs laid in burrows (called chambers), 2 to 3 inches beneath the soil. Most species have one generation a year, over-wintering in the soil. Both adults and the young require moisture to live.
Earwigs can be found in almost any growing zone, although they are more likely to inhabit warm, humid climates. You might have trouble spotting one—not only are they quick movers, they are also nocturnal, and tend to hide out during the day when you are tending the garden. They like decaying wood and plant material, and dark, damp spaces. Oftentimes, they can be found in basements and woodpiles.
Earwigs enjoy a lively social scene. They congregate during the day because they tend to find the same hiding places. Their nests can number in the thousands, and they aren’t territorial, so they often live together.
What Do Earwigs Eat?
Pincher bugs are omnivores, meaning they’ll eat pretty much anything that’s made available to them. In the garden, they tend to feed on dead or decaying plant and animal matter. However, they will also readily prey on aphids, insect eggs, maggots, grubs, and army worms. When their population gets out of control, they’ll turn to feasting on living plant matter, like your vegetables and flowers.
This creates a conundrum for gardeners… Should earwigs be allowed to remain in your garden to eat up aphids and other pests? Or should they be removed before they turn their attention on your plants?
Here’s some remedies that will help you to get rid of earwigs..
Alcohol and Water Spray
A combination of tap water and Isopropyl Alcohol 70% makes an excellent contact spray for killing earwigs. Combine equal parts Isopropyl Alcohol 70% and water in a 32-ounce spray bottle and shake well to mix. It will kill earwigs when you spray it on them.
You can also spray it around the foundation of your home, in the flowerbeds, and plants in your garden where the earwig infestation is at its worst. The alcohol acts as a surfactant to stick to their shell while it begins eating its way through to kill them.
Note: some plants may not respond well to this mixture. Test it on a single leaf and wait a few days to see how it reacts before spraying the whole plant.
Soy Sauce and Oil Trap
Earwigs are easily attracted by the scent of soy sauce, the same soy sauce that’s on the table at your favorite Chinese restaurant. You can use that to create a nifty little trap to catch earwigs in.
Take any container that has a lid, a mason jar that has a metal screw-on lid, for instance, and poke some holes in the top so earwigs can get in. Put equal parts soy sauce and vegetable oil or olive oil in and mix them together.
Bury the container in the ground until the holes are at ground level. The soy sauce will lure the earwigs into the holes and the oil will prevent them from being able to crawl back out. They’ll be trapped and die. Change the mixture in your earwig trap as needed.
Neem Oil
Extracted from the neem trees of India, neem oil has been used for centuries to kill and repel insects of all kinds. Neem oil contains a natural chemical called Azadirachtin, which is the active ingredient.
It disrupts the hormonal balance in insects so they die before they can molt and it can suppress their desire to feed. It has repellent properties as well as fungicidal ones. Mix a teaspoon of neem oil with a quart of warm water in a 32-ounce spray bottle.
Spray the mixture everywhere you’ve seen the earwigs, especially around the entry points they use to gain access to your house. Spray it around the areas where they congregate outside, particularly dark, damp areas or mounds of decaying plant material.
Inside the house, spray it around all the cracks and crevices along the baseboards, around the windows and doors. This method of pest control will give you good results as long as you remember to respray the infected areas 2-3 times a week.
The Birds
The Birds? Put earwigs in place of the people in the movie and you’ll have some idea of how this one will play out. Birds love to eat insects of all kinds, especially earwigs.
To attract birds to your backyard, hang a couple of bird feeders in areas where you’ve noticed heavy earwig populations. Once the birds start coming on a regular basis, reduce the amount of birdseed in the feeder so they’ll start hunting insects instead.
Voilà! No more earwigs.
The nice thing about this all-natural method of earwig control is that you’ll attract some colorful birds to your yard.