A brown cricket in your house is most likely a house cricket, a light yellowish-brown insect about 5/8 to 7/8 of an inch long with wings that lay flat over its body. These crickets are drawn indoors by cool outdoor temperatures and warm, dark spaces inside your home. They’re not dangerous, but they can become a nuisance, especially if more than one has found its way in.
Which Brown Cricket You’re Looking At
Three types of brown crickets commonly show up indoors, and telling them apart is straightforward once you know what to look for.
The house cricket is the most common culprit. It’s uniformly light brown, with three dark bands running across the top of its head between the eyes. Adults have long wings covering the abdomen, though they sometimes shed them. If the cricket you found is pale brown, about the size of a quarter, and chirping loudly at night, this is almost certainly what you have.
Field crickets are darker, usually black or very dark brown, and slightly larger. They invade homes most often in the fall as nighttime temperatures drop. If you’re hearing chirping from a brown or dark cricket indoors, it’s likely one of these two species.
Camel crickets look quite different. They have a humpbacked body, long spider-like legs, and no wings at all. They never chirp. Camel crickets prefer cool, damp spaces like basements and crawl spaces, and they tend to startle people because of their jumping ability and unusual appearance. If your brown cricket is silent and leggy, this is probably the one.
Why It Came Inside
Crickets enter homes for three basic reasons: warmth, moisture, and light. Understanding which factor is drawing them in tells you how to stop it.
Cool nighttime temperatures are the biggest trigger. House crickets and field crickets move indoors as fall approaches, seeking the warmth of heated buildings. House crickets can live and breed indoors year-round once established, while field crickets are more seasonal visitors. Camel crickets follow a similar fall pattern, looking for sheltered places to survive winter.
Outdoor lighting is a powerful attractant. House crickets and field crickets are strongly drawn to bright white, neon, and mercury vapor lights. If you leave porch lights or floodlights on at night, you’re essentially inviting crickets to congregate near your doors and windows, where they eventually find a way in. Camel crickets, notably, are not attracted to lights at all.
Moisture matters too. Crickets prefer damp, dark habitats. Leaky pipes, standing water near your foundation, or a humid basement creates exactly the environment they’re looking for. Once inside, they settle into dark, protected spots: behind furniture, under appliances, inside closets, or in wall voids.
How They Get In
The usual entry points are gaps you might not notice. Cracks in the foundation, poorly fitted doors, gaps around windows, and openings around vents all provide easy access. A cricket doesn’t need much space. If you can see daylight through a gap around your door frame, a cricket can fit through it.
Cluttered areas near the exterior of your home also help. Stacked firewood, piles of rocks or boards, overgrown vegetation, and garden debris right against the foundation give crickets a comfortable staging area just steps from your door.
Can They Cause Damage?
A single cricket won’t do much harm beyond keeping you awake with chirping. But a larger population can cause real damage to household items. Crickets chew on fabrics, with a particular preference for synthetic materials like rayon and acetate. Research from the University of California, Riverside found that crickets attacked synthetic fabrics whether they were stained or clean, and also damaged polyester, nylon, and acrylic to a lesser extent. Cotton was left undamaged in testing.
This means clothing, curtains, and upholstered furniture made from synthetic blends are at risk if crickets establish themselves indoors. They’ll also feed on paper, cardboard, and food crumbs. The damage tends to show up as irregular holes or surface chewing marks on fabric.
Crickets don’t bite in any meaningful way, don’t transmit diseases to humans, and aren’t toxic to pets. The risk is property damage and noise, not health.
How to Get Rid of Them
If you’ve spotted one or two crickets, you can usually catch and remove them by hand or with a glass and a piece of paper. They’re most active at night, so checking dark corners with a flashlight after the lights go out can help you locate them. Following the sound of chirping is the most reliable way to track down a house cricket or field cricket.
Sticky traps placed along baseboards, in closets, and behind appliances are effective for catching crickets you can’t find. Place them in dark, sheltered spots where crickets are likely to travel.
For larger numbers, reducing moisture is your most effective tool. Run a dehumidifier in basements, crawl spaces, and any damp areas. Fix leaking pipes and clear clogged drains. Crickets will move on from spaces that dry out.
Keeping Crickets Out Long-Term
Sealing entry points is the single most important step. Inspect your foundation for cracks and fill them with caulk. Add or replace weather stripping around doors and windows. Check that door sweeps sit flush against the threshold, and make sure vent covers are intact and tightly fitted.
Change your outdoor lighting. Switch porch lights and exterior fixtures to yellow bulbs, which are far less attractive to crickets and other insects. Motion-activated lights are even better, since they’re only on when you actually need them. If possible, position lights away from doorways so that any insects drawn to the glow congregate away from entry points rather than right at your door.
Clean up the perimeter of your home. Move firewood stacks, lumber, and stone piles well away from the foundation. Trim vegetation so it doesn’t touch the house, and clear leaf litter and mulch buildup from against exterior walls. The goal is to eliminate the cool, damp, protected habitat that crickets use as a home base before moving indoors.
Inside, reduce clutter in basements, garages, and storage rooms. Cardboard boxes sitting on a damp concrete floor are ideal cricket habitat. Elevate stored items on shelves and use plastic bins instead of cardboard when possible.