The most obvious sign of an earwig infestation is spotting multiple earwigs in damp, dark areas of your home or yard, especially at night. But there are several other clues, from chewed-up plants to tiny black droppings, that can tip you off before you ever see one. Knowing what to look for helps you catch the problem early and figure out whether you’re dealing with a few stragglers or a full-blown infestation.
Earwigs in Your Living Spaces
Earwigs are nocturnal and need moisture to survive because their bodies dry out quickly in open air. That’s why indoor sightings tend to happen in bathrooms, laundry rooms, kitchens, and basements: anywhere that stays humid and dim for most of the day. A classic encounter is flipping on the bathroom light at night and seeing a dark, pincer-tailed bug dart under the sink or along the baseboard.
Seeing one earwig indoors is usually no cause for alarm. Seeing several over the course of a few days, particularly in the same room, points to a more established problem. Check under sinks, behind toilets, around washing machines, in crawl spaces, and near any pipes where condensation collects. Earwigs also hide in stacks of newspapers, cardboard boxes, and damp towels left on the floor.
A Distinct Foul Smell
Earwigs have scent glands that release a yellowish-brown liquid when the insect feels threatened or gets crushed. The compounds in this secretion are sulfur-based, and the odor works much like a stink bug’s defense. If you step on an earwig and don’t clean the spot right away, the smell can linger. A persistent musty or foul odor in a confined area like a closet, garage, or basement may indicate that a group of earwigs has been congregating there, even if you haven’t seen them yet.
Plant Damage in the Garden
Earwigs feed on a wide range of plant material, and the damage they leave behind has a recognizable pattern: irregular holes and ragged, chewed edges on leaves, flower buds, and petals. Unlike flea beetles, which create tiny round holes, or leafminers, which carve visible tunnels through leaf tissue, earwig damage looks rougher and more random. You’ll often notice it on soft-leaved plants, seedlings, and flowering ornamentals like dahlias, marigolds, and zinnias.
Fruits and vegetables are also targets. Earwigs prefer softer produce that’s easy to penetrate: berries, apricots, peaches, and strawberries are favorites. If you’re finding shallow, gnawed holes in ripening fruit, especially fruit sitting close to the ground, earwigs are a likely culprit. Indoor houseplants aren’t immune either. An earwig population that’s moved inside will chew through potted plants just as readily.
One useful way to distinguish earwig damage from thrips (which leave silvery scars and bleached spots) is to check for feeding activity at night. Go out with a flashlight after dark and look at the damaged plants. If earwigs are responsible, you’ll likely catch them in the act.
Droppings and Shed Exoskeletons
Earwigs leave behind small black pellets of waste, often called frass, near their feeding sites. You’ll find these on plant leaves, around fruit, or along baseboards and under sinks indoors. The pellets are tiny, roughly the size of a grain of sand, so you may need to look closely.
Earwigs also molt as they grow, shedding their outer skin multiple times before reaching adulthood. The discarded exoskeletons look like small, translucent flakes, sometimes retaining the rough outline of the insect. Finding clusters of these shed skins in a particular spot is a strong indicator that earwigs have been using that area regularly, not just passing through.
Outdoor Gathering Spots
Before earwigs ever enter your home, they build up populations in the yard. Their preferred hiding spots are anywhere dark and moist: under mulch, leaf litter, landscape timbers, firewood piles, rocks, potted plant saucers, and decorative bark. Peeling back a layer of mulch or lifting a stepping stone and finding a cluster of earwigs is one of the clearest signs of a significant outdoor population.
A simple detection trick is to roll up a section of damp newspaper and set it near a suspected problem area overnight. In the morning, unroll it. If earwigs are present, several will have crawled inside seeking the dark, moist shelter. This works along garden beds, near foundations, and even indoors under sinks.
What Drives Earwigs Indoors
Earwigs move inside when outdoor conditions become uncomfortable. Prolonged dry spells push them toward the moisture in your home. Extreme heat and cold do the same. A sudden spike in indoor sightings often correlates with a stretch of hot, dry weather or the transition into fall. If your yard already has a healthy earwig population and the weather shifts, your home becomes the next logical destination, especially if there are easy entry points near the ground.
Cracks in the foundation, gaps under doors, openings around pipes, and poorly sealed basement windows are common pathways. Earwigs don’t chew through building materials like termites or carpenter ants. They simply walk in through existing gaps, so their presence indoors is more a sign of access and moisture than structural damage.
Are Earwigs Harmful?
Earwigs look intimidating because of their rear pincers (called cerci), but they aren’t dangerous to people. They don’t bite in the traditional sense, don’t carry venom, and don’t transmit diseases. If you pick one up, it might pinch you with those pincers in self-defense, but the pinch is mild and doesn’t break the skin in most cases. The old myth that earwigs crawl into human ears has no basis in reality.
The real concern with an infestation is garden damage and the nuisance of sharing your living space with them. Large populations can do meaningful harm to seedlings, flower beds, and soft fruit crops. Indoors, they’re mostly just unwelcome guests.
Reducing and Preventing Infestations
Because earwigs are driven by moisture, the most effective long-term strategy is making your home and yard less hospitable. Indoors, fix leaky pipes, improve ventilation in bathrooms and basements, and use a dehumidifier in chronically damp spaces. Outdoors, move mulch, leaf debris, and firewood away from your foundation. Make sure sprinklers aren’t soaking the soil right next to the house.
Seal cracks and gaps along the foundation, around window frames, and under exterior doors. Weather stripping and door sweeps are simple fixes that cut off common entry points. In the garden, clearing plant debris and avoiding overwatering reduces the dark, moist microhabitats where earwigs breed. If you’re dealing with a large outdoor population near your home, the damp-newspaper trap works as both a detection tool and a removal method: just discard the rolled newspaper (earwigs and all) each morning and replace it.