How to Get Rid of Earwigs: 8 Methods to Remove Them From Your Home

Did you notice an earwig in your home? Try not to wig out. These pests—also known as pincher bugs—are not trying to lay eggs in your ears like the childhood lore suggests. Instead, these household pests are after your houseplants or garden. Follow this guide to learn how to get rid of earwigs for good.

What Are Earwigs?

Contrary to their name, earwigs don’t have anything to do with your ear. The term refers to around 2,000 species of insects in the order Dermaptera. These mostly nocturnal critters are known for their two antennae, six legs, and pincers (called cerci) that extend from the bottom of their abdomen. They’re usually brown or black in color.

When you find an infestation, you might wonder if earwigs are dangerous. That depends on if you’re a houseplant or a human. Earwigs don’t bite and aren’t poisonous, though they technically can pinch you with their pincers when threatened, but most of the time, it won’t break your skin.

But these pesky insects can wreak havoc on your houseplants and garden. These omnivores will nibble holes in your favorite flowers and foliage and leave behind a stinky secretion.

How Much Does It Cost to Get Rid of Earwigs?

The cost of pest control service is typically between $200 to $600, but it will cost more to get rid of earwigs if a single visit doesn’t remove all of them. You can expect to pay $100 to $300 quarterly or $40 to $70 monthly for regular pest control visits. Since earwigs are most active in late spring and early summer, schedule an exterminator visit in May before numbers multiply.

Signs of Earwigs In Your Home

Earwigs are often confused with silverfish, a similar pest with large antennae. How do you know when you’re dealing with earwigs? In addition to the antennae and pincers, these insects have elongated, three-part bodies typically ¼ to one inch long. But you don’t have to see an earwig to know there’s an infestation in your home. 

Signs of earwigs include:

• Holes in flowers or foliage

• Dead or dying vegetation

• A foul smell from their yellow-brown secretions

• A cluster of Earwig eggs, which are round and white to tan in color

To find earwigs, hunt these nocturnal insects at night. Use a flashlight to search the cool and moist locations in and around your home. Outside, earwigs love to hang out in leaf piles, mulch, and flower pots or around patio lights, faucets, and garden debris. Inside, you can find them around baseboards, under-sink cabinets, beneath wet carpeting or stacks of newspapers, and inside house plants or moist cracks and crevices.

How to Get Rid of Earwigs in Your Home

There are a lot of reasons why we get bugs in our homes. Earwigs will typically enter from the outside through cracks or gaps in your home or by hitching a ride on newspapers, boxes, or lumber. Luckily, you can get rid of them using one or a combination of these eight methods.

1. Lay Down Earwig Traps

Sticky earwig traps are available online and at home improvement stores for about $10. It’s best to lay them in areas where you’ve seen earwigs or near obvious feeding or shelter locations. Since earwigs are attracted to bright lights, you can place a light near the trap to draw them in. 

Earwigs are also attracted to soy sauce, so you can make a trap at home using the popular kitchen condiment as bait. Poke holes in the top of a plastic cup with a lid, and fill it with an inch of equal parts canola oil and soy sauce. Leave your trap in areas where earwigs frequent, and add new soy sauce and canola oil every few days.

2. Spread Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous earth (DE) is a finely ground sediment powder that dehydrates and eventually kills earwigs. You can find this natural solution at home improvement and garden stores. It typically costs between $30 and $40—make sure you grab the food-grade type.

Food-grade DE is safe to spread around pets, young children, and plants. Spread it around your garden, baseboards, and wherever else you suspect earwigs are entering your home or hanging out. This product loses its effectiveness when wet, so use a different solution in damp areas.

3. Use Boric Acid

Boric acid is a natural insecticide that will kill pesky earwigs on contact. You can pick it up in powder form at your local hardware store and sprinkle it wherever earwigs enter your home. Keep in mind that boric acid is toxic if ingested, so apply it carefully using the manufacturer’s instructions and consider using another removal method if you have pets or young children in your home.

4. Kill Earwigs With Alcohol

Alcohol is a potent earwig killer. To make an alcohol-based pesticide, combine equal parts 70% Isopropyl alcohol and water in a spray bottle. You can spray this mixture anywhere earwigs frequent, including plants. 

Make sure you test the mixture on a leaf about 24 hours before spraying the whole plant. High levels of alcohol can damage foliage, and some plants are more resilient than others. If needed, you can dilute your solution with more water.

5. Make a DIY Pesticide With Dish Soap

Dish soap is gentle on plants and harmful to earwigs. Thus, it’s the perfect DIY pesticide. In a spray bottle, combine dish soap and water, and then spray it in areas where you’ve seen earwigs. You can also spray houseplants, moist areas of your home, and near your garden. Like alcohol, too much dish soap can burn foliage. Test this solution on a single leaf before spraying the whole plant. 

6. Attract Natural Predators

Birds and toads love to feast on earwigs. If you have an outdoor earwig issue, consider attracting these natural predators to your yard. For birds, you can install birdhouses and bird baths. To attract toads, you can install a pond or water feature. Frog houses will also give toads a safe place to hide—they love small, moist crevices like under rocks or tree roots.

7. Vacuum the Bugs

It may seem like an obvious solution, but if you notice many earwigs or earwig eggs in one area of your home, use your vacuum to remove them. It’s also important to vacuum up any dead insects you find. These critters won’t hesitate to eat insects, dead or alive.

8. Spray Pesticides

If your earwig problem is out of control, spraying pesticides to remove them may be the best option. Both Ortho and Wondercide make common pesticides that work for earwigs, starting at around $30 per bottle. 

These solutions may be harmful to pets and children, so always use pesticides as a last-ditch effort. In this case, it’s usually better to hire a local pest control company that will ensure pesticides are used correctly and safely.

How to Prevent an Earwig Infestation

Once you get rid of earwigs, you need to make sure they never come back. The best way is to find out where the earwigs are coming from, block their path, and make their hiding places a wholly inhospitable environment. 

1. Seal Holes and Fix Leaks

An earwig can’t pass up the chance to infiltrate your home, a space that’s likely warm and possibly a good food source (especially if you have plants). Sealing off easy access can prevent them from entering your home. 

Common entry points for earwigs include: 

• Holes in window screens 

• Space underneath your door 

• Crawlspaces 

• Through cracks in windows and doors

2. Clean Up Your Yard

In-home earwig infestations are often prompted by outdoor clusters of these long, slender bugs. Yards and gardens are just as likely to become earwig hotbeds as your house, and, eventually, these earwigs can find their way inside. To prevent an infestation, clean up areas where earwigs like to live. 

Clean up these common earwig hideouts:

• Rake up sticks, leaves, and other yard debris

• Remove leaf piles and other dead plant matter

• Prune dead or dying branches

• Move wood piles, mulch piles, and soil piles away from your home

• Clean out your gutters

• Get rid of standing puddles

3. Use a Dehumidifier

Use a dehumidifier in areas of your home that are persistently damp or poorly ventilated like your attic or basement. This step will ward off earwigs, but if you notice a lot of bugs and think they might be coming from the ground, you may want to consider encapsulating your crawl space. At the very least, keep your crawl space as dry as possible.

DIY Earwig Removal vs. Hire a Pro

If you see a few earwigs, it’s easy to roll up your sleeves and take measures into your own hands. Traps are readily available at hardware stores, and you can always spray your houseplants with a DIY solution. Unfortunately, sometimes an infestation has gone too far and it’s difficult to resolve it on your own. 

If you need to use pesticides or you don’t know how earwigs are getting into your house, it’s best to hire a pest control company near you. They can safely kill the earwigs and find out where they’re coming from, solving the problem at the source.