h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, anyone know an entry dealing with getting rid of earwigs please?

I don't think there is one -

What sort of problem do you have with them? I know they like to live inside flowers, and when my dad used to grow dahlias to cut for the house, earwigs were always falling out of the vases and making us jump.

I have no flowers in my home, but earwigs keep entering my home some how. its not just the odd one, its more than 5, and when I dispose of them, more come the next night, etc, etc.. it is really getting bad and I need a cure bad.

This is the best Entry we have
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/approved_entry/A840728

Insect Inhabitants of Houses in the UK

- and maybe a few more people will come along here with advice, and you will get some help. I'm not one for creepy crawlies inside the house, apart from the occasional spider.

I've got a gecko living somewhere in this house, and he does a great job of keeping down the pesky bitey at night things, but I'm not letting you borrow him, even if I did know how to catch him.

aaah! A gecko! Thanks, I'm hitting the pet store in the morning! Finally, a solution! I'm going to shock the days out of those pesky EARWIG! Thanks!

No, mine's not a pet - he just moved in from outside. I think he eats mosquitoes. If you want to keep a gecko, you'll have to heat your house up a whole lot, and then maybe the earwigs would hate it being that warm anyway and move back outside. Maybe you could try this? Turn your heating up extra hot, keep all the windows and doors shut obviously, and see how the little blighters like it.

The best way to eradicate earwigs is to try locate there source, if you have them in your home they will have found a suitable habitat this is often in damp areas or in cracks, behind loose building boards or loose masonry.
As they are nocturnal you are best laying traps in the areas where you see them most, this would comprise of rolled up newspaper ideally in an up turned pot slightly elevated of the ground via a small stick. Collect the rolls each evening and shake the earwigs into a container of ideally soapy water
There are chemical alternatives but ensure you read and follow all pesticide labels and directions carefully

Oh, Well I think i'll just buy one, keep it in a suitable tank and just catch every earwig I can to feed it If anyone else got a better idea, please let me know

Winternights suggestion seems good to me, but I'd shake them outside and hope they wouldn't come in again

Thanks winternight, I'll give that a try, I've exausted all my other ideas

If your going to let them go, pop them in a rimmed plastic container on your bird table, at least then your getting some reward for your effort, your little feathered friends will enjoy them.

They're basically harmless despite the sinister looking clasper (I think) hooks at the end of their abdomens. In the early 1980s I worked for two years in Northern Nigeria with VSO. There were many insects there which I'd never seen before as well as some I knew from England, one of which was the earwig. Many of the local folk's English language name for them was 'skirt and blouse'. If you look at one (earwig) closely, you may be able to understand why they gave that name.
They're quite beautifull really and much less innocouous than wasps or the dreaded mosquito.