Gross.

What do you do when your house is plagued with crickets? A plague of biblical proportions...well, not really--it just felt like it. A one-on-one confrontation with such a shadowy, lurking, large, jumping, insect I can cope with. But when I’m out-numbered…I don’t deal. We’ve seem them occasionally in the basement, but they seem to be particularly fond of the back porch. In attempting to finish cleaning it out, I discovered their favorite hiding place was behind some sheets of wood belonging to shelves for our storage room, leaning up against the back wall. You can see here how big and nasty they are.
Would you want that jumping out at you? And as I pulled out the last piece of wood, you can see how many were there. (Notice the camera is not focused on them because I was so grossed out I couldn’t take the time to focus it properly.) It gives me the heeby jeebies just looking at that picture.

So this was my plan of action:
Attempt #1: Remove their hiding place—lay sheet of wood down on ground. They would for sure get the message and vacate the premises, right?

Nope. They simply scoured the wall and ceiling. I felt threatened--under attack, actually.

Attempt #2: Bribe Ella and the kid next door to scare them away. Bless their little hearts. Worked a little bit.

Attempt #3: Bring out the big guns. I sucked those suckers right up.

RIP.