Continued
Another way that house crickets get into domestic premises is when the occupants keep exotic pets such as tarantulas and lizards. These types of pets have to be fed live food and the poor old house cricket is the answer, however, if the owner isn't careful the live food tend to make a getaway........and disappear over the horizon, not really, they usually get under the floorboards and drive the occupants mad with their chirping. House crickets often occur in new buildings and this is probably because such places provide good shelter and food, and half finished houses are easy to enter. It is also possible that these insects may, in some cases, be brought in with the building materials or packaging.

In northern Europe house crickets do not normally survive outside during the winter and most of them come indoors at this time. However, they can survive throughout the year, and will sometimes multiply in enormous numbers on refuse tips where decomposing waste is producing quite high amounts of heat (see below). The abdomen of female crickets ends in a long narrow structure, the ovipositor, which allows them to lay eggs in the ground.

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