Addison's 3-in-1

Earwig Extermination in Toronto, ON

You want…

• To quickly eliminate an earwig infestation near Toronto, ON, stop the earwig bites, and sleep peacefully in your own bed...

• An affordable, professional, honest, and warrantied earwig exterminator...

• An environmentally conscious treatment that is safe for the whole family, including your pets.

Here’s what to expect:

• Answers to all of your questions

• A no-obligation quote over the phone in seconds

• Flexible scheduling with 24/7 same-day service throughout the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario.

• No hidden service fees or follow-up costs.

Addison has...

• Decades of experience near you

• A trusted track record

• All-inclusive warranty

• Comprehensive customer service

• Rigorously trained technicians

• Tried and tested extermination methods

• The safest, most effective insecticides

Step 1: Earwig Heat Treatment

Category:

• Physical

Equipment:

• Handheld heat treatment gun.

Method:

• Direct heat applied locally to areas of earwig concentration.

• Harbourage sites are located and exterminated

• Moist crevices, under baseboards, basements, cellars,

Strengths:

• Heat Kills earwig eggs.

• No damage to furniture.

• Instantly kills all bugs and eggs treated.

• Avoids pesticide resistance.

Weakness

• No residual protection.

• Only kills the bugs and eggs that are visible and accessible to technicians.

• Not sufficient without other complementary extermination techniques.

Step 2: Earwig Powder Treatment

Category:

• Physical + Chemical

Equipment:

• Power duster

Method:

• A fine silica dust insecticide is injected into all crevices and wall cavities through electrical sockets and gaps underneath baseboards.

• Electrical items, such as a power bars are also treated with powder

• injected into any wall void or drain where earwigs are particularly active.

Strengths:

• Cuts up the earwig abdomen.

• Coats the insides of the wall cavities to create a protective powder barrier around your home.

• No earwigs can spread to or from attached houses, adjacent apartments or condo units.

• Essential lasting protection.

• Fully approved by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, safe and non-toxic for humans and animals of all shapes and sizes.

Weakness

• Only suitable for crack and crevice treatment.

Step 3: Earwig Spray Treatment

Category:

• Chemical + Residual

Equipment:

• Precision surface sprayer

Method:

• A fine mist of residual spray is applied to areas of earwig concentration such as basements, cellars, under baseboards, porches, bathrooms, around appliances, laundry rooms.

Strengths:

• Kills earwigs on contact and remains active as a protective surface treatment to continue to kill earwigs as they come out of hiding.

• Keeps your Toronto, ON home and furniture protected for up to 6 months.

• Fully approved by Ontario Ministry of Environment, safe and non-toxic for humans and animals of all shapes and sizes.

Weakness

•  If used improperly, may promote pesticide resistance

Beware of Discount Pest Control

These companies use low quality or low concentration surface sprays with only 10 to 14 days of protection.

• The tip off is when companies offer to do a “follow-up spray” two weeks after the first treatment. While this may seem extra thorough, earwigs may remain hidden without feeding for an extended period of time in a deep recess or crevice

• New eggs can hatch up to 70 days after they are deposited.

• By this time the cheap treatment will have long worn off and the new population will be free to re-infest your home.

• These budget services can breed pesticide resistance in the earwigs in your home, making future treatments increasingly challenging.

• Using high quality, long residual insecticides, varied extermination methods, and thorough single applications is the key to our success at Addison

If you suspect you have an earwig infestation in your Toronto, ON home - clear and complete information is the first step to getting rid of them. Here are a few facts, myths, and tips that will help you to make a well-informed decision about what to do next.

How to Identify Earwigs

The most common earwig species in North America is the European earwig (Forficula auricularia), also known as the common earwig.

What do earwigs look like?

• Length: 16mm

• Shape: Elongate and flattened body shape

• Colour: Dark reddish brown

• Texture: Shiny exoskeleton

• Legs: pale yellow

• Features: Forceps (cerci) protrude from the back end of abdomen

• Males: Forceps curved, 3.5-9.5mm in length

• Females: forceps straight sided on females

• Antennae: Long beaded, 15+ segments

• Mouthparts: Chewing mouthparts

• Wings: Winged but rarely engage in self-powered flight

• Keep wings folded close to body under a pair of forewings

• Development: Nymphs have similar anatomy to adults lighter in shape and shorter, antennae gain more segments wings grow larger

Foraging Behaviour

• Omnivorous scavengers

• Feed on almost any plant or animal organic material

• Feed on aphids, maggots, mites, spiders

• Feed on household food products such as stored dried good, produce, meat, cheese

• Feed on living and decaying plant matter such as: lichens, algae, fruit and flowers

• Attracted to lights when they emerge to forage at night time

• Pincers are employed to hold prey, to defend from predators and to explore narrow canals

• Mother earwigs provide food for their young until their second moult

• In second instar stage, forage independently at night time and return to nest in the day time

• In third and fourth instar stages earwigs are free-foraging insects with no fixed nest

• Common to find them in laundry, furniture, loaves of bread, clothing and bedding

Life Cycle and Reproduction

• Eggs are shiny and pale yellow oval about 1mm

• Deposit 25-50 eggs per batch

• Produce one brood per year

• Pincers are used as part of elaborate male mating displays

• Females lay eggs in moist dark soil enclaves in the fall or springtime

• Eggs laid in fall hatch in 73 days

• Eggs laid in spring hatch in 20 days

• Females hibernate with eggs use their mouths to keep the eggs clean

• Females guard eggs and rear their young until their first or second moult

• Nymphs are anatomically similar to adults

• Nymphs go through 4 instar stages, with a moult of outer cuticle at the beginning of each one

• Nymphs remain in nest site until their second instar stage

• during second instar, begin to show sexual dimorphism

• Nymphs are independent after two months of motherly care

• Families will often continue to nest together into their adulthood

• Most nymphs reach full sexual maturity by late summer, approx 68 days

• Overwinter as adults after mating occurs in late autumn

• Most earwigs live for 1 year in the wild

How do I know if I have an earwig infestation in my Toronto, ON home?

• Earwigs are a common and beneficial insect that lives in the soil around the home

• Earwigs demonstrate aggregation behaviour and can gather in large clumps and congregations in moist dark areas

• If you see a single earwig it does not mean that a full-scale infestation is active.

• If you begin seeing large groups of earwigs more frequently it may be time to consider a professional pest control program

Where do I look for an earwig infestation?

• prefer moist, dark, undisturbed areas of your Toronto, ON home

• close to a feeding and water source

• may find their way inside as colder weather approaches

• Some common hiding places include

  • Near sinks

  • Under stones

  • Hollow aluminum doors

  • Garden furniture

  • Bathrooms;

  • In shady cracks or openings or anywhere that they can remain concealed during daylight.

• Earwigs search for food at dusk, they crawl over the ground, climb houses, fences, and trees, and may begin to wander into homes in June or July.

How did earwigs get into my Ontario home?

• Introduced into North America in 1912 widely distributed through urban environments

• Secrete an aggregation hormone attracts other large numbers of earwigs to suitable feeding and nesting sites

• may be discovered in abundant clumps in crevices around the home in dark areas such as cellars, basements, under sinks, under cabinets behind appliances

• Attracted to light when they emerge to forage at night time

• May enter homes around doors and windows with insecure weather stripping

• May travel into the home on newspapers, in luggage, cut flowers

What do earwigs eat?

• omnivore scavenger

• Plant and animal matter such as ripe fruit and other insects

• Have demonstrated cannibalistic behaviour by consuming other earwigs

• Insect prey includes

  • Plant lice

  • Bluebottle flies

  • Woolly aphids

• Plant food sources include:

  • Clover

  • Dahlias

  • Zinnias

  • Butterfly bush

  • Hollyhock

  • Lettuce

  • Cauliflower

  • Strawberry

  • Blackberry

  • Sunflowers

  • Celery

  • Peaches

  • Plums

  • Grapes

  • Potatoes

  • Roses

  • Seedling beans

  • Beets

  • Tender grass shoots and roots

  • They have also been known to eat corn silk, damaging the corn

How serious is an earwig infestation?

• Very common and also beneficial species when found in moderate numbers in the garden

• If numbers grow to become invasive they may need to be controlled

• Secrete a quinone rich substance which can cause skin irritation and stain fabrics and surfaces

• Produce a foul odour when disturbed

• Can be detrimental to crop installations

• earwigs have been known to pinch humans with their pincers

• Pinch is not very painful and does not contain any venom or irritant

• earwigs do not spread pathogens, bacteria or parasites through their pinch

• earwigs may deposit pathogens, bacteria or parasites on food preparation or storage surfaces acumulated on their leg hairs while foraging

How do I prevent an earwig infestation in Toronto, ON?

Since earwigs are such a common pest in the GTA, being proactive is the key to ensuring an earwig-free home and garden.

Give us a call today for more information or to schedule same-day earwig removal in seconds.

Addison’s earwig service includes a comprehensive earwig inspection and prevention plan:

• a 360º perimeter inspection of the interior and exterior of your home and garden

• identification of potentially vulnerable access points

• exclusion of any entry points with spray foam and steel wool

• pheromone baited professional sticky traps to monitor earwig activity

Can I prevent an earwig infestation on my own?

• Eliminate their congregation areas under floorboards, in tree holes, and in any moist and dark enclave

• Inspect the home and garden to uncover their breeding places

• Remove piles of organic matter close to the home like leaves grass or food waste

• Seal all screens, eaves, weather stripping, dryer, and exhaust vents

• Eliminate any attractive nesting site that gives access to homes

• Many commercially available traps are available to monitor and reduce the number of earwigs in the garden
  

How can Addison help eliminate an earwig infestation?

• Our goal: remove an infestation as quickly as possible and keep your home near Toronto pest free for good

• Combine three pest-control techniques applied on a single appointment on a single day

• Guarantee the effectiveness of the treatment to eradicate the infestation completely

• No pest control method is perfect

• With a three-part treatment, each method compensates for the shortcomings of the other

• Yields quick and dependable results to eliminate earwigs.

• Every treatment accompanied by preventative and monitoring measures

• Ongoing protection against future infestations

• Prevention includes:

  • thorough inspection

  • Entry point sealing

  • Identifying and eliminating feeding sources

  • Sticky traps and other monitoring techniques.

Do earwigs bite humans?

• Some species of earwigs can deliver a pinch with their forceps

• The European earwig only very rarely pinches humans, and their pinch is not painful does not contain venom

• Do not spread bacteria, pathogens or parasites through their pinch

• Earwig’s name comes from the superstition that they enter the ear canal, burrow into the human brain and lay their eggs there

• This is a myth, though there are some stories of earwigs finding their way into the human ear, likely because it is a dark and moist canal