The best earwig traps for indoors are cheap and simple: a sticky trap pushed flat against the baseboard, or a damp rolled towel left on the floor overnight. Outside, a shallow can of vegetable oil sunk into the mulch catches far more. Most people seeing earwigs in a basement or bathroom need both, because the indoor ones are strays from a population living right outside.
Below is which trap to use where, how to set each one, and what to do when the catch doesn’t drop. Our family business has worked in Northern Virginia and Maryland for over 50 years, and earwig calls pick up every summer after a wet spell.
Earwig Traps at a Glance
| Trap | Where it works best | Upkeep |
|---|---|---|
| Sticky trap | Indoors: basements, baths | Check weekly |
| Damp rolled towel | Indoors or out, overnight | Shake out each morning |
| Oil trap (tuna can) | Outside: mulch beds | Refill every 1–3 days |
| Rolled cardboard | Outside: garden beds | Check each morning |
| Small wood board | Outside: foundation beds | Flip each morning |
| Reusable plastic trap | Indoors or out | Rinse weekly |
Best Earwig Traps for Indoors
Indoors, you want a trap that sits low and dark and doesn’t make a mess on the floor. These are the three I’d start with.
Sticky Traps (Glue Boards)
Sticky traps for earwigs are the easiest indoor option. Use the flat, low-profile kind sold for roaches and spiders. Earwigs run along the edge where the wall meets the floor, so push the trap tight against the baseboard. A trap in the middle of the room catches almost nothing.
Good spots are under the bathroom sink, behind the washer, along the basement wall nearest the outside soil, and next to the door from the garage. Glue gets weak in dust and high humidity, so check them weekly and swap them out monthly.
Sticky traps are also our best clue to where earwigs are getting in. If one trap fills up and the others stay empty, that wall is your problem area.
Homemade Earwig Traps for Indoors
Earwigs hide by day in tight, damp spaces. You can fake one. Roll up a damp hand towel or a few sheets of newspaper and lay it along the wall at night. In the morning, carry it outside and shake it into a bucket of soapy water.
Colorado State University Extension says rolled corrugated cardboard or crumpled newspaper “can be very effective.” A pinch of wheat bran or wheat germ inside the roll helps. Those were the baits that worked in CSU’s trials.
A small dish with a thin layer of vegetable oil works indoors too, if you have a corner where nobody will kick it over. Most people find the oil messier than it’s worth inside. I’d save it for the yard.
Reusable Earwig Traps
Commercial plastic traps hold a bait cup and a soapy-water moat in one housing. They do the same job as the homemade versions. The upside is that you never have to touch an earwig. Rinse and rebait them about once a week.
How to Trap Earwigs in the House, Step by Step
- Find the damp rooms. Earwigs dry out fast, so they collect in basements, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and crawl space doors. Start there, not in the bedroom where you saw one.
- Set two or three sticky traps per room, flat against the baseboard, in the darkest corners.
- Add a damp rolled towel at night along the same wall for a quick catch.
- Check every morning for a week. Count what you catch. A few a night that taper off means strays. A steady catch that doesn’t drop means a big population outside that wall.
- Move traps from empty spots to busy ones. Keep the busy traps out for another two weeks.
- Fix the outside source. Pull mulch back from the foundation, point downspouts away from the wall, and set oil traps in the beds on that side of the house.
Our guide to earwigs in your house covers why they show up indoors. For how they get past doors and walls, see how earwigs get in your house.
According to the University of California’s pest notes on earwigs, earwigs that come indoors “eventually die indoors because there is little for them to eat.” UC does not recommend spraying insecticides inside, because it does little to stop more from coming in. Vacuum up the ones you find, and put your effort into the damp spots outside.
Do Ant Traps Work for Earwigs?
Usually not. Ant bait stations work because worker ants carry the bait back to feed the colony. Earwigs don’t do that. One earwig might take a bite, but the rest of the population never sees it. If you want a bait, use one whose label lists earwigs. Spinosad baits are the option UC calls the most effective and environmentally sound. Even then, baits are for outside around the foundation, not for indoor use.
Identifying Earwigs
Make sure it’s an earwig before you buy traps. Our area has two main species: the European earwig and the smaller ring-legged earwig. Virginia Cooperative Extension notes that European earwigs cause most homeowner complaints.
Adults are about 3/4 inch long, with flat, reddish-brown to black bodies. The pincers at the tail are the giveaway. Males have curved pincers. Females have straighter ones. Short, leathery front wings cover only the first few belly segments.
People mix earwigs up with other bugs more than you’d think. Daren, one of our registered technicians, says customers sometimes call in earwigs thinking they’re termites. Silverfish are another common mix-up. Silverfish are silver-gray with long antennae and no pincers. Our earwig vs. silverfish guide shows the two side by side.
Earwig Behavior That Makes Trapping Work
Earwigs come out only at night. During the day they pack into mulch, leaf litter, stone piles, cardboard, and anything else that’s dark and damp. Every trap on this page works by offering them a better hiding spot than the one they have.
There’s one generation per year here. Females lay masses of 30 or more eggs in soil cells in late fall and winter, and guard them. Young earwigs show up in late April and May. Adult numbers peak from June through August.
Earwigs dry out fast in open air. They crowd around damp basements, crawl spaces, and spots with poor drainage. When we inspect a home for earwigs, we check those moisture zones first, because that’s where the problem starts.
That’s also why a trap in a dry upstairs bedroom catches almost nothing, while one along a damp basement wall has a much better shot.
Best Earwig Traps for Outside
Outside is where trapping really cuts numbers, because that’s where earwigs live and breed.
Oil Traps
An oil trap is a low can, like a tuna or cat food can, with about half an inch of oil in the bottom. The University of California suggests fish oil (tuna oil works) or vegetable oil with a drop of bacon grease. Sink the can so the rim is level with the soil in a mulch bed or along the foundation. Earwigs crawl in and can’t climb out.
Empty it into the trash, top off the oil, and set it again. Colorado State suggests checking every two to three days. In a heavy summer, daily is better. Rain floats the oil out, so refill after storms.
Rolled Cardboard, Newspaper, and Bamboo Traps
These are the outdoor version of the damp-towel trap. Roll corrugated cardboard or newspaper, or cut short sections of bamboo or old garden hose. Lay them on the soil near plants just before dark. Next morning, shake them into soapy water. Keep going daily until you stop catching anything.
Board Traps
Small wooden boards laid flat on the ground give earwigs a dark gap to crawl under. Flip them in the morning and you’ll see how many are around.
In a University of California, Davis study in citrus groves, researchers compared four ways to sample earwigs. Small wooden boards, at less than $2 each, caught many more earwigs per trap than the other methods. That was in orchards, not yards, but the same habit makes them work along a foundation bed.
Where and When to Set Earwig Traps
Where to Place Traps
Outside, set traps where you’ve seen earwigs or plant damage. Good spots are mulch beds, flower borders, the base of foundation walls, and under outdoor lights. Inside, go for corners, the edge where wall meets floor, under sinks, and along basement walls.
When to Start
Start in late April, when young earwigs first appear. Add more traps from June through August, when adults peak. Dry spells in summer push earwigs indoors looking for moisture, so that’s when indoor traps earn their keep.
Wind down in fall as earwigs settle in to overwinter. Keep a few traps out through October, especially after heavy rain.
Making Traps Work Better
Traps alone won’t fix an earwig problem that keeps coming back. They work much better once the yard stops making new earwigs right against your walls.
Dry Out the Foundation
Point downspouts away from the foundation. Fix leaky spigots and irrigation lines. Use drip lines in beds against the house instead of sprinklers. Inside, a dehumidifier in a damp basement makes it less inviting. Daren often suggests a dehumidifier before any chemical for moisture-loving pests. He has seen a centipede population drop by half in a month from a dehumidifier and some moisture-absorbing bags alone.
Remove Hiding Spots
Pull thick mulch back a few inches from the foundation. Clear leaf piles, stacked lumber, and stored cardboard near the house. The fewer hiding spots earwigs have, the more of them end up in your traps.
Seal the Obvious Gaps
Install door sweeps, fix torn screens, and caulk gaps around doors, windows, and vents. Be realistic about it, though. Daren puts it bluntly: you can’t seal every crack in a house well enough to keep insects out. Sealing helps. Drying out the outside of the house helps more.
Change Your Lighting
Swap bright outdoor bulbs for yellow bug lights. UC notes yellow or sodium vapor bulbs draw fewer earwigs.
When Traps Need Backup
Sometimes trapping can’t keep up, usually in a wet summer with lots of mulch against the house. Spinosad baits like Sluggo Plus can help when scattered around the foundation and plant beds at night. Dampening the bait may make it more attractive. UC notes baits work poorly when earwigs have other good food nearby, so put them out early in the season, before plants are under attack.
Stronger perimeter sprays with carbaryl or pyrethroids can knock down a severe problem. We use those only as spot treatments, because they also hit other ground insects. If you’d rather kill them than catch them, our guide on how to kill earwigs goes through those options.
Tracking Your Catch
Write down your trap counts each morning for the first couple of weeks, and note the weather. Earwig activity often jumps a day or two after a heavy rain. If one trap keeps filling while others stay empty, add traps near it and look for the wet spot or mulch pile behind it.
When to Call a Professional
If your traps are still full after three or four weeks of steady trapping and moisture fixes, the source is probably something you can’t see. Common ones are a wet crawl space, a clogged drain line, or soil that stays soaked against one wall. Our technicians, who also provide pest control in Jessup and across Maryland and Virginia, start by confirming you have earwigs and not a look-alike.
Our 78-Point Home Inspection covers entry points, moisture sources, and the conditions that draw earwigs in, including hard-to-reach spots like crawl spaces. We use products vetted by our research team, which removed 9 of the harshest products common in the industry. Ongoing pest plans start around $49/month, plus a one-time $200 setup fee on the first visit. Earwigs and other perimeter pests are covered under the plan. See all our earwig information in the pest library.
If you’re struggling with earwigs, call us at 703-683-2000 or email info@bettertermite.com for a free quote.
