Chirping Crickets: Good Luck or Annoying Nuisance?

In some cultures having a singing cricket in your house is considered good luck; but most Monmouth County, New Jersey home owners find these noisy insects more annoying than lucky. The high-pitched “song” of a cricket hiding somewhere in your basement or crawl space can be annoying enough to launch a late-night hunt for the offending nocturnal songster.

Failure to uncover the cricket’s hiding place can prevent Ocean County NJ homeowners from getting a good night’s sleep. Cricket song is like a dripping faucet. Just when you think it’s finally stopped, it chirps again!

The strident chirping sound that so annoys New Jersey homeowners is actually the insect’s mating call and is only made by male crickets. Crickets “chirp” by rubbing the top of one wing against the bottom of the other. Disturbance of a serrated, comb-like vein that runs along the bottom edge of both wings creates the chirping sound.

If you’re a fan of The Big Bang Theory on CBS, you’ll be interested to know that there actually is a cricket chirp equation that allows you to calculate ambient temperature from the rate at which a cricket chirps. Basically chirp rates get faster as temperatures rise and slow down as temperatures drop. Called Dolbear’s Law, the equation was developed by Professor A. E. Dolbear of Tufts College in 1897 (click the link to do the math).

You may have gotten a chuckle out of Sheldon and Wolowitz’s cricket argument, but a cricket in your Monmouth NJ home is no joke. Don’t lose another night’s sleep; call the cricket exterminators at Allison Pest Control.