Cricket population surge overwhelms Central Texans, experts offer advice

Businesses and residents in Rockdale have been seeing large droves of crickets since Tuesday, and experts from Texas A&M University are offering advice for how to deal with them.

• Businesses in the area are sweeping out hundreds of crickets, clustering at doors and inside buildings, daily.
• Texas A&M Entomology Professor says he can't pinpoint an exact reason why a large population of crickets are showing up but believes its due to changes in environmental conditions.
• He advises people to turn off lights, which attract the crickets, and use brooms to sweep them out. Residents should use caution with pesticides.
• Experts predict the population will die off within the next 1-2 weeks.

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Nathan Bland and his co-workers at Rollo Insurance in Rockdale are sweeping like never before.

"Usually, we don't have to clean near as often," Bland, an associate at the business, said.

Crickets are back in Central Texas, but with a force he's never seen.

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"We came in Tuesday morning, and there was literally hundreds just inside the inside the front door," he said.

Dozens are lining sidewalks and businesses causing odors, noise and annoyance, so 25 News spoke with Texas A&M Entomology Professor Hojun Song to see why.

"Well, I think that scientists are thinking that is, it is a result of interaction of several environmental conditions," Song said.

Like a mild winter and wet summer.

"Those conditions provided optimal situation for these crickets population to grow rapidly," he said.

And with a lack of natural predators —

"Then, you have a massive growth in population," Song said.

But one way to prevent crickets from getting in your homes and businesses —

"These insects are naturally attracted to light, so one way to try to mitigate the situation is turn off the light," Song said.

And he doesn't advise squishing them since they can stain surfaces or using harmful pesticides.

"You can use your broomstick to just clean those things out," Song said.

While crickets presence can be considered a nuisance, Song believe its a natural phenomenon.

"I tend to consider it as a small nature's wonder in Texas," he said.

"We just got to kinda watch out for any more plague start to make sure there's no frogs falling out of the sky or anything like that," Bland said.