What Attracts Camel Crickets to Your House?

Camel crickets are an ordinary ‘accidental invader’ — a species that lives outdoors under logs, stones, and leaf litter and wanders into a structure through a foundation gap or open door without ever intending to stay. What decides whether they linger indoors is simply whether the space matches the cool, dark, humid microclimate they already prefer: an unfinished basement, a damp crawlspace, or a cluttered garage corner qualifies; a dry, well-lit room does not. They don't need much food to survive for weeks at a time, so their presence tracks moisture and darkness far more closely than anything else in the house. In New Hampshire this makes them a year-round basement and crawlspace fixture rather than a seasonal one: the region's older housing stock — fieldstone and rubble foundations, dirt-floored crawlspaces, and the perimeter dampness that comes with a high water table in low-lying southern New Hampshire lots — holds exactly the steady humidity camel crickets need, and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension notes they are among the most common accidental invaders of cool, moist Northern New England cellars.