crickets and other critters

cricket the size of ma, ri,ct & nj

in the last few weeks we have had an increase in crickets the size of massachusettes, rhode island, connecticut and new jersey, combined (puzzle pieces, but still!), in our house! these guys are huge, loud and ugly! they have kept us awake at night. they have scared us when they appear from out of nowhere it seems. these crickets even swim!

swimming cricket
i took this from inside and must
have been 6 to 8 feet away!

there have also been other critters too. some of those include ants, cave/camelback crickets, silverfish, millipede looking things, etc. since we have never lived in our own house before, we don't know what to do to get rid of them. js has talked about calling an exterminator and that would be great if it wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. i'm nervous about the chemicals that they might have to use and what might hurt us, especially because of pbs. i'm worried that they're leaving some sort of disease or other fungus or parasites or bacteria around for pbs, js or myself to possibly get sick. any suggestions for do it yourself extermination possibilities would be much appreciated.

larger image of swimming cricket

if we would have an exterminator come, how much do they normally charge? i'm sure it probably depends on the area that they need to spray, what they use and what needs to be done. our house is an older house and does not have a crawl space and is slab on grade, according to js. i think that means that the foundation sits right on the ground. the crickets have been mainly in the sun room, lower level family room, laundry room/utility room/bathroom and garage. 

we haven't seen any roaches, which i am very thankful about. we lived in a "second floor" apartment once where the front door was on the second floor but the "balcony" was on the ground. in this apartment we found roaches the size of half dollars. they were big, black and disgusting! needless to say, we moved out of there pretty quickly. there were other issues there too, but that's another post on privacy for a later time. one of the neighbors cooked a lot of ethnic food but i don't know if they ever cleaned up after themselves. so the roaches were definitely in heaven!

is there a safe, even environmentally friendly, do it yourself way to get rid of crickets and other critters? so far, knock on wood and any other wood product, we haven't had termites or mice, that we know of. that makes me feel a little better. we keep the house pretty clean because we don't want any of these critters as visitors or house guests. when we do see the crickets we have been killing them with a shoe or rolled up newspaper, so we're not against terminating them. but i guess by me asking about exterminators, you could probably figure that out.