Colette and Mike Reynolds awoke Sunday morning to find a nightmare scene of thousands of creepy crickets infesting their home in Elko, Nevada — and the city itself.
Known as Mormon crickets, Colette has lived in the city her whole life, and told The Post they’re used to a few of them migrating into their house each year, but never have they seen it this bad before.
“They are foul, vile, stinky, disgusting carnivorous, cannibalistic crickets — huge ones,” she said.
Colette revealed that she first noticed just two crickets on her porch the day prior, on Saturday, thinking they must be coming soon, but not expecting anything of magnitude.
“The next morning is when we woke up to our entire wall covered with crickets,” she said.
The Reynolds purchased their dream family home in 2015.
Made up of four bedrooms and three baths, the home is situated on nearly 3 acres and spans over 2,600 square feet.
“It’s been bad and they devour everything. We have 3 acres. We have 200 trees, we have bushes and rose bushes and they love that stuff. They’ve got an acre of lawn that they can devour.”
Colette, who is one of the top realtors in town, says she has no plans of moving, but adds these bugs have definitely taken a toll on her and her husband’s mental wellbeing.
The Reynolds called an exterminator, but upon their arrival they said there was nothing much they could do except “wait it out.” If one dies, these crickets have no problem eating it.
“I’m like, wait, no, this is apocalyptic. There isn’t just a stream of them going through my yard. This is taking over my entire home,” Colette said.
So despite their advice, her husband began hosing them down, killing them — that is until they witnessed the crickets who were alive eating the ones that were dead.
“It’s disgusting. We’d killed maybe like 5,000 of them. And the next day it was 10 times worse.”
“This has hit me on another level,” Colette said. “I never expected what this would do to me emotionally or mentally. And my husband, who is the most cool, calm collected guy in the world, even he’s like, ‘this is hitting me hard. I feel weird.’”
Colette revealed that about 35 crickets have even found a way to enter their home, despite their attempts to keep them out.
The crickets aren’t only targeting their home but all of Elko, with their local hospital Northeastern Nevada Regional being inundated with these creepy crawlers.
“I get anxiety, depression; the first two nights I didn’t sleep at all,” Colette said. “I haven’t really been able to eat — I lost 3 pounds in five days.”
And because of a surgery and slew of health complications, she is unable to leave the house. One bad move could make her quadriplegic, Colette adds.
“I’m a prisoner in my own my home.”
“Our poor dogs. Our dogs are having nightmares,” she added. “Oh my God, in the night they are crying. Last year they would chase them around. But now they just look out the window and whine and cry.”
Their new puppy, who is house trained, has even urinated in the house several times out of fear for going outside.
Colette revealed that other houses in the neighborhood have been swarmed with crickets but nothing like what their house is currently facing.
“Everybody’s like, ‘this is apocalyptic. It feels Biblical.’ Yeah. And I have to agree,” she said.
The plus side, these insects don’t bite and are not poisonous — but they are disgusting.
Usually these crickets will leave in about five days, but this time they seem to be staying put.
“They will lay eggs … into the ground that sit dormant for a year, and they shoot out thousands of eggs, and then they will hatch the next year. So I’m really freaking out.”
Colette said the bugs have really taken a toll on her life, saying that even she had to cancel her son’s birthday.
Luckily, her two boys are all grown up and staying away from the house at the moment.
What’s worse, the crickets have attracted a load of birds who see endless dinner.
“We’ve had hundreds of big crows and hawks and it’s pretty eerie feeling. It is an invading, disheartening feeling. You just feel hopeless. You feel violated. You feel isolated. I am so tired of seeing these things. You can’t eat because everything you look at just looks like crickets,” she said.
“I haven’t stopped crying since it started.”
She’s hoping if they do come back next year, they can be prepared and leave on vacation.
Colette, who has amassed 2 million followers on TikTok and is known as the “cool TikTok auntie” told The Post she is still looking at the bright side of all of this.
“The crickets have gotten me ready for bikini season — I’ve lost a few pounds.”