Read your page. We seem to find one bug every evening on the second floor. We have no garden, and none of us recall ever seeing any outside.
With the exception of one, they all seem to be dead when we find them. I’m assuming this is because they’ve found an areas where there is nothing for them to eat.
Advise?
J.S. Hamilton, NJ
Based on the fact you’re located up in the Northeast, I know your winters can last 5+ months. If in fact you’re finding a stink bug dead every day, the amount of stink bugs over the course of the winter that would die inside should amount to hundreds. Suffice to say there must be a decent amount of these insects over wintering in your home right now and if this problem follows the course of most, it will only get worse. With that in mind, there are some things you can do now to help control the problem. However, the key for you will be treatments made in the spring if you wish to deliver the “knock out” blow to this blossoming problem.
As our online STINK BUG ARTICLE explains, this invasive pest will forage into homes mostly in the fall. This can happen seemingly overnight and in most cases goes unnoticed by the homeowner. I suspect that’s what happened here. Regardless, you don’t seem to be overwhelmed with them just yet so the situation seems manageable for the time being. However, there is clearly a line of sight or pathway into some living areas of the home and they’ve found it. Based on where you’re mostly finding the carcasses, it would seem as though this population is in the attic. If this area is accessible, treating with the DELTAMETHRIN DUST we have featured in our article would be a good starting point. These treatments last a long time and by getting a good dusting done in this area, you should be protected through the spring and even into next fall. It’s quite possible you won’t be able to see any stink bugs in the attic now but this area is almost always used by them at some point when over wintering in any structure. Treating it with the dust can have a huge impact on their travels and is generally one of the best treatment options in the long run. In fact, if the attic was dusted prior to the stink bugs getting into the home, chances are this one act alone would have prevented any level of infestation.
For the living area, treating any rooms with activity using the D-FORCE AEROSOL or the ECO KO AEROSOL would help. Chances are high you’ll kill any migrating toward the warmth of your living spaces before they could enter. Additionally, you’d be making the warm spots uninhabitable by them. In fact, the extreme cold is probably causing more to die than anything else. During the winter, they don’t need to eat so it’s not a food related issue causing the dead ones to appear but rather a response in the middle of the winter given local variables like the warmth of your house, the cold outside and the current location where the bulk of them seem to be resting.
Lastly, this spring you’ll need to spray the outside of the home with the CYPERMETHRIN listed in our article. This treatment will intercept the emerging population from your attic when it finally gets warm enough for them to leave. Since it’s common for stink bugs to leave and return to the homes they’ve nested on all winter a good liquid treatment will ensure they cannot get away with using your home as a hotel. If timed right, it’s quite likely you could get rid of all the activity on the home so this fall there won’t be any returning.
If you have further questions or concerns, please give us a call on our toll free 1-800-877-7290.
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