Found while sweeping the chimney - after 1st yr of an EPA stove

OH GROSS. Note to self. Buy insect-proof cap!

I remember stinkbugs in South Texas when I was growing up, though. We'd find them in the outside stairs all the time. I hadn't heard about a new, invasive species.

We have earwigs really bad in Utah. I am no shrinking violet, however, once I picked up my broom for the first time after the spring thaw, knocked it against the ground, and had approximately FIVE FRILLION EARWIGS boil out of the thing, I screamed like a banshee and ran for the house and made my husband go out there with the big flyswatter. =P

Nothing, NOTHING, beats the Southern House Cockroach, however. Three inches long, and the bastards FLY. Nothing like lying in your bed at night, woken by some strange sound... and then you realize it's the buzzing of a cockroach right over your head. And once you work up the nerve to get up and turn on the light, it's GONE. *shudder*

~Rose

Creepy, crawling bugs getting into your bed at night? Solution: 4 three pound coffee cans filled with old engine oil. Place each leg of your bed inside one filled coffee/oil can and keep your sheets/blankets tucked in at all times - kept cockroaches out of our bed when we lived in Texas military housing.

Shari

I lived in Maine for close to 20 years and have never seen one of those before!

albertj03 said:

We've had stink bugs here (Maine) for as long as I can remember. I've never had them in mass quantities trying to get into the house before though, just one here or there outside.

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pen said:

sweet mother of god. If china hasn't helped us enough.

pen

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They probably eat ethylene glycol for lunch.

albertj03 said:

We've had stink bugs here (Maine) for as long as I can remember. I've never had them in mass quantities trying to get into the house before though, just one here or there outside.

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Brings to mind one of my all-time favorite poems:

Eat-It-All Elaine
By: Kaye Starbird

I went away last August, to Summer Camp in Maine.
And there I met a camper, called Eat-It-All Elaine.
Although Elaine was quiet, she liked to cause a sir
By acting out the nickname, her camp-mates gave to her.
The day of our arrival, in Cabin #3,
When girls kept coming over, to greet Elaine and me,
She took a piece of Kleenex, and calmly chewed it up,
Then strolled outside the cabin, and ate a buttercup.
Elaine from that day forward, was always in command.
On hikes, she’d eat some birch-bark, on swims, she’d eat some sand.
At meals she’d swallow prune-pits, and never had a pain,
While everyone around her would giggle, “Oh Elaine!”
One morning, berry-picking, a bug was in her pail.
And though we thought for certain her appetite would fail,
Elaine said, “Hmmm, a stinkbug”, and while we murmured “Ewww!”,
She ate her pail of berries and she ate the stinkbug too!
The night of Final Banquet, when Counselors were handing,
Awards to different children whom they believed outstanding,
To every “thinking” person, at Summer Camp in Maine,
The Most Outstanding Camper, was Eat-It-All Elaine.


-Speak

just 1 more reason to buy American! lol

OK, somebody here's gotta have a friend in China. I'm sure they've found a way to cook these things.

We all over the house here in the lower Hudson Valley. Not swarms just singles wandering around. We had a bedbug scare at work a couple weeks ago. I haven't seen any yet.

NATE379 said:

I lived in Maine for close to 20 years and have never seen one of those before!

albertj03 said:

We've had stink bugs here (Maine) for as long as I can remember. I've never had them in mass quantities trying to get into the house before though, just one here or there outside.

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Can't say as though I've ever seen one either.

there new here....they are also damaging apple orchards..and are hard to kill.

I'll take stink bugs over the Asian Long Horned Beetle. These suckers will see to it that there are no hardwoods left for us to burn. I think Worcester, MA had to cut down 25,000 trees after finding an infestation.

Have not seen any here in my part of Ohio. We do have plenty of EAB's though. I did find a petrified bat in the bottom of my flue when I cleaned it this fall. Not as bad as stink bugs but not something I wanted to find. My wife is a biology teacher and took it into her classroom.

That snakehead fish from china is one bad mamma! Dont forget the cudzu vine (spelling) The Chinese eat both to keep them in check. Wonder if they eat stink bugs.

firefighterjake said:

NATE379 said:

I lived in Maine for close to 20 years and have never seen one of those before!

albertj03 said:

We've had stink bugs here (Maine) for as long as I can remember. I've never had them in mass quantities trying to get into the house before though, just one here or there outside.

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Can't say as though I've ever seen one either.

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Must only be in southern Maine. I've seen them too, but like Albert, only a few and here and there. We would see them up in Brunswick when we lived there as well.

BrowningBAR said:

Green Energy said:

I am glad I sweep the flue and found these things BEFORE I started a fire. Baked stink bugs would have been even nastier. I wonder how many more people have a bunch of these things in there chimneys and flues?

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I can confirm that those little bastards can handle quite a lot of heat.

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I would give them another dose of heat, Fire up that stove and throw them in. :blank:

I'm in S. NH and we've had them for years. Squish one and you'll know why they call them stink bugs. There are hundreds of varieties of these world wide. What's freaky is seeing them indoors in the middle of the winter.

For those not on the east coast who haven't experienced the stink bug infestation, it's unbelievable. I am in Maryland and there were tens of thousands of them on the outside of my house this past fall. We have always had stink bugs here just like most of you. But you only saw one every once in a while. This new species of stink bug that came from China in a shipping crate and settled in western PA and has since been branching out.

Somehow they were able get into my home. I think it happened through the attic. It's now 1/17/11 and we have pulled close to 500 stink bugs out of the house since fall. We seem to find 8 to 10 a day. And they are still alive!

What amazes me is that most flying bugs that come into the home will die within a few days. It's just too dry for them to survive. But the stink bugs can go months in the home without eating or drinking anything. They are the toughest bug I have ever seen.

fire_man said:

pen said:

sweet mother of god. If china hasn't helped us enough.

pen

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They probably eat ethylene glycol for lunch.

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I have watched roaches drink ethylene glycol, and then act drunk for hours. I was working in a tunnel and a bunch of glycol spilled on the ground. A big roach walked into the puddle I gues he drank some and then he walked out of the puddle and proceeded to walk around in circles for about 3 hours, he still doing donuts when i left.

They look very similar to box elder bugs.
http://doyourownpestcontrol.com/boxelder.htm

I got SWAMPED with them this year. I saw what looks like hundreds of thousands of them in an area in my front yard.. I tried to kill them with RAID and even some straight gasoline but they were unstoppable. My house has light tan siding and the south and west sides of the house are wide open. The bugs are attracted to the light color and stuck to the sidings by the hundreds. I know my house is not air tight, but evidentally it's much worse than I thought because I found LOTS of them inside several rooms as they can squeeze in thru cracks. They vanished when it got cold, but the last few days they are finding a way to get in AGAIN and are still alive. They must be in the attic and coming down the walls, or are somehow getting into the vents. I dont know, but it's amazing where I've found them.

From what I've read, they are non destructive and wont eat your house. They will die off in a few days. Also, their numbers will vary from year to year. This past summer was a very very bad year.

better than mice -- I guess...

I didn't realize these things like wood until i found a gang of them on a few logs..... I sprayed around the pile with some demon and they were gone. Demon WP is great for spiders too

Just one of the advantages I'll be reminding myself of during the impending below 0 weather we're to see!

allhandsworking said:

DanCorcoran said:

Folks, let's be real. There are pests all over the world. If a country imports billions of dollars worth of merchandise over the years from other countries, sooner or later a hitchhiking pest is going to arrive. I'm sure the US has shipped it's share over the years...

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Oh it's too much fun to complain! What about bed bugs the exterminators are loving it!

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lol we dont really export much anymore we are all a bunch of consumers. But thats another topic all together.

Those nasty bastards are always bothering me in the summer when i am working on a bike at night with the garage light on and the door open. They also like to hang out at the light right by my front door so as soon as i open it they fly in the house.

we have seen plenty here in MD. I'm sure there are many rumors and folklore about them. One rumor I heard is plain water and dishsoap will repel them, doesn't sound too promising to me. Another rumor that sounds a little more plausible to me is to make sure you squash or kill them outdoors because the stink or scent they emit when squashed attracts more. Who knows... food for thought.