Going crazy - stinkbug invasion

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joefrompa

Minister of Fire
Sep 7, 2010
810
SE PA
Hi all,

I've decided to declare my house infested with stinkbugs. My wife and I kill 10-20 a day that are inside our house. I have watched this for almost a year now and it's gotten WORSE with my weatherstripping and such - further, I have absolutely no idea where they get in. I watch carefully, and they never seem to "appear" anywhere. Except on the inside of extremely well sealed andersen casement windows, but I dont' see them appear there. They just suddenly exist.

I have had my house air-seal tested and have extremely few leaks. Those leaks I have have been sealed. The windows and doors are exceptionally well sealed. I have watched vents and other locations and never seen them emerge from there.

Further, my house is an open area away from significant agricultural lands (where they'd typically feed). I keep my trees/shrubs and such well trimmed and have never noticed them near any of my plantings.

I really don't want to hire an exterminator as, as far as I know, any measure taken will only be temporary. But I'm actually starting to lose sleep over it due to finding them in our bedroom at night, as well as my wife had one crawling on her at 3am - that was unpleasant.

Any and all suggestions welcome - also, they don't appear to be swarming anywhere I can tell. There's no central source. They appear anywhere we are and tend to crawl around light sources, but other than that they will be in dark rooms on any surface and never in any one room in particular.

Joe
 
Well at least these bugs dont smell like stinky farts. If they smelled like roses people would have them as pets.
 
They may not be getting in - they may be inside in sufficient quantities to be breeding. If you can find out what they use for food, maybe you can eliminate their food supply.
 
I have some coming down my chimney and squeezing through the gaps in my block-off plate--10 or 20 will drop down (alive) when I light the first fire of the season...

I do not think they can breed in the house, and they will die shortly of dehydration without access to water (I have quite a few drowned in my fishtank).

My house was like yours about 4-5 yrs ago, but it seems to have dropped off a bit, I might see a couple alive per week.
 
You can vacuum them up, and suck a few mothballs into the vac. That should kill the ones in there without releasing the stink. I haven't tried it, though. But we occasionally get invaded by different kinds of bugs, and the vac gets a workout. The mothballs, while they do smell, kill insects pretty well in the enclosed space of a vacuum bag.
 
Thankfully we don't have them up here yet. One thought is that they may be crawling up the foundation and getting in where the sill meets. I have also seen underneath siding that sheathing may not butt up tight against one another leaving small gaps.
 
Joe,
We have the same situation here in VA. There really is NOTHING that you can do to keep them out of your house, they will find a way in through the smallest of cracks. You are seeing them on the windows because they like heat and that is the warmest place of the house so they will always migrate towards sunny windows.

My advice is to check your attic, in the winter they find their way in to get out of the cold and come spring they can't find their way out. I pull up the insulation around my window vents in the attic and will find literally thousands of them every fall and spring (I use an old vacuum to suck them all up). Because of this we rarely if ever see one inside the house. P.S. they are hibernators so they can live a while without food and water.
 
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