Unwanted House Guests: Stink Bugs

I noticed, once again my little house guests, the stink bugs, are coming to nest for their winter rest from their festive summer season.   

It seems every year my little ones bring more and more friends. During the height of their visit last year I was capturing up to 30 in one day. While they don’t really bug me, I do find the leave markings all over the place, even staining my curtains and they like to eat some of my plants. So I’ve taken to learning about my little house guests.

They love to watch the sunrise and sunset, so I go to the windows and curtains during those times to capture them in a zip-top baggie after I learned that vacuuming them up creates the wonderful stink for which they are so aptly named. 

I decided to investigate traps, and now I noticed in the local hardware store there are a few traps. But last year there wasn’t and what I learned online is that folks think they are attracted to the color yellow. I have a scientific mind and just can’t stop myself from experimenting. They like the color green. At least in the light spectrum they go towards green light and of course white light which contains green. 

They run away from the blue diode light found in many of the new night lights. They actually will seek out shadows to avoid this light. Try this yourself for areas which you want to keep bugs from such as the kitchen area or maybe the baby's room. While they may hide in a shadow in the room, they should stay away from spreading germs on your countertops.

They go towards natural light so you can use it as an attractor area for bug capture during the evening hours. Keeping all light sources off but a natural bulb will bring them towards you. They seem to like the energy we humans emit, so do not be concerned if you find them flying towards you. They will not bite.

Right now the migration is starting and one very effective way to keep them under control is to capture them during this phase of migration. They are looking for tight spaces to crawl into to get to winter protection. So simulating a tight space will cause them to go into that space.

One gentleman shared that he captures a few hundred with his little ingenious tool of two yellow cardboard pieces glued to two sides of a thin sticks so the gap between the two is about an 1/8th of an inch. He shakes them out into a trash bag daily. But this only works for migration, and during the visiting season I have designed similar beautiful spaces for them to enjoy and not one decided to partake.

The other things I found in my research which may spark an idea of your own is they like to climb, go east (maybe placement of trap needs to be in the east part of the home) and towards a draft. Someone said they have used a cup of lemon dish detergent and hot water. I haven’t tried this yet, but I thought if that attracted them I should have seen some in the pans I soak overnight.

This year I may get these house guests a gift of a trap and I may not wait for Christmas to allow them to enjoy it. Please if you have additional insight into our pesky friends, post comments.

Ironically as I type this last line my first visitor is buzzing around my head and I must go attend to my newly arrived guest. Good hunting!

Dr. Linda Bender, MscD of Bender Healing nurtures wellness through touch therapies and life coaching including environmental solutions. Find more info on her work at BenderHealing.com