7 Bugs, Including Stink Bugs, Crawling In Your House Right Now

We don’t want to alarm you or cause you to break out into a psychosomatic rash, but six species of insects and another species you may mistake for an insect are, well, itching to get in your house right now. Yes, at this instant. Winter is coming, and they’re scrambling as fast as their legs and wings can carry them for a place to hunker down and hibernate until warmer temperatures return.

Topping the list of fall invaders are brown marmorated stink bugs. They have been reported in 43 states and four Canadian provinces, and are well-established in the Mid-Atlantic states. The worst thing you can do if you spot them is squash them. There’s a reason they’re called stink bugs, and you should trust this. Pee-yew.

If you’re unable to suppress your insect-killer instinct to stomp, don’t say we didn’t warn you that when frightened or disturbed — which obviously includes any manner of stomping — they put off an odor so foul that you’ll be tempted to just deed your house to them.

Gasp, Piercing, Sucking Mouth Parts

Let’s be clear: Stink bugs don’t belong here — they hitchhiked into the United States, likely in shipping containers from China, Japan and Korea — and though harmless to people and pets, they’re certainly not harmless to the fruits, vegetables and ornamental plants they decimate with their piercing and sucking mouth parts. Piercing, sucking mouth parts; just ponder that for a few seconds. They are such a threat to food crops that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has even established a stink bug SWAT team of sorts to track their spread across the United States.

As they make their way inside, rest assured that they’re also not nesting, laying eggs or feeding on anything or anyone in your house. You could just leave them alone and hope they find their way out of your house in the spring and that no one stirs up a stinky ruckus with them in the meantime.

What to do: A better plan is to spend some time blocking off access points — gaps around window air conditioners or holes in window screens — to stop their invasion. The extension service also recommends an easy, non-toxic method of getting rid of them. Just sweep them into a bucket and then fill it with a couple of inches of soapy water. They will perish in the soapy water, and you can dispose of it outside. Or you can add soapy water to a shop vacuum canister and then suck them up.

Another Stinker: Asian Lady Beetles

In the autumn, stink bugs aren’t the only insects that want to wait out the winter in your home, and they’re not the only ones that will offend your olfactory senses. When handled roughly, the multi-colored Asian lady beetle can ooze an orange bad-smelling liquid from its leg joints.

Asian lady beetles hitchhiked their way to the United States, too. They’re also very hungry and serve a beneficial role as natural predator of many other pests, especially aphids, these voracious eaters’ favorite.

But they’re also troublemakers. Though they are generally harmless to people and pets and don’t cause structural damage, when large numbers of them enter buildings, they can begin to affect the quality of your life. They crawl about on windows and walls and in attics, often emitting a noxious odor and yellowish staining fluid before dying. Ew.

What to do: It is best to get rid of them before they foul your house with their stench. Because they can be beneficial, this can be tricky. First, know for sure what kind of beetle you’re dealing with. They come in a variety of colors from pale tan to a brilliant red-orange and can have no spots, many spots or large or small spots. The black and white markings directly behind the head identify Asian lady beetles.

Watch the sunlit side of buildings for swarming beetles. Large groups collect before moving to their hibernation sites, and you can apply an insecticide approved for outdoor use when they do. Also, do what you can to caulk places where the beetles can get inside — obviously, cracks and other spaces beetles can easily access, but also places wherever a pipe, conduit, telephone or cable TV wire goes through the siding. Check attic windows and repair if necessary, and make sure the weather seal on basement windows is tight.

Despite your best efforts, they can get inside your house. You can control them with an indoor insecticide product, that isn’t recommended. If they’re flying and crawling about inside, it’s cold outside, and if it’s cold outside, your furnace is running, recirculating the insecticide in your home. A better plan is to suck them up with a hand-held or other vacuum with a bag that can be emptied.

Stink Bug Look-Alike May Bite You

If you sealed up all the cracks and crevices as a fortress against Asian lady beetles, you should be good to go in your battle against western conifer seed bugs — unless you have loosely hung vinyl siding, and no amount of caulking is going to keep them out.

You’re likely to find these bugs in areas with evergreen trees old enough to produce cones, because they like to feed on the gooey goodness inside of the conifer seeds. They closely resemble stink bugs but have wider hind legs.

Western conifer seed bugs also have — here’s that chilling phrase again — piercing, sucking mouth parts, and at least have the potential to bite humans. It was probably an accident or a fluke, according to researchers in Budapest, Hungary, but resulted in a fairly painful irritation and lesion that lasted 48 hours, and the area the bug chomped remained red for about a month.

Still, think of western conifer seed bugs’ invasion into your heated home the same way you’d look at a free Caribbean vacation in the numbing cold of January. There’s no way you’re not going to take it — even though you could survive without it. These bugs could simply go dormant in their hiding places behind siding and in attics and you’d never see them, but they think your heated home is Jamaica.

What to do: Deal with it? Once they’re inside walls, there’s not much you can do. It’s likely you’ll continue to see them throughout the winter. Insecticides approved for indoor use can be expensive, and it’s nearly impossible to treat every surface. These bugs are lethargic, so you should be able to vacuum them up.

Boxelder Bugs Do Not Vote

Did you know that in some parts of the country, boxelder bugs are known as Democrat bugs, a term of denigration? Just a little trivia. Boxelder bugs sure are pretty, though. They’re dark gray or black, and their red-edged wings form a V-shape in the middle of their backs. They are found wherever boxelder trees are nearby, and in the fall, they look for dry, protected sites, including attics and wall cavities, to spend the winter.

They’re harmless. They don’t chew on you, your food or your clothes. They don’t lay eggs. Like the western conifer seed bugs, they just hang out in your home like they’re on vacation in Jamaica.

What to do: Your best weapon of defense is a caulking gun here, too. Once they’re in, even aggressive and costly insecticide applications may not be effective because it is nearly impossible to treat every hidden area that may be harboring insects. Sealing cracks around electrical outlet boxes, switches and light fixtures, and around window and baseboard molding on the inside walls will help keep the bugs trapped within the walls. In older homes with double-hung windows equipped with pulleys, insects commonly enter living areas through the pulley opening. Masking tape applied over the opening will keep insects from entering through this route. Vacuuming up the sluggish, slow moving bugs works, too.

Nasty Cluster Flies

Cluster flies look a lot like the common house fly, but have a patch of yellow hairs under their wings. They get in your house by squeezing through cracks around windows and doors, loosely hung siding, soffit vents, louvers and other entry points, and they live up to their name and come into your home in clusters.

If they’re in your home, they’re likely to remain active throughout the winter months. They’re harmless enough. They don’t bite. They don’t transmit disease. They don’t feed or lay eggs during this time.

But they are, after all, flies, and no one wants them buzzing around.

What to do: Get a flyswatter. Indoor aerosol insecticides are effective, too. They’re slow movers, so the vacuum cleaner is an effective weapon. Winterization maintenance actions like those advised for other fall invaders can help keep them out, but once they’re in, they’re in.

Sowbugs, Millipedes And Centipedes

They’re not actually insects, but arthropods related to insects, and they’re generally beneficial when found outdoors. So don’t kill them. They’re innocuous inside, too, and aren’t harmful to food, clothing, furniture or other items, though you probably don’t want them making an appearance at a family dinner.

Their preferred habitats are heavily mulched flowerbeds, moist, decaying leaf litter and other organic material found around building foundations. In unusually wet conditions, coming into your house is merely self-preservation so they won’t drown.

Millipedes, which can have as many as 400 very short legs and centipedes, which have 15 pair of long, jointed legs, come into your home to escape excessive moisture, but the sowbug’s breathing apparatus and body structure require a moist atmosphere and decaying organic matter to feed on, so they’re not likely to survive in your home unless you have both.

Fun fact: Sowbugs are land crustaceans related to lobsters, crabs and crayfish, and they resemble a tiny turtles or armadillos.

What to do: Give them a break. They’re not going to live long in your house anyway. Caulk or seal cracks and openings in exterior foundation walls, around doors and ground-level windows by late summer; rake leaves away from the foundation; and trim and thin plantings around the foundation to make the area less attractive. If they do make it inside in large numbers and seem unstoppable, turn on your dehumidifier, sweep them or suck them up in a vacuum cleaner, or use sticky traps.

Bonus for Arachnophobes (Sort Of)

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle has debunked the notion that spiders move into your house in the fall. That’s good news for arachnophobes, but this not so much:

The spiders you’re seeing have been there all along, having adapted to constant climate, a poor food supply and a very poor water supply. When large numbers of them appear at once, it’s because they’ve come out for mating season. That usually happens in late summer, so you’re in the clear. Generally speaking, the museum’s Rod Crawford wrote in his blog, “fewer than 5 percent of the spiders you see indoors have ever been outdoors.”

“In contrast, outdoor spider species are not adapted to indoor conditions,” he wrote. “Any North American spider that needed artificial shelter for the winter, would have been extinct long before Europeans arrived! Spiders are ‘cold-blooded’ and not attracted to warmth. They don’t shiver or get uncomfortable when it’s cold, they just become less active and eventually, dormant. Most temperate zone spiders have enough ‘antifreeze’ in their bodies that they won't freeze at any temperature down to -5 degrees Celsius; some can get colder. The few typical outdoor spiders that do end up indoors, die or at least don't reproduce.”

So there’s that.

What to do: Spiders love to make their webs in plants and piles of leaves or wood. The best way to stop spiders from getting inside your house is to plant ornamentals away the foundation. Create some distance between your house and theirs. As with the other inspects, get busy with your caulking gun. Also, clean your house. This not only stops spiders, but also the tiny insects they feed on. Suck their webs up in a vacuum. You can set spider traps around your house, but a word of caution: The aroma that is pleasant to spiders is offensive to humans and pets.

Spider repellants are also effective. Poisons are a last-resort solution due to the danger they present to pets.

Featured image: AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File