Stinkbugs – Yes, they are back and they seem to be worse than last year. With the changing of the seasons they are congregating on the sides of home, windows and doors seeking any little crack or crevasse so that they may come and join you inside for the winter. They are seeking warmth during the fall and winter, so they want to become your best friends when it is cold and may number in the thousands if your house isn’t well sealed. You can kill them by the hundreds but more will arrive to take their place.
Stinkbugs haven’t been around very long. They hitched a ride from Asia back in the 1990s and have been moving and populating since. The problem is they don’t have a common predator to keep them in check. Birds don’t want to eat them, neither do mammals or anything else for that matter.
The “stink” part of the bug’s name comes from a strong chemical it produces and then emits from its abdomen. Think of it as a fart multiplied by a hundred, even thousand fold.
We can’t get rid of them with the exception of manually removing them and sending them back outside or squishing them with a paper towel, however both methods are time consuming and the squish method creates a nasty odor.
You can make a soap trap which will draw the stick bugs to it:
- Use desk lamp with white, black or blue light to bring the bugs to a specific location where you are setting the trap. Stink bugs are naturally attraction to these types of light as well as certain pheromones.
- Put a pan of soapy water underneath the desk lamp. The stink bugs should begin to come to the pan after about 12 hours. The soapy water will then kill the bugs.
No matter what you do the life cycle will generally continue until spring when they return to the outside.
Yesterday we received 1.21 inches of rain in Otsego with the temperature of 70° – rainfall total for last week was 2.88 inches. Current temperature at 9am is a cool 54° still well above our average which should be in the 40s for a low and 60s for the high.
We will continue to see showers through the morning hours ending by mid afternoon though mist and drizzle may hang around through most of the day. Temperatures will struggle to get to 60°. Monday and Tuesday we will see our temps break 80° and possibly some records.
Wednesday we have a strong cold front coming which may create a stormy pattern for the day before temps begin to plummet as the polar jet moves into the area. We could see our first frost by the end of the week. I have a suspicion we will be hard pressed to see 80° again after this week.
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Get ready for that major pattern change! Below normal temps will move in starting Thursday! I love it!
Michael, I noticed not too many ladybugs this year…tons of stink bugs though. Usually the lady bugs are awful on the warm days.
I see it is a very quite Sunday. Been getting light mist here with a cool temperature of 54° There looks to be a big warm up for Monday, Tuesday and less so for Wednesday. The high in the forecast for Monday is 80 the record at Grand Rapids is 88 that record looks to be safe. As for Tuesday the high in the forecast is lower 80’s the record is 84 in 1939 that record should be safe and Wed record of 85 will be safe. Of bigger inportance is that there have only been 8 times it has… Read more »