South Florida has pythons and Texas has killer bees. If you live in the Northeast you probably have come in contact with our new pestilence called stink bugs. If you don’t have them now…you soon will. They are on the move, so dear southern people, tell the palmetto bugs (or as we call them up here: roaches) to get ready for new neighbors. My hub and I were in Florida in March and he found one there!
I dare you to say to my face that it hitch hiked with us.
Misery loves company, but I would not wish a stink bug infestation on anybody. Well. Maybe Orange County, California—as long as the Real Housewives there would be shown finding them in their jewelry boxes. Now THAT would be something worth seeing! (Go west, young stink bugs!)
I don’t know, nor do I care to know, what their official genus and species is…the only thing I want to know is the name of the person who packed them onto a crate bound for Pennsylvania and started this hell we are put through most months of the year.
A pox upon them.
They are gray, ugly, armor plated insects that you just want to squish the time out of them because they have driven you CRAZY!!! But we all warn each other.”Don’t smush them!” They are called stink bugs because of the musty odor that is released from God knows where when they are smushed. It’s also like a pheromone (or so my son tells me) that is used in the courtship ritual.
All I have to say on that account is P. U.
With the absence of stink bugs, this summer has been blissfully peaceful with the usual pesky mosquitoes, flies and ticks. I would happily endure those creatures year round if we could dispense with the stinkbugs. They fly up in your face when you lie in bed, you can be sitting in a chair, minding your business-watching TV..and you look over and one is perched on your glass of water. Ewwwwww!!! They are everywhere-it’s the annoyance that bugs both country and city folks alike.
No pun intended. Well, maybe.
They get into everything. In my attic they are INSIDE Rubbermaid containers that have been tightly closed and they are ALIVE!!!! When I pulled my Christmas decorations out in December, they were there. They love dark colored fabrics, so when I am rooting through the mountains of camo clothing on my back porch, I tread gingerly. When I was spring cleaning, I went to take down navy curtains in one of the bedrooms and found colonies of them huddled together in the rod pocket.
I still haven’t recovered fully from that one.
I can handle them anywhere but in the kitchen. I am afraid to walk away from whatever I am cooking. I fear that they will dive bomb into the meatloaf, I won’t see it, mix it in and …well, it just would be an awful thing. So I keep a water bottle with a small amount of water in it and then I scoop up all the ones I see. I like to think of it as Stink Bug Club Med.
Or water boarding.
They finally disappeared in June. I asked my middle son, who is studying them so that he can become a gazillionaire when he figures out how to exterminate them- where they went. He said, “You don’t want to know, mom.” “Excuse me…YES. I. DO.” He said that they were under the siding of the house and the barns, laying eggs, getting ready to reemerge in the fall.
That freaks me out, and that is hard to do. I raised 3 boys.
I’m trying to handle the whole “they are everywhere” thing like a mature adult. Obviously a bug that neither stings, nor eats fabric is not as nasty as those that do. At least that is what I tell my dear daughter in law who is PETRIFIED of them and screams like a banshee when she sees one. (But no judgment from me..that is the exact same reaction I have when I see a mouse. Again, no judgment from me. We are in this together, baby!) She has adjusted pretty well to country living-we are both former city girls and country living is not exactly like it looks in the glossy magazines. Ants in the spring. Mice in the winter.
And stink bugs at all times.
Get ready…they are coming to a town near you soon!
Blessings,
Stephanie
Front Porch Tales 
i’ll come sit on your porch….when?
Oh Baby, we have those stink’n bugs everywhere. And STINK they sure do & what about their little poop messes ? Come on boys and figure out a way to get rid of these pests. Because… I have also had it with these BUGS !!!
Yes!! Since we’re stuck with them I keep trying to find something about them I could like…all I could come up with is they’re not mean!
They are nasty things! I remember them from the Yankee years of my childhood. Please do not being them down here, we are up to our eyeballs in palmetto bugs!
I never laugh so hard after reading your comments. These bug are here in New York, all year round I see them. Never in my kitchen because they must have see me kill so many before. 6 feet of snow doesn’t stop them. What on earth would it take to kill them. I am all for sending them to the Middle East were the crazy Isis group live. I just want my life back without them.
Thanks for sharing your story,
Inez
In the South (Tennessee) I see some in my garden but in the house, hiding behind and between everything waiting for a warm day, we have hundreds of ladybugs. They stink too and can bite. Other people who have Box Elders trees are inundated with Box Elder bugs. You just can’t win!
We also have Asian beetles which look like brown ladybugs. Not so pretty!
Ah yes…the pesky stink bug. I live in Central New York and we have had them for about 3 or 4 years now & luckily we aren’t really infested so to speak. I kill an average of 1 or 2 a day in the winter. I use one of those “zapping” tennis racquet shaped units and there is nothing sweeter to the ears than the sound of those bugs frying. The unit I use is telescoping and the head of it bends so I can get any that are crawling across the ceiling. I used to use a lint roller to catch them but you have to put a bit of pressure on the roller to make them stick and I was always afraid of squishing them in the process, so when I saw the zapper, I bought it and was thrilled with the results. The thing about the stink bug is that they have flat bodies and short legs that they can bend into oblivion that allows them to squeeze into the narrowest of spaces which is why you will find them in tightly closed containers. I saw a guy on You Tube make a stink bug trap out of a 2 liter pepsi bottle, an led light & some masking tape. It was pretty ingenious as the bugs are attracted to the light and he showed the amount of stink bugs he caught in his daughter’s room….eeeewwww and some were still alive. They “summer” in the crawl space over my ceramic studio which I discovered when I removed some things I had stored up there…..not happy about that. They are also attracted to bright colors, especially yellow so I make sure I don’t have any yellow flowers planted close to the house. I have read where it was suggested to plant sunflowers as far away from your house as possible to draw them away. Sadly yellow is my favorite color….sigh…..anyway…..get yourself a zapper and enjoy yourself.
I LOVE the idea of zapping those suckers! The ones that are coming in this fall are extra stinky!
We have them outside in our trees here in La Porte, TX