Hey everyone. So with the scourge of the earth that is stink bugs, I figured it would be possibly helpful to others who deal with them for me to share my experiences and successes(with failures.)
I live in Northeast NJ, and since we've moved into our house, have been infested with stink bugs every season like clockwork. We initially found that they were coming in through windows, as the windows in our home did not have their spiral rods properly charged and the windows were sagging.
I figured after this we'd probably be ok.. WRONG. They then started to take up residence in my basement, which I identified as them coming in through the chimney and down the connected vents for both the hot water heater and steam boiler. This past summer, I closed them both off. I used screening to make a makeshift catch around the hot water heater vent and successfully caught 15-20 there.
Since I have an electric ignition on my steam boiler, I was able to completely shut it down and wrap the entire exhaust system with a garbage bag and duct tape it off. When I took the garbage bag off to fire up the boiler, I had somewhere around 100 stink bugs fall out of the chimney pipe, thankfully I prepared my steel shopvac to suck them all up. We're still finding the occasional straggler, not sure where else they could be coming in.
I've been studying their behavior and where we find them, and it seems that they follow the steam pipes up to the first and second floors of my house, rarely ever finding any in the master suite where there is no direct source of heat.
We also had a really bad external infestation this last year, with hundreds, and I mean HUNDREDS congregating on the siding on the rear of my home. I tried everything you could possibly think of to deter them and ultimately kill them. Believe it or not, the only thing that I found that was successful in killing them is "la's totally awesome rust lime calcium remover" from the local dollar store. When we would have 10 of them on a screen, I'd spray their underbody with a little of the spray, and in a few seconds you'd see them start to twitch and then fall off the screen where we'd find them dead on the deck. I had tried Seven dust and liquid with no effect, soapy water with no effect, and multiple other types of home remedy kind of things that did nothing. I had seen a video on Youtube of a guy who claimed he used Talstar Pro on the siding of his house and no more stink bugs landed there. I spent the 60 bucks on Talstar, and did not see any effect unfortunately. Something in that LA's Totally awesome seems to act on them neurologically.
That being said, I'm still trying to figure out how to deter them from getting into the house outside of the vents. The steam boiler and hot water heater need to be open for drafting, so I'm thinking my next investment is a tankless hot water heater that can be direct vented out of the house in order to close off one entry for them.
I understand that once they get into a suitable place, they let off a pheromone which invites their buddies to all come in. I'm wondering now if there's anything I can do to try to correct that, as it seems that none of my neighbors with similar setups have any issues with them. These pictures are some of my documentation of the infestation from this year, the pan I was using with a lightbulb and some soapy water, was catching quite a few of the ones who bypassed my traps. Had one of the pans actually corrode overnight which was interesting.
Without further adieu, here are some pictures.
https://ibb.co/BTyTp1v
https://ibb.co/YXxd46W
https://ibb.co/BnHvcvX
https://ibb.co/PxhQQZt
I live in Northeast NJ, and since we've moved into our house, have been infested with stink bugs every season like clockwork. We initially found that they were coming in through windows, as the windows in our home did not have their spiral rods properly charged and the windows were sagging.
I figured after this we'd probably be ok.. WRONG. They then started to take up residence in my basement, which I identified as them coming in through the chimney and down the connected vents for both the hot water heater and steam boiler. This past summer, I closed them both off. I used screening to make a makeshift catch around the hot water heater vent and successfully caught 15-20 there.
Since I have an electric ignition on my steam boiler, I was able to completely shut it down and wrap the entire exhaust system with a garbage bag and duct tape it off. When I took the garbage bag off to fire up the boiler, I had somewhere around 100 stink bugs fall out of the chimney pipe, thankfully I prepared my steel shopvac to suck them all up. We're still finding the occasional straggler, not sure where else they could be coming in.
I've been studying their behavior and where we find them, and it seems that they follow the steam pipes up to the first and second floors of my house, rarely ever finding any in the master suite where there is no direct source of heat.
We also had a really bad external infestation this last year, with hundreds, and I mean HUNDREDS congregating on the siding on the rear of my home. I tried everything you could possibly think of to deter them and ultimately kill them. Believe it or not, the only thing that I found that was successful in killing them is "la's totally awesome rust lime calcium remover" from the local dollar store. When we would have 10 of them on a screen, I'd spray their underbody with a little of the spray, and in a few seconds you'd see them start to twitch and then fall off the screen where we'd find them dead on the deck. I had tried Seven dust and liquid with no effect, soapy water with no effect, and multiple other types of home remedy kind of things that did nothing. I had seen a video on Youtube of a guy who claimed he used Talstar Pro on the siding of his house and no more stink bugs landed there. I spent the 60 bucks on Talstar, and did not see any effect unfortunately. Something in that LA's Totally awesome seems to act on them neurologically.
That being said, I'm still trying to figure out how to deter them from getting into the house outside of the vents. The steam boiler and hot water heater need to be open for drafting, so I'm thinking my next investment is a tankless hot water heater that can be direct vented out of the house in order to close off one entry for them.
I understand that once they get into a suitable place, they let off a pheromone which invites their buddies to all come in. I'm wondering now if there's anything I can do to try to correct that, as it seems that none of my neighbors with similar setups have any issues with them. These pictures are some of my documentation of the infestation from this year, the pan I was using with a lightbulb and some soapy water, was catching quite a few of the ones who bypassed my traps. Had one of the pans actually corrode overnight which was interesting.
Without further adieu, here are some pictures.
https://ibb.co/BTyTp1v
https://ibb.co/YXxd46W
https://ibb.co/BnHvcvX
https://ibb.co/PxhQQZt
