Sometimes you may feel a lingering musty sensation in the airs of your room despite cleaning your house regularly and having already taken a bath. Don’t worry you’re not the culprit in this crime of unpleasantness but rather the infamous stink bugs.
The stink bugs not only stink up your house but will also destroy your plants in short order in large groups making you wonder “How to get rid of stink bugs in home?”. Fortunately, you can get rid of stink bugs pretty easily if you follow these simple but highly effective measures below:
Seal the house entrances, it sounds minor but it’s a pretty crucial step because even if you get rid of hundreds of stink bugs in your home, it’s not going to matter much once the next horde of stinkies makes their way in.
Makes sense? Just seal it and it’s a done deal. Carefully inspect your home for potential access points and seal them with mesh wires, boards, or caulk and expanding foam if you need a tighter seal to block all these pests from entering.
Alternatively, you may already have installed obstructions previously such as screens, meshes, and caulk to obstruct the pests but they could have fallen into disrepair resulting in holes that must be replaced.
Repair the holes or replace the material entirely if necessary and ensure that the materials fit the doors and windows properly. Make sure the screens are securely fastened and have no gaps around the edges.
Weatherstripping is an effective old but true and tested method of denying entry into your home for pests. Originally meant to reduce your winter energy bills, it is a budget-friendly technique that denies bugs entry by having little to no gap in your doors and windows to keep the heat in.
In order to apply the weather stripping, first clean the surface of the area where you are applying the strips in order to ensure good adhesion. Then measure and cut the strips to fit the edges of your doors and windows leaving as little gap as possible.
While it helps to prevent the stink bugs from gaining entry into your home, it won’t help if they are already somehow in your home. Since you don’t want to be dealing with their stink for any longer than you have to, we recommend using a vacuum cleaner with a stocking to wipe them out.
First, insert a small stocking or nylon sock into the nozzle of the vacuum hose and secure it to the hose by wrapping tightly with a rubber band. Collect them all by vacuuming and kill them in a fire or drown them to prevent more of their stinky smell from being released.
Stink bugs prefer warm and humid environments, especially during winter. This can result in a spike in the amount of stink bugs that are seeking to come inside your homes in the colder months. Fortunately, the solution is right around the corner with some dehumidifiers.
The bugs prefer humidity to be 50% or higher so place the humidifiers in the areas of your home that are prone to high humidity such as the basements, bathrooms, and laundry rooms. This investment is well worth the cost considering that it not only discourages bugs but also mold.
Place sticky traps in areas where stink bugs are commonly discovered on your property such as near windows, doors, and flower pots. They not only help trap and eliminate stink bugs in your yard but also acts as a form of control and monitoring to help discover if there are any insects in the vicinity.
Made by using adhesive-coated surfaces and colored bright yellow, they are effective at attracting sticky bugs as yellow mimics the color of a plant under stress which looks attractive to bugs that feed on plants such as stink bugs and thus successfully ensnaring them.
This is a non-toxic powder that effectively controls the pest population including the stink bugs when applied. Composed of fossilized remains of tiny, hard-shelled aquatic organisms known as diatoms and functions similarly to dish soap via a different mechanism.
When DE is applied to areas with high insect activity, once it comes into contact with a bug carapace it scratches and damages the exoskeleton due to being sharp and small as 10 micrometers. This causes them to leak water and dehydrate similarly as before.
Eliminating bugs by crushing them is already a messy ordeal however, with stink bugs, this is made worse by the fact that not only do they leave behind bug gunk, but they also release the chemicals present inside them which makes them stink at first place thus worsening the smell.
Neem oil is derived from the seeds of the neem tree and is an effective eco-friendly solution for managing stink bugs by interfering with their reproductive cycles. Mix a few tablespoons of neem oil with water and be rid of two generations of stink bugs.
As the old adage goes, prevention is better than cure. Although physical obstructions aren’t always guaranteed to be effective, you can easily make a bug repellent by using garlic. Simply blend cloves of garlic with water and strain the mixture.
It’s optional but you can also add liquid soap to ensure that the solution mixes well and adheres to the surfaces once sprayed. Spray the solution where the insects are most active around your property such as windows, doors, and plants.
Mint is like garlic in that they both repel insects due to their strong odor. However, while the strong odor of garlic can be unpleasant to some people, the grassy odor of mint is both refreshing and relaxing to people.
Make a mint spray by mixing a few drops of mint oil with water. Spray the solution all around your house and the plants in your garden to get rid of stink bugs in yard. Mint oil is a great natural solution for your garden as neem can sometimes burn plant foliage.
Is it a surprise that like most insects, stink bugs are also attracted to food in your homes? Learn what stink bugs eat and start removing these attractants by cleaning your home regularly and managing how you store your opened food containers.
This strategy can seem daunting so you can start small. Begin with your kitchen and dining areas by cleaning up any spills and crumbs and storing food in airtight containers. Take out the trash regularly and clean the garbage cans and you will already have eliminated all the major food sources.
Borax is a common chemical that is used to formulate many over-the-counter insecticides for home use. Borax is easily purchasable, or chances are it’s already in your home because it is also used for cleaning the kitchen.
You can DIY a borax solution for stink bugs by mixing 1 part borax with 10 parts water in a spray bottle. Borax contains boron which is a toxic mineral that will eliminate the stink bugs almost immediately once they get sprayed on by this solution.
Stink bugs tend to seek out and nest in quiet overgrown areas such as debris, piles of leaves, and clutter. By removing these potential stink bug shelters, you can make your yard an even more unappealing destination for the bugs and prevent them from venturing into your homes.
Maintain a tidy yard by clearing away piles of leaves, wood, and any other organic debris that look like it could act as safe haven for the bugs. Furthermore, trim the overgrown shrubs and de-weed your garden for maximum effectiveness.
Stick bugs aren’t high in the food chain ecosystem and as such they have plenty of natural predators that will be more than happy to feed on their population. Encourage the presence of birds by installing birdhouses or rearing chickens.
While having birds isn’t guaranteed to work since they have plenty of food sources to go around, you can also bring in beneficial predatory insects such as spiders and praying mantises to feed on the stink bugs. And the best part is they are completely inconspicuous, unlike the birds that may poop on your car or yard.
Trap crops attract bugs and other pests due to their aromatic smell and pollen. While this can be unfortunate when being used purely as decoration, you can also use its properties to make a personal early warning system to warn you about the presence of pests in your yard.
Plant sunflowers, mustard greens, or marigolds around the perimeter of your property, once you see their leaves being chomped up by pests you will not only have a sort of a forewarning but also an idea of which appropriate measure to take before the pests make it deeper.
Using the dish soap and water mixture to eliminate stink bugs is an old classic knowledge passed down from generation to generation simply because it works and works well. The dish soap dissolves the waxy outer coating of an insect exoskeleton.
The result is that the insects start losing water in excess from their body which eventually leads to death by dehydration. To use them simply spray the solution directly onto the stink bugs while ensuring good coverage.
Alternatively, consider making this highly effective homemade stink bug trap tested by Virginia tech researchers.
If all else fails, then there’s nothing else that can be done other than to have to resort to commercially available stink bug traps or chemical treatments. Understandably chemical treatments can be a little extreme so we would suggest you try the commercial traps first.
Commercial traps are far more friendly for the environment as they make use of light or pheromone smells to attract the stink bugs, effectively luring them into a container where they can’t escape. You can then either throw them back into the wild or dispose of them to reduce their numbers.
We don’t say this lightly because using chemical treatments can be a harsh and inconveniencing solution, but we won’t also simply ask you to sacrifice your sanity, health, and hygiene simply for the sake of the planet. Plus, most of the insecticides are approved by the EPA so they’re green as can be.
You could either apply the chemical treatments yourself or hire a trusted professional. If you want to save some bucks by doing it yourself then make sure to wear personal protective equipment and read all the instructions on the label before applying the treatment.
Here are some pesticide control ingredients tested for effectiveness against stink bugs.
Some of the measures that we have recommended above aren't effective if the bugs that are plaguing you aren't stink bugs. Fortunately, stink bugs are easily identifiable due to several of their distinctive characteristics.
Learn these identifying features of the stink bugs to accurately determine whether you are being plagued by stink bugs or not to take appropriate measures against them:
This species of stink bugs is characterized by their iconic brown, mottled appearance with white bands on antennae and legs.
When people think of stink bugs, this species is the one that often comes to the mind of people.
These are bright green with narrow yellow, orange, or red edges around the shield.
Southern bugs are similar to the green stink bug but found primarily in southern regions.
