Stink Bugs!!

[cyclonefence]

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The weather warmed up and we are infested. If you squash them they smell nauseating. If you leave them alone, they fly around noisily and bang into things. They land on your face while you're asleep. They shit brown tobacco juice all over the place. I keep an old canister vacuum cleaner in our bedroom which is dedicated to sucking up stinkbugs, and I squash them elsewhere in used Kleenexes and flush them, but I can't keep up. And now a friend told me they guard their young and showed me a video. So now I feel guilty for killing loving parents.

[Laffy Kat]

1. Also, doggos and kittehs won't go near them.

So much for pets taking care of it.

[FSogol]

2. We never kill them, they all get a free escort outside.

Stink bugs (we call them potato bugs) are surprisingly mellow

[GoneOffShore]

5. Kill them - Here's a an article about how much damage they cause.

Along with a link to a New Yorker piece on them https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/new-yorker-when-26000-stinkbugs-invade-home

At present, this vast influx of new species costs the United States about a hundred and twenty billion dollars a year and is, after habitat destruction, the main reason the world has lost so much biodiversity.” US scientists identified the problem in 1998, and stinkbugs have since spread to 44 states, Canada, South America and Europe. The insects do not bite people, but suck at fruits and vegetables, leaving a bad taste, and buyers reject crops that have received excessive applications. One entomologist suggests stinkbugs is a among “the major drivers in the history of entomology in the United States.”

[LunaSea]

3. Most shield beetles guard their young

But these Brown Marmorated Stinkbugs don't belong here.
They're imports from China that have been proliferating here since the mid nineties.
Entomologists have been looking for a means of interrupting their reproduction cycle as
nothing predates them in this country.
Don't feel so bad about dealing with them harshly.
They are quite destructive to food crops.

Here's one way of disposing of them-
http://www.instructables.com/id/Stink-Bug-Death-Trap/
I'd recommend adding a bit of dish soap to the water.
Also scooping them up with a wet tissue or bit of paper towel will
minimize the stink.

https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/brown-marmorated-stink-bug

http://stopstinkbugs.com/page/stink-bug-products

[cyclonefence]

4. Thank you

for your help. I live in PA, which is one of the states where stink bugs cause the greatest agricultural damage, so I absolutely will kill them, rather than put them outside. I'm glad to know, I guess, that they are not unique in guarding their young, but it's hard for me not to anthropomorphize them. I checked out the suggestions and have to say none of them is anywhere near perfect. I wish I could get some samurai wasps, but they're another non-native species, and god knows what trouble they'd cause down the road. Poison ivy was imported to England because someone liked the colorful autumn foliage, a lesson for us all.

I read about a guy who devised a trap accidentally when he left the cardboard sheath his new saw came in leaning against the side of his house.. When he picked it up after a couple of days, it was stink bug central under there. But I don't want to find them, or attract them (which is what most of the commercial products do); I want them to go away.

I appreciate your information. Oddly enough, one of the suggestions is to have a dedicated vacuum cleaner!