Stink Bugs - Anyone else have problems???

[johnandcaren]

STINK BUG HELL!!

In Maryland and we have zillions of stink bugs that we simply cannot keep out of our motorhome. It hard to sleep knowing the little jerks are all over the place. If we are an isolated case I assume this forum won't go anywhere, which is fine. But if others are having issues, maybe we can share some solutions.

Some of my comments follow:

- We park in Frederick, Maryland
- 39 ft Gulf Stream Sun Voyager
- Identified they get in thru seal imperfections in slides. (weather strip didn't help)
- Also thru refrigerator vents on outside (block with 13 gal garbage bags)
- Also some other unknown location.
- We clean and clean, then catch hundreds more inside the coach.
- Vacume helps but there are always more.
- Before leaving, we open storage bins and slides, examine, look for and vacume up hundres of them. It can appear we have won the battle, then they just start appearing again.

- TIP: for catching inside your home, use a water bottle with a few inches of water and dish soap inside. If on the ceiling, you can just put the bottle opening over them and they fall in. Same on the wall if they are facing down. They jump when you get close, so you can learn to let them just jump in the bottle. If on the floor or hard to get to place, use a kleenex to grab them and put in the bottle. Use the kleenex as they squirt the stink out as a liquid that stains as well as stinks.While a vacume cleaner works, they start stinking up the home from the air outlet.

Tips ?
Ideas ?
Nuclear Options ?

PS - Pesticides are not an option. They are very resistant and its worse for the people than the bugs.

OH !! And they came in from CHINA. Thank you CHINA for more of your &%^$#@ help.

[doc]

We had a similar episode a few years ago with ladybugs. These things also stink when you start rounding them up. Our best weapon was a vacuum cleaner using just the hose. You would swear you had them all and then the first warm day after a fall cool spell and they were back again. It took two years to finally get them all out, and actually we don't know that we did that - we found dead bugs as we did the clean up after we decided to sell that coach. Good luck

[Nonno]

You're not the only one with the problem. Many in the mid-Atlantic States are getting them.
Was going to camp with my son and d-i-l in Gettysburg this past weekend but they called and suggested we cancel. Previous weekend in York, PA they found a couple of hundred when they brought the slides in. Being a good father, I listened to my son and stayed at Ocean Lakes in MB two extra days after the iRV2 rally ended. Now I'm back home in NH, hoping we don't have the same problem here.

[AFChap]

We got them in Falling Waters WV in late Sep, and have had them everywhere since in MD, VA, NC, and GA. They are good at hiding in cracks, etc. I catch several a day walking across the ceiling or windows. Perhaps someday we will be alone again...

[Wayne M]

#$(*)$&()!(*#&$(*(# and all the rest that goes with those "stinkers."

First introduced in Penn. Then migrated Easterly. We keep picking the off with tissue paper, then DW puts them down the toilet when we are on the road. I told her to "watch out when you sit down." Potty breaks have dwindled since. (hee hee!)

I need to figure a way to "nuke," them and not hurt anything else. We'll vacate for several days if I have to.

The dish washing soap (Dawn) and water (50/50) dissolves the exoskeleton. (So I've read). I don't know if they die immediately, or slowly releasing their toxin.

[RVhauler]

Was in Winchester, VA Camping World for work last week and a young couple from MD brought their class C in with an inoperative furnace. Tech found furnace exhaust full of stink bugs (no screens on outlet when came in but left with screens). Cleared stink bugs out and furnace fired right up.

[johnandcaren]

Upon further reading there is one pesticide that works and is found in many brand name products, with Ortho Home Defense Max being one of them, that I found at Lowes. I also thought about a way to drive them out.

This weekend I'm doing 3 things.
1. Open it up and vaccume up as many as possible.
2. Spray - cautiously - with the Ortho product, avoiding locations we would touch or that get wet, concentrating more on outside than inside.
3. Since we will close it up for 2 weeks, I'm going to put out a dozen or so little plastic containers filled with household ammonia. This may not be strong enough to help. But if its really strong, being closed for 2 weeks will not only help drive off the bugs but will also give it time to vent out.

I'll update after the above efforts.

While this is not a hot topic at the moment, if things don't improve next year this will be a hot topic.

[Beabop]

We took a batch to FL last year and expect the same this year. Better than bed bugs. lol

[NLOVNIT]

I didn't even know about these buggers untill we took a 10-day trip to the Allegheny Mtn area of PA just a few weeks ago. Like the fake lady bugs, they liked the side of the coach that faced the sun & I picked quite a few of them off the screens. I just hope we didn't bring any of 'em back to OH w/us.

Lori-

[AFChap]

Since we live in our MH, that makes killing all the bugs at once a little less convenient ...but we have a couple of times set off a couple of "bug bombs" as we took the two dogs and left for several hours. I guess that would be our course of action if we felt over-run. Right now we just find a couple of stink bugs a day strolling around somewhere...

[Wayne M]

They have a tendency to flatten themselves and squeeze under rubber grommets.

[Elkhartjim]

We just returned today from five weeks on the road. States visited: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North & South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania with at least one and usually 3-5 nights spent in different cities in each state. We were in Gettysburg last week for four days.

I'm thankful to report the only place I ever saw a stinkbug was when visiting WayneM in Virginia. There apparently is only one conclusion I can come too...be careful who you hang out with.

[WOODYDEL]

Two things which work to kill them. First is boric acid which works on one of the hardest things to kill, cockroaches. Many hardware stores carry it in small squeeze bottles of powder. If you have little ones crawling on the floor I would pass on the boric acid. Second is diatomaceous earth. Get the food grade version, not the swimming pool which is poisonous to you. You can get food grade diatomaceous earth at Agway. I use that on my chickens and coop. It is so safe to use, you or your animals can injest it and the way it goes in, is the way it comes out (well sort of). If injested it will kill parasites in your gut. If you like, try a nicotine spray on those stinkers. Get a pack of cigarettes and soak in water (open it first and break up the cigarettes). Use spray bottle to squirt the liquid on them. Not sure what it will do to drapes and walls. They've been spotted here on Long Island in NY.


Was thinking about the boric acid and realized you could also use plain old borax as a repellent. Totally safe to use.

[LindyT]

They've been terrible this year, haven't they??

I've found the only thing to do is suck them up (which you have to do anyway... even if you manage to kill them.) I bought a separate vacuum just for that, because they pretty much destroy it. For the first week or so, we sucked up HUNDREDS of them. It's tapered off and they're far and few between now.

Creepy little suckers!