Stink Bugs In Your House? Here Is My Guide To Eliminating Them

4 Ways To Eliminate Stink Bugs From Your House

It might be challenging to figure out how to eliminate stink bugs. While these pests may not pose a health danger in your house, they are a nuisance – and ones that smell if they are scared or crushed.

Moreover, these brown marmorated stink bugs do not transmit disease or cause structural damage, but they can be found in numbers, buzzing around your rooms and creeping on surfaces.

Identifying stink bugs is not difficult; their hard shell and shield-like form easily identify them. As the name suggests, stink bugs emit a foul odor as a natural defense when threatened, and the same happens if you squash them (gross).

Here’s how to deal with a stink bug problem:

Don’t squash them inside your house

Have you discovered a stink bug inside your home and are inclined to squish it? Don’t.

You think that will end the infestation. Well, it doesn’t. Squashing a stink bug will only lead to a terrible stink. And, for the same reason, please, do not crush stink bugs with your feet.

Instead, try gently removing or flushing the stink bug down the toilet. If you find more bugs, sweep them up with a dustpan, brush them, and flush them.

Alternatively, a decent portable vacuum cleaner will quickly suck them up. You can then opt to move them outside by emptying the vac canister.

Kill them off with a dish soap solution.

Immersing any living organism, including people, in the water or a pool of dish soap solution for a long time may be life-threatening. But stink bugs are an exception: you don’t need to soak them in dish soap.

It has been discovered that if these bugs come into contact with dish soap, they can become paralyzed if not killed. An active ingredient in the chemical makeup of dish soap is toxic to these bugs.

However, there is one caveat: Stink bugs have protective “armor” in the form of an exoskeleton, which gives them their distinctive “reptilian” appearance. This armor appears to be impenetrable to dish soap.

The soap is only toxic to the beetle if it comes into contact with its underside, which contains all its organs. So you can stare down at a stink bug and spray it with a bottle of dish soap all you want, and it won’t change anything (except that it might get a little slippery for the bug).

How do you use a dish soap solution to kill stink bugs?

Option one is the submersion method. You can scoop up a stink bug with a paper towel or trick it into crawling onto a piece of paper, a sandal, or any other object, and then immerse it in a dish soap-filled jar. The bug should be dead in a matter of minutes.

Alternatively, prepare a dish soap spray when you spot a stink bug! You keep spraying till it falls on the ground, flips over onto its back, exposing its belly, and then spray it hard until it passes out.

It is critical to ensure that you spray its underside because of the ‘armor’ on its upper body. However, you can already deduce that this method is unsuitable for a significant infestation, which brings us to our next method.

Kill them with homemade vinegar sprays.

You can make a potent homemade stink bug spray from vinegar, hot water, and dish soap. These are items you already have at home, so there is no additional expense. You may even wash and reuse an old spray cleaning bottle instead of purchasing a new one.

To make the spray:

Fill a spray bottle halfway with 0.5 cups (120 ml) vinegar and 0.25 cup (59 ml) dish soap. Stir in 1 cup (240 mL) of hot water to blend, and your spray is ready for use.

You can spray this solution on the stink bugs directly to kill them quickly. However, you must clean the spray sites to remove the vinegar smell. Afterward, you can gather and dispose of the dead insects properly.

Here is another trick you can try to eliminate stink bugs in your house. The idea is to attract the bugs and then kill them. How?

Place a moist towel draped over a lawn chair at night To attract stink bugs. Then, put the towel in a pail of dishwashing solution in the morning to destroy the stink bugs attracted to it.

You might even send the stink bugs directly to a pail of soapy water to ensure their destruction. How? Easy. Simply place a light over your trap.

Vacuum them off

A vacuum cleaner may manually remove stink bugs from walls and windows. This is one of the most effective methods for killing stink bugs and preventing infestations from growing.

Squish stink bugs only as a last option, as doing so will cause their stench to be released. Remember that if they have already produced their odorous chemical, the odor will persist for a while.

Professional exterminators

The extent of the infestation might be overpowering at times. So, a larger-scale solution may be required if you still find the same number of defects after treating and retesting for a few months.

It is especially crucial not to put off hiring professional pest controllers for stink bugs because of the damage they may create and the devastation they can cause if they penetrate your house and expose you to their stink.

A professional pest exterminator will be able to readily detect all of the spots where stink bugs are congregating or sneaking in, and they will apply professional-grade insecticides and repellents that will be more effective at eliminating and repelling the pests.

If you’re dealing with a stink bug infestation, and you still can’t seem to get the bugs out, even after trying everything, then it’s time to contact a professional pest control company.

In the worst-case situation, pest controllers can use chemical treatments to kill the bugs and prevent their re-entry at potential entry points.

Measures to prevent stink bugs from entering your house

After removing stink bugs in your house by following any of the steps above, it is essential to ensure that they remain outside your house.

You can take any of the following steps to keep stink bugs out of your house:

Seal entry points 

Stink bugs seek warm areas to escape the frigid winter months as the seasons change. As a result, they instinctively seek out small areas that will take them indoors and to more pleasant temperatures.

The following are examples of accessible entrance places in homes and buildings:

• Door and window frames
• Eaves and vents
• Window air conditioners
• Holes in siding and screens, and pretty much any opening large enough for them to fit in.

Hence, ensuring all doors and windows are sealed is one of the simplest methods to prevent them from entering your house. You can also:

• Replace any ripped window screens.
• Vent your crawl spaces and attics.
• Protect your crawlspace entrances.
• Pay close attention to the fireplaces or other entry points you might not often see.