Trapping Stink Bugs

Stink bugs, an invasive species, began showing up in our area a couple of years ago. They hid in the curtains, behind picture frames, and in places you'd never think to look. They don't like temperatures below 70 degrees.

 

They come out and crawl on the walls and fly around the lights. Sometimes you are in the middle of doing something and you look down and there's a stink bug. They seem to materialize out of thin air.

 

This is how I capture stink bugs.

 

 

You need a plastic bottle and a pair of scissors.

 

 

 

Cut the bottle several inches from the top; along the label line often works well. 

 

 

I use my handy kitchen scissors for this. I suppose you could also use a pocket knife or something. 

 

 

Once you have the bottle cut, you invert the top (take the lid off the bottle) and place it down in the bottle to create a funnel.

 

Then you go around the room and collect stink bugs. I usually tap them into the bottle with a pencil (using the eraser end so as not to damage the walls). They can't climb back out because the inverted funnel creates a barrier they can't cross when they climb up the sides of the bottle.

 

 

 

You can also stick a little water and Dawn in the bottom. That will kill the bugs. I'm told Pinesol also works well for this, and does a better job of covering up any stinky stink bug odor, too, but I haven't tried it.

 

 

 

Recently we discovered this stuff and sprayed it around all the doors and windows. I have seen fewer stink bugs indoors since we did that, so it seems to work to keep them at bay.

 

They aren't gone; I found a lot of them outside over the weekend. They were in my roses, my forsythia, and the garden. Stinky little beasts.

 

Anyway, if you haven't yet figured out how to deal with stink bugs in your house, maybe this will help.

*No one paid me to endorse a product or talk about stink bugs in this entry.*