You know what I hate? Box elder bugs

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

I live in an old house. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees here this week and now my house is infested with the damn things. They find a way in through the cracks and around the windows. I spent the better part of the night killing them and sucking them up with a vacuum. They're harmless, but just fucking annoying and far too numerous.

anyone ever had to deal with this before? any tips?

[Javaman]

1. me too and their cousins, the red shoulder bugs. nt

[MorningGlow]

2. Yeah, we've had them too

Unfortunately our solution was to cut down the box elder tree. (It was too close to the foundation and had to go. :( )

What I hate worse is stinkbugs. Our last house was a log home amid pines, and they were EVERYwhere. Sometimes I still think I smell that perfumy stink they spat out. Ick.

[Blue Diadem]

3. Do you have aluminum/vinyl siding?

They got under ours and were able to get inside somehow when we had them bad. Our house is old too, we can trace it back to the 1880's and it may be older than that.

Sucking them up with a vac is the best solution I have for indoors. Outdoors, a spray bottle filled with a little dish soap and water sprayed directly on them will do the trick. My Dh used a garden sprayer when they were really bad. That and getting rid of any box elder trees helps. Our neighbor cut down the one box elder that was closest to our house a few years ago and now with using the dish soap spray outside and vac inside, we're down to only getting one occasionally.

[swag]

4. My home room had one as a mascot in the fifth grade.

But that was in another country and besides, the wench is dead.

[Debi]

5. We spray outside the house and vacuum inside

I hate 'em too! x(