Category: Pests

One side of your house is covered with stink bugs. Another wall, just a few feet away, barely has any. Something about that first wall is getting their attention. Usually, sunlight is the first clue. Stink bugs gather on sun-warmed surfaces during fall, then search for protected openings where they…

Every fall, as combines harvest soybean fields across the American Midwest, hundreds of orange lady beetles appear on some homes. They gather on sunny exterior walls first. Soon afterward, homeowners find them around windows and sometimes in upstairs rooms. In pest control, I would start by checking where those insects…

A shield-shaped insect on a bedroom curtain can make anyone hesitate before picking it up. When I assess a household pest, I start with identification. Do stink bugs bite? The brown marmorated stink bug, a common fall visitor to American homes, does not bite people or pets. Do stink bugs…

If you have ever crushed a stink bug inside your house, you probably realized right away how it got its name. Over the years I have worked with pests, I have seen people swat them with newspapers or vacuum them up without a second thought about what would happen inside…

Over the years of working with pests, I have used all kinds of insecticides and professional equipment, but I had never seriously thought about who first came up with the idea of putting insecticide into a small metal can. Recently, out of pure curiosity, I started researching how people used…

Stink bugs did not announce their arrival in America with one massive outbreak. People around Allentown, Pennsylvania, simply began noticing unfamiliar brown insects around their homes. At first, a few bugs would not have looked like much. Insects get carried into houses all the time. Repeated sightings are different. Bugs…