Stink Bugs In CT: How To Stop Them Before They Smell Up Your Home

CONNECTICUT — It's approaching winter time, and so Connecticut residents' thoughts turn to sleigh rides, turkey dinners, skating on frozen lakes … and stink bugs.

While Normal Rockwell may never have painted a portrait of Halyomorpha halys for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post (we checked), brown marmorated stink bugs (BMSB) are as much a part of cold weather living in Connecticut as Christmas carols sung in the town square gazebo.

Normally content to rough it outdoors in warmer months, the bugs seek out protected areas in the winter, and tend to aggregate similar to ladybugs. Houses and other structures can serve as overwintering sites for BMSB and this is how homeowners frequently encounter them, according to Katherine Dugas, an entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.

"They do not truly infest structures as they do not feed or reproduce over the winter, they simply lie low until spring, when they will leave. Populations can aggregate in and around wall spaces, attics, or other accessible areas, and individuals may then end up wandering inside living spaces," Dugas told Patch.

The BMSB hails from Asia, was first detected in Pennsylvania in 2001, but was likely introduced into the states in the late 90s. It has since spread across the U.S. via hitchhiking on vehicles and through commerce. The bugs were first found in Connecticut in 2008, and can now be found in all eight counties. With few natural predators in the U.S. and an indiscriminate diet that includes many fruit and vegetable crops, BMSB has become an agricultural pest of concern throughout the country.

When stink bugs feed on crops, damage can include everything from bruises and blemishes to aborted sweet corn kernels to a change in the sugar levels in some fruits. The insects pose such a threat to fruits and vegetables that the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the Stop the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug strike force. It's a team of 50 researchers from 18 land-grant universities closely tracking the migration of the invasive, fast-moving pest.

The Enemy of My Enemy

Nature may not have equipped humans very well to beat back a BMSB invasion, but at least we're smart enough to know when to get help. Some of the hardest-hit states have introduced samurai wasps (Trissolcus japonicus) into their ecology. The wasps, about as big as sesame seeds, hail from the BMSB's old neighborhood in Asia, and enjoy chowing down on them as much as the stink bugs like Farmer Brown's crops.

In order to prevent BMSB getting into homes, exclusion practices such as caulking cracks and crevices are very effective, Dugas said.

"Check windows to make sure they are properly fit onto their tracks, and repair any holes in screens. Make sure that ducts and vents are properly screened in the case of central air or heating. If found indoors, single adults can be collected and thrown outside, multiple insects can be vacuumed up and then the vacuum bag discarded. Avoid crushing them as they do produce an unpleasant odor if crushed. They do not bite or sting and are otherwise harmless," according to the entomologist.

You may want to even go easy on the bugs. They don't nest or lay eggs or reproduce. They don't feed on anything or anyone in your house. They just move in to take a load off for a few months — scientifically, they enter a dormant phase known as diapause.

If you do stumble across a community of BMSB hunkered down in your attic this winter, the entomological community in the Northeast wants to know. You can submit a photo and other data to the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University online here.