Traverse City Record-Eagle

Jodee Taylor

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October 17, 2011

Jodee Taylor: The stinkbug fight

By JODEE TAYLOR jtaylor@record-eagle.com

My existence in the piney woods has been plagued by stinkbugs.

The Pentatomoidea doesn't hurt anything or bite anything. It simply comes into my house when it starts getting cold. It apparently really likes warm, sunny days to start its move -- and what have we had in abundance lately?

The bugs emit a smell when threatened, like when they're captured in a Kleenex and tossed in the toilet. The scent is reminiscent of freshly cut grass and the stupid bugs have spoiled that smell for me forever.

Stinkbugs are one of those things that make me think, "Why did you create this, Mother Nature?" What good comes from stinkbugs? I often wonder this about other things that bug (tee hee) me, like mosquitoes and biting flies. Turns out, besides eating fruit and vegetable crops, stinkbugs eat other bugs' larvae, helping keep down the population of gypsy moths and other pests that make my "Why, Mother Nature?" list.

Fine. Let the disgusting creatures live. Just not in my house.

About the only thing worse than discovering a stinkbug on your shirt or dinner plate is having one land on you. They fly short distances or slither longer distances and have ended up on my face while I'm sleeping or on my shoulder when I'm reading.

Sometimes I smell one without seeing it and have to do a crazy jumping dance to figure out where the perpetrator is.

When you read up on how to get rid of them, the best advice is: a vacuum cleaner.

My vacuum cleaner stays in the living room from September through December, never unplugged. I use it daily to suck up bugs and bug carcasses, then run the canister outside to dump it, gagging the entire way.

Last week, I came home during daylight hours -- silly of me, I know -- and walked up to the front door, carrying groceries, books and papers. I yanked open the door with a free finger and apparently unleashed something in stink bugdom. Stink bugs rained down on me like falling leaves.

I whined to a coworker about it, and he quickly answered -- insecticide. I know it's not organic or animal friendly or sustainable or anything like that, but it has changed my life. The insectide doesn't hurt pets or people or walls or windows, so you can spray merrily wherever stinkbugs congregate. The first day I used it, they were hanging out everywhere -- the walls of the house, the overhang of the roof, the doorways and windows. I didn't feel any anguish about squirting them.

The indoor population of stinkbugs has decreased mightily, but they're not all gone. The vacuum cleaner stays for now.

Jodee Taylor can be reached at jtaylor@record-eagle.com.

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