Debunking Myths About Stink Bugs

I have to say that right now I’m a little frustrated with the internet (no surprise there). There’s so much misinformation out there. People confidently post information or advertisements about topics they are almost entirely unfamiliar with, and they can seriously waste their readers’ time and money by doing so.

Recently, I was following a thread on a DIY forum about keeping stink bugs out of the house. Several of the participants had consulted someone about stink bugs (be it a hardware store employee or a one-man pest control operation) and had been told that there’s nothing that can be done about them and that their presence in homes is inevitable. Others had been told that winter treatments are crucial for stinkbug control to try to kill the stink bug eggs before they hatch in the spring. All of this misinformation is very troubling to us at Russell’s Pest Control because we would rather you be stink bug-free whether we do a treatment on your house or not. So, here we will give a brief repetition of some information about overwintering pests so that we can dispel some myths that are floating around on the uninformed internet.

Myth 1: Stink bugs are trying to get in the house so that they can lay their eggs.

This is just not true. Many pests in East Tennessee wait out the winter weather in their egg form, but stink bugs do not fall in that category. The adults move into warm, safe locations to hibernate during the winter and re-emerge to lay their eggs outside on leaves in the spring. If you have stink bugs in your house, they are NOT reproducing in your wall voids during the cold months.

Myth 2: Treatments during the fall and winter will eliminate the stink bugs.

We highly recommend that you do not have stink bugs treated in your home during the cold months if they are already inside in large numbers. Your options for doing so are very limited, and the treatment won’t really help much. Because stink bugs stay in attics and wall voids, treating them is extremely difficult and would involve using lots of product over large spaces. You might kill some stink bugs that way, but their bodies will be in hard-to-access places that you can’t clean. Those dead stink bugs will draw other pests (like rodents), thus making your problem worse, not better. If someone is trying to get you to pay for multiple winter treatments, then he or she is either uninformed or, worse, is hoping to waste your money. In fact, if you call Russell’s Pest Control in the winter and beg for the opportunity to pay us to treat your stink bugs, we still won’t do it; it just wouldn’t be right to do so when the treatment can’t possibly be fully effective.

Myth 3: Stink bugs are inevitable, and nothing can be done to keep them out of the house.

It is true that brown marmorated stink bugs have hit the United States hard, and they can prove to be quite a challenge, even for well-informed pest professionals. However, that doesn’t mean that nothing can be done. Contact Russell’s Pest Control on this page if you’d like to hear about our treatment options. Bear in mind that this treatment needs to be done BEFORE the stink bugs come inside, so you need to make an appointment before we start seeing frosts on the ground.