I love fall.
The nights are cooler, the days are significantly less humid, the leaves turn brilliant shades of gold, the kids have homework to do instead of playing on my computer…
But there is one thing I really dislike about fall. Every September, around the time the kids go back to school and we open up our windows and let the breezes waft through the screens, the stinkbug infestation arrives full-force.
This is a stinkbug
You cannot squish a stinkbug. Well, you CAN, but I assure you that you do not WANT to squish a stinkbug. Alice has been battling them as well, and she tells me that the odor of a stinkbug attracts other stinkbugs… some evolutionary quirk that says, Oh, no! One of our own has been squished! Let us hurry en force to the scene of the crime! Yep, some kind of queer lookie-loo gene mapping like that.
A couple weeks ago, we were trying to cool off the upstairs portion of the house by pointing a large box fan out the window. I am SO thankful that the screen was in place:
Can you see some little bugs on that window?
Let me zoom in for you…
There must have been at least 120 of those disgusting insects hanging onto that screen. I have NO IDEA why they would want to plant themselves in front of a blowing fan.
They hide in fabric. Let me tell you, it is a shrieking experience to grab your towel fresh from a nice shower and have a stinkbug fall out onto the bathmat! And then the little bugger flies up to freak you out all over again.
Kcinnova's World 
I’ll take the mosquitoes, no see’ums and whatever else we have any day… What purpose do those bugs serve???
I’m getting to hate them. The numbers are unnerving.
Sounds like wasps….you kill one and the rest show up for the funeral.
You were pushing the heat out of the house and they were happy?
I think I will stick with my snow 🙂
Uhm — bugs. This seems to be the month for them. Last night my house filled with gnats! I was killing them by the thousands and still they came — but thankfully they didn’t stink. [shudder]
OMG NOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
eww eww eww!! i would be looking forward to the first frost so those little bastards will freeze!
Oh my goodness! We’re getting the occasional stinkbug here, but nothing like your swarm. Eeks!
Ewwwww….. I feel for you. Just looking at those stink bugs on the window screen made me shiver! I have run across the ocassional stink bug, but not very often. And, yes, the first instinct is to squash them. I don’t do that any more. LOL
GAAAAAH ick ick ick ick that is FAR FAR TOO MANY at one time in one place!! SHUDDERRR!!
EEEWWWWW!! You must have them worse then we do here in Fauquier County. My mom gets grossed out where there are like 10 on her window.
EWWW!!!
LOL! We have a “few” stink bugs — but nothing to compare with what YOU’ve got! What WE have are those awful deformed crickets! They JUMP about 6 miles high! WE call them the Ugly Jumpy Bugs… and they have infiltrated my BASEMENT! *shiver* They are sooooo gross! I’m fixin to BOMB the joint!
Gah!!!
I love hearing from you. I’m super busy too, just hanging in there.
You gave me another thing to be happy about. We have no stink bugs.
Glad to increase your happiness, Dr. John! 😉
That is horrifying. I will quit maligning my ants.
Jenn, ants are awful, too! We were overrun by those when we lived in San Antonio. (Never leave a box of pizza on the counter…) And in El Paso, we had sand fleas — ick!!!
It seems that there are bugs EVERYWHERE.
Well that’s gross. If you spray them will they stink when they die? Or just when they’re squished?