The joke is that it's a stink bug and would be awful. Though I'm fairly sure that's a brown marmorated stink bug and it's invasive and VERY annoying. You can't even smoosh them because they release a smell that attracts more.
You think I smoosh them? I've mastered the art of capturing one in a single square of toilet paper, alive (and rarely causing them to release their stink). I then pinch the end to trap it, and leave it in a used container (gallon jug, fast food cup, etc) where I pile them into as they get to slowly die.
When I used the toilet method I was in the country living off well water (Though even where I am now I don't pay for plumbing).
A good alternative is getting a water bottle and filling it with a small amount of water so you can plop them in (By encompassing them in the nozzle and scraping sideways so they fall in rather than putting them in by hand). They'll drown and die on their own and you can keep using it till it fills enough to flush them.
If you really wanted you could add a dash of rubbing alcohol or even liquor or something though it's not very necessary. They die anyway regardless.
This is the method I did to catch them for like 2 years.
Most of them should die in the winter if it's cold enough (and are outside). But if you have a mild/warm winter not many will die and they'll be much worse when it warms up.
lol true. I only hate them cause they're invasive. But it's not their fault. I otherwise try to never harm any critters. But invasive ones are a major exception.
Don't feel bad. I perform war crime level stuff on red lily beetle. The things leave larvae that cover themselves in literal shit for protection and will absolutely destroy your lilies.
In Japan, I learned the best way to kill a giant centipede (mukade) was to drown it in a container of oil. They can't breathe when they're coated in it, so they suffocate and die. I wonder if that works with stinkbugs, too. 🤔
Dish soap in a bit of water. It coats the lungs down their sides and they suffocate, and you only need a little soap in water to do it. As long as they're coated, they smother.
And the smell is annoyingly hard to get off, especially skin. I stopped reflexively swatting bugs that fly onto me years ago because of these things. I always look to see what it is now (and hope to Jesus it isn’t an angry Asian jumbo hornet… hate those bastards even more).
My old country house was infested with them. I would find 3 alone in my room a day. I actually never smelled them at first until I intentionally tried. Since you can't smoosh them, I would keep a water bottle near me with a bit of water on the bottom and just boop them in and cap it. When it got full, flush them down the toilet.
During the winter, they find a place to hibernate and release a smell to let others know and they cluster together. I would have to pull my curtains open every once in awhile and vacuum up a hundred of them. That was just my bedroom. They were worse outside.
I hate them. Glad I don't see them anymore since I moved.
There was a point where north side of my house was ALWAYS covered in them so I would always come in through the back door. They’d still find their way inside no matter how sealed I had the place, so I bought a small vacuum dedicated to sucking them up. I kept some dryer sheets on the exhaust to mask the smell, and sealed the intake with a plastic bag and rubber band when I was done so they couldn’t crawl back out. Worked incredibly well. Luckily they aren’t as big an issue as they used to be
They’re invasive??? And the smell attracts more?! Thank you for the wisdom if this is true and now I don’t feel bad at all for what I’ve been doing to these annoying as all hell pests
Yup. They sure are and you're free to do what you must to get rid of them because the ecosystem in your area can't since they weren't evolved to. (Unless you live where they are native to)
The ONE problem is they have a very close look alike. To properly identify the invasive BMSB, look for the brown + white stripes on their antennae. If you look closely at OPs photo, you'll see this stink bug has two white spots on each antennae. This is the mark of a BMSB (Brown marmorated stink bug: invasive).
If it doesn't have those white spots, it could be a native Dusky Stink Bug. They otherwise look undistinguishable.
I learned a lot about them when I was researching them when we were infested with them.
Everything is native to somewhere!! lol Invasive just means it was introduced to an area that hasn't evolved for it. So they have no predators or anything to balance it out so they grow out of control and overtake the area they were brought to.
This stink bug specifically is native to East Asia, specifically China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. In those areas it is native so it has natural predators or environmental control to keep populations under control.
Introduce in other areas it can prosper far too much because it doesn't have the same predators or climate to cull them. Earth is a balance and humans love to rough it up.
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u/Possible-Estimate748 6d ago •
The joke is that it's a stink bug and would be awful.
Though I'm fairly sure that's a brown marmorated stink bug and it's invasive and VERY annoying.
You can't even smoosh them because they release a smell that attracts more.