The Asian Lady Beetles are back. I am NOT happy about it, either!
Here in my area of west central Indiana, they’re out in force today. They’re swarming EVERYWHERE. They’re all over the windows, trees, just everywhere! The air is full of them. I would choose to wear a mask if I were outside, it’s that bad.
It’s sort of like Hitchcock’s The Birds, but only ALBs instead of birds. Creepy as all hell.
They’re getting in the house, too. I’ve been vacuuming them off the light fixtures/lampshades, ceiling, walls, windows, and curtains, all damned afternoon. I’m glad I didn’t change the vacuum cleaner filter this morning, because it would have ruined it. Those things really stink up a vacuum cleaner’s air filter.
Is anyone else having issues with these things? We did really well last year, with only seeing a few inside. They must have had a big population explosion, or something, because I have, so far today, vacuumed up probably close to 50, and there are more in there, again. I guess I know what I’ll be doing all week. When the weather warms up this time of year, they go nuts.
They’re harmless. I got the explosion of them in the house a few times when I lived in the country. I opened the door a little and they went away. I like them so I’d never kill them.
Now the time I had the explosion of little baby praying mantises. OMG! That was different, I hate those little monsters with their pointy little faces and they way they stare at me. I swear they are sizing me up to see if I’m too big for two bites and too small for three. They covered just about every surface in my bathroom, so I opened the skylight and closed the door. When I came back they were gone. I was living in a row house in the city, I have no idea where they came from, or where they went. I was just glad they were gone.
You darned right I’m killing them! We don’t dare open the front door, which is south-facing, because there are hundreds and hundreds of them hanging on the door, on the porch, on the house (Also on the west side of the house). They’re getting in somewhere, so I guess we’ll need to re-caulk. They stink, too. They’re nasty things.
Oh yeah, you’re not alone. We had our biggest swarm of 2013 yesterday, when the temperature got up near 60 after several sub-freezing mornings. We have a brown house, so in the afternoon they swarm on the western side where our main entrance is. They’re also swarming on the chicken coop, which is painted white; the chickens will eat them, but only after they’ve finished off the box elder bugs. “Indian Summers” are no longer something I welcome, because the stinking, biting things make it such a misery to be outside. Let it freeze and snow and ice, whatever it takes to kill the damn things!
We used to get a lot of them in the house, but we now have a company come out and spray a biological control agent every September. That costs us about $200 every year. If we didn’t do that, we’d have thousands of them in the walls of our ancient house. They’d still be oozing out of the walls and flying at our heads like stinky orange BBs in February. For our first few winters here, they’d come out through the electrical outlets, around all the windows, up from the baseboards, and it was absolutely maddening. I don’t generally use pesticides, but to avoid those little bastards I’d seriously consider using napalm.
Since we’ve been having the house sprayed (outside only), we only get a few inside and those don’t last long. I just wait for them to light on a wall or a lampshade and nab them in a pill bottle, where I torture them until they die.
These things aren’t lady bugs; they only look that way because it makes them even more diabolical. The first few times you see them you think, “Oh, look at the pretty ladybug,” and you let it walk on your arm. Then it leaves a little poop trail up to your elbow, gives you a good bite (or pinch, really), and when you try to brush it off it squirts out a noxious yellow substance that stains everything. Then it flits away to bounce against the lampshade until you think you’re going to go insane, before it zooms right at your eyeball at 40 mph.
Squee! I would love an invasion of tiny praying mantises! The only thing cuter would be a batch of infinitesimal 3-toed sloths.
Sudden Kestrel, yep! We have a brown house, as well, and it’s an old one.
The ALB infestation is particularly nasty today. I’ve been about ready to bawl, and my daughter is cussin’ like a sailor.
Once the sun goes down, it’ll be better. I’ll be able to vacuum up the strays that didn’t make it into hiding. I’ll bet we sucked up a couple hundred that got inside this afternoon. I can’t get over how many there were inside. They were much worse outside, though. Our cats are having a big, BIG time with the ones that I didn’t get vacuumed up. It’s like a madhouse when the cats think they make cool toys, when there are hundreds crawling/flying around, and the cats aren’t afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Oddly, nothing has been broken, yet. I’ll bet that’s not going to last long.
Anyway, thank you for understanding what I’m dealing with.
Again. In the past 20 minutes, we got close to another hundred. We took down the dining room curtains. It’s easier to vacuum them up without stupid curtains in the way.
The sun is going down now, and it’ll be better. I’m hoping for lots of clouds, daily, until we can get another killing frost. Sadly, the temperatures are supposed to hit the low 70s this week, but rain is in the forecast. Good! Clouds! Woohooo!
It sounds like your household is at the point we were at before we started paying the exterminator. I love where I live, but I was almost to the point where I’d have agreed to live in the most sterile condo complex in Minneapolis if only I didn’t have to deal with the blasted lady beetles.
Keep your fingers crossed for rain. They hate rain, and wind too. In fact, we sometimes get out the hose and spray them off the house when they get too bad. We’re supposed to get snow tomorrow, so that might be the end of them for us.
Yay! It’s supposed to rain starting tomorrow night, and then for a few days afterward. They’re not bad when it’s cloudy. I never even thought to spray them off the house, though. I may give it a go tomorrow, before the real rain gets here.
As for getting the house sprayed, no one I’ve spoken to has told me that the spraying did any good. I may need to call Orkin, or the like. One of the bigger, more well-known companies. This cannot continue. I’m fed up with it all. Looking into the dining room right now, there are at least 30 of them on the wall/ceiling. I guess it’s time to go vacuum, again.
While I’ve maintained for years that those of us in the US need to start taking Asia to task about exporting its insects (think they’d knock it off if we sent fire ants? Bullet ants? Army ants?), the thrice-damned bugs do serve an important purpose: making you appreciate spiders.
I can’t ignore them. Especially when there are hundreds of them inside the house.
They were mostly in the dining room, but I did see a few that had moved to the kitchen. I was in there, with the lights on, making soup and baking cookies, today. I got the stragglers vacuumed up, though. Still, no matter how many you vacuum up, more appear. Thankfully, today there were only 30, or so.
It’s cold here, too, but I kept the furnace turned off. Between that, and the cloudy skies, it helped keep them from moving around much, and no swarming. They stayed outside, or inside the walls, or in the bowels of hell, from which they came. I did break down a few minutes ago, and turned the furnace on. I’m absolutely froze, and too damned cold to keep the heat off any longer. I guess I’ll be vacuuming more of the stinkin’ things when they come out, after realizing the heat is on, again. :rolleyes:
I’ve been gone all day and got home around 9:30. I could smell them before I could see them in the dark. I have probably a couple hundred in my kitchen. I don’t know how they got in - maybe a crack in the dog door? Nasty creatures.
I feel for you, StGermain. It sucks to have so many.
They really, really stink when they’re not upset. Once they get all worked up, they stink even more. My vacuum will never be the same. I don’t think the stench will ever go away.
They haven’t been bad here this year and even when they are, they never make it all the way into the living area. I use the shop vac to get them off the back door, and out of the enclosed front porch.
But at the 125-year-old uninsulated building where I work, there’s always a pile just inside the door. I use the bagless hand vac for them, and dump it outside.
There is a spray – I think it’s called “Demon” something. We get it from the co-op elevator. Don’t know if regular stores carry it or not.
Knock wood though. We haven’t had any warm sunny days since the harvest started, and that’s usually when they’re the worst.
Dang I wish we had that many, mabye not in the house but at least my aphid problem would be solved and I could maybe grow some greens. You do know that people buy them…for good money? A mesh bag with what is supposed to be 1000 I think sells for $20 here, half are dead though and the other half sits for about 20 minutes where you put them then take off.
