MINNEAPOLIS — The brown, shield-shelled stinkbugs outside of homes right now are indeed invasive.
They were first reported in Pennsylvania in 1998, and made their way to Minnesota by 2010, according to UMN extension pest management educator Marissa Schuh.
"A new stinkbug showed up on the scene, an invasive species of stinkbug called the brown marmorated stinkbug," Schuh said. "It has a bit of a different habit than native stinkbugs and it is unfortunately the stinkbug we're seeing creeping up on people's homes looking for a place to spend the winter."
Schuh said people might be seeing them because this is the time of year these bugs lurk outside — trying to get inside.
"Unfortunately that oftentimes leads them to our houses," she said. "Normally in their native range, they spend their winter in the bark of trees and in leaf litter. In the U.S., they seem to really gravitate towards people's homes."
The good news is they aren't poisonous, nor do they bite.
And the best method of prevention is just that: prevention, physically.
"It's really just about sealing up your home as much as possible so they're not in your attic, in your eaves," Schuh said. "It can seem like a pain, but a mouse can get in like a quarter inch in size, so if I do a good job sealing a house against a stinkbug, I am keeping out things that can do even worse damage to my house."
The bad part is that they smell bad when they're threatened or crushed, and pesticides don't work well on them.
"They're big, tanky, mobile bugs, they are hard to kill with insecticides," Schuh said. "So I really encourage people to either live with it or bring out the vacuum. This is not a good candidate for insecticide application."
Schuh said the best way to get rid of them would be to grab a shop vac, vacuum them up and then dump them out in soapy water. She said that method is effective in killing many bugs and avoids crushing them.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture says it's common to see the brown marmorated stinkbugs in the metro, but it's rarer outside the seven metro counties. If you see a BMSB outside of Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, and Washington counties, you are encouraged to make an online pest report.
You can find the link to the online reporting system here.
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