So far the box elder season hasn’t been as bad as last year’s box elder season. Yet I am removing carcasses from the house and cleaning brown spots off the exterior doors and windows.
Box elder bugs are black with red stripes and they are everywhere. They like to hang out on the side of the house on a sunny afternoon. They are harmless or so the experts say. They don’t bite or carry disease. I don’t like having
them in my house and I have no idea how they are getting in but I don’t imagine they need much of an opening.
There is one home remedy that will kill them without harming bees or butterflies or anything else. Put some water in a spray bottle with a squirt of dish soap or laundry detergent. If it doesn’t work you didn’t put in enough. The mixture doesn’t kill the bugs on contact but they will die.
A person could go out and buy some kind of poison to kill the bugs but that seems like a waste of money. The bugs will just keep coming no matter how many we kill. My goal is to keep them out of the house which is challenging. I still remember a Thanksgiving when a box elder bug got into the mac and cheese.
The first hard frost will kill some of them off but some will get inside and survive.
