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Subscribe to RSSResidents in Portage, Utah, can't seem to get rid of boxelder bugs that have swarmed their small town. KSL's Mike Anderson reports.
In Portage, Utah, they're everywhere: on children, on dogs, in the food, in basements and along window sills. Residents there and in much of Utah are used to seeing these visitors, known as boxelder bugs, but not in the numbers that this year has produced.
"They've just been awful this fall," Keith Wadman told NBC station KSL-TV. "They're in your food, they're in your house ... they just crawl everywhere."
"They're in the kitchen, they're in the bathroom, they're in the bedroom. They walk right on the dogs even," added Lisa Bryant, one of the few hundred residents of Portage, a town near the Idaho state line.
"Every time the kids come in, we play a little game to see how many they have on them," said Nick Tree, "then we kill 'em."
Tree added that while he constantly vacuums them from his basement, "somehow they creep back in."
Diane Alston, a bug expert at Utah State University, had some advice for terminating the bugs until the winter cold does it for them.
"At my house I like to use an insecticidal soap product and just spray it up on the sides of the house," she told KSL. "That soap will break down the wax covering on their body and dry them out."
The university also has a list of tips for dealing with boxelder bugs, among them: "Avoid squishing adults because they can leave a stain on fabrics and can release a foul odor."
The university suspects this year has been particularly bad because of wet weather last year, a mild winter and then a warm summer.
As you might expect, boxelder bugs are a hot topic not just in Portage but across Utah. KSL reader comments on the story included these:
- One suggested using the dead bugs as garden fertilizer. "Sounds a little grotesque, but hey, maybe it would be a good solution for some folks."
- Deploying chickens to eat live bugs was suggested by a few readers. "We have had a dozen free-range chickens for years and NEVER see one," posted a reader.
- A mix of water and dishwater soap to kill them was endorsed by several. "I used 3 spray bottles full and soon we had snow-shovels full of dead bugs to dump in the garbage," one reader stated.
- "I think I perpetuated the problem by bringing about 20 plus back in the crevices of my car from the Idaho side of Cache valley," lamented another reader. "It's not cool when you're driving and they pop out at you in the car. This is the first year however that they have gotten inside our house."
- And from nearby Rose Canyon, a reader had this to say: "They are bad here!! You can't even tell the color of my house during the day."
Wadman, the Portage resident, did see a silver lining. "The only redeeming quality they have," he said of the bugs, "is that they don't bite."
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There are EVERYWHERE in North Central MN. Disgusting! We sprayed several bushes and our house, a lot died, a lot did not. They are in our house as well. I guess it's just something to deal with. We also have an influx of lady bugs this Fall.
Grew up in SLC and remember them all over. We got rid of them around our house by cutting down the Box Elder trees that attract them.
I used the soap trick and haven't had a problem since!
This story is incomplete. NBC hasn't found anyone that blames it on climate change.
well killer this is the hottest year ever recorded and with all the extra moisture due to melting ice caps - well heat+ moisture = buggiest year ever - wow you could be on to something here - or dont tell me you would rather go with a plague from god - yeah your right your reason makes more sense - guys we all should be praying for the bugs to go away - thx killer at last a voice of reason.... and we still have mosquitos up north in freakin october - yeah nothins goin on - listen to the GOP criminals - and we will need bug spray on news years eve in times square
Unfortunately, we have the nasty stinkbugs pretty bad in WV this year as well.
Call me weird, but I appreciate all living things. I now live in AZ; we have stinkbugs, and it is disgusting to watch how people gleefully smash them then complain about their odor.
TRY DIATOMACEOUS EARTH! It is an easy solution that gets rid of the bugs, is non-toxic to pets and humans and is good for the soil and the diet, too. You can buy it at feed stores or online. It is like fine white flour and you can dust it into cracks and crevices or on the bugs themselves. If they walk through it or it is on them, it dries their shell/skin out and they become dessicated. It also works on other bugs and ants.
Google the product. It has been used for years in grain silos and packaged in rice bags as a non-toxic method to keep the bugs at bay. It can do all kinds of other things, too. We use it here in AZ in our pool filters to super clean the pool water and, if you buy the food-grade quality diatomaceous earth, you and your pets can ingest it to get rid of parasitic worms and other problems because of its unique microscopic design. It also is a valuable mineral that has been touted to help stimulate stronger collagen and healthier hair growth. I mix up a bit and drink it (food grade quality only) as a nutritional supplement.
Bug problems are bad everywhere this year. We have a few of these little insects around but not much.
We had huge problems this year with Fly's, Bee's, Mosquito's and Black Widows.
In 15 years I have never seen a fly or Mosquito around here until this year.
Black Widows have been a 100 fold of normal but on the bright side,
Sand Roaches have been non-existent this year and they have always been the dominate bug here!
Clark County (Las Vegas) Nevada
The warm winter has allowed insert to thrive. Ticks are worse than ever.
They are actually not too bad fried up with olive oil and a whole lot of garlic.
All kidding aside, just call an exterminator and your problem is solved. I tried soap, malathion, etc., with no luck. exterminator works every time. Ant and roach spray will keep them from crawling in though but will not keep them off the side of your house or your kids. It also leaves a bad odor everywhere in the house.
Just another of those typical biblical plagues...
I find it rather amusing that Portage, Utah is in far nothern Utah in... Box Elder County! Seems like they're right at home!
NO! I will tell you what to do and I know it works because it is what I did. The ONLY way to deal with them (unless you want to remove the maple, ash, etc. trees that they are attracted to) is to catch them early. When I first moved into this house at the beginning of 2006, I had never even seen one of these bugs before (even though this house is only a couple of houses down from the house where I grew up) and in the fall, it was like a scene out of a horror movie. Every year, even though I tried to deal with them, they just got worse. They always appear around this time of year for a month or so and then they're gone. You just walk out of your house and there they are (from out of nowhere) on the garage or all of the way up to the top of the trees ...in HUGE clusters. I used pesticides, soapy water, the vacuum method, smashing them with anything I could pick up at the moment, etc. These things are only going to frustrate you more. If you have this problem with Box-Elder Bugs right now, it's pretty much too late to do anything. You'll have to wait until next year. This year, I decided that I would get the jump on them. I made a point to keep an eye out for them and as soon as they appeared, I simply killed them with a fly swatter. Hundreds at a time. Every day. Kill. Kill. Kill. For several weeks, this was a long battle. I killed them as they climbed up their tree (when they reached eye level) and didn't let a single one pass to get to the higher branches. They will scramble on up the tree right into your path (and some will even come down to you as they try to make their confused escape). I thought I was just wasting my time BUT as the first couple of weeks went by I started to notice that I was killing less and less. Now, I hardly see any and when I do it's only a couple instead of a couple of thousand (which is what I was facing this time last year). As soon as I see one, I squash it and look for others. It's much easier to kill them this way. If you let them breed until the point where they are forming huge clusters ...it's too late. Trust me. This time last year, I was screaming and cursing and fighting a never ending war. This year ...I am not.
They keep multiplying in Utah and spreading elswhere. In Utah, each bug is allowed 4 wives.
The plague of the bugs is coming along with the plague of the repukes.
Watch out Christians and Catholics. The great satan is lying to you.
The anti Christ is upon us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Repent, all you sinners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Mormon book, The Pearl of Great Price, claims that all other Christian groups are "corrupt" and are an "abomination" in God's sight (Joseph Smith, 2:19). The Mormons deny the Trinity and the existence of a literal burning Hell, yet they promote polytheism (many gods), baptism for the dead, and the notion that Jesus and Satan were originally spirit brothers!
This is what Todd Akin thinks of lyin Willardo, the Mexican Mormon Moron tax evader, bankrupter, job outsourcer, draft dodger and Etch a Sketch Champion.
Time for the seagulls to fly in for the rescue.
Try a, inexpensive, safe, method:
1. Buy chewing tobacco (for an acre and saturating a large house, I buy about 5 packs), cheap Listerine (4), lemon dish soap (3 big ones) and a hose end sprayer (not the free one-the Ortho-type where you can set the ounces per gallon-set it to 4)
2. Put tobacco it in an old stocking, stick in a bowl of boiling water and make tobacco tea.
3. Mix a 1/3 of each in the sprayer, attach to hose and go to work towards dusk. I put the sprayer output right up against knots in trees, shutters, etc. so it gets behind. Gutters also need a good hosing, esp if youdidn't clean them in a while.
4. The Listerine has alc in it so you don't want to do it in the bright sun or in the morning. I then set the sprinklers to go off in the late a.m./afternoon the next day if it is supposed to be really hot and sunny, even though normally, you don't run sprinklers during the day. Better yet, schedule your spray the day before it rains.
I know it doesn't kill bees as fast as I would like but they fall from behind the shutters and I kill them as they hit the deck or the HD bucket I put underneath it where there is only grass. It also takes a LOT to kill in-ground bugs, unless you are lucky, find a bee-hole (lol-new one) and put the sprayer in and flood it.
I am in Illinois and this are seen everywhere in town, hate them
They do too bite!
We had a terrible infestation of these things in the town we recently moved out of - all summer long they're all over everything outside, and come winter they invite themselves in to stay.
A good, harmless treatment for them is a nice spray down with plain old warm, soapy water.
They do NOT bite. We had these in Northern Ohio every year when I was growing up. Nobody that I know in 56 years has ever been bitten. They are just a nusiance, that's all.
I can live with the boxelder insects , former resident of se iowa where the may flies that come up out of the river and smell like dead fish at times would pile up 3 feet high in oe night .
As soon as the election is over the bugs will be gone as the repubs crawl back into their holes.
In Mormon Utah, men are called "elders"; women are called "box elders".
Filthy Mormons
We had some kind of bugs I never seen before in the South. They said that they are roaches, yet they aren't like any roach I have ever seen before. These bugs look more like bugs. We didn't have them until we started getting them until early 2009 or so. Everything we try will not get rid of them. They seem to like it where it is moisted but dry too. I removed an old vanity out of my bathroom and did a good sweep of my house for nest or roach casings. After i turned my water heater down, I started getting less. I haven't seen one in over a year, but then again they might just start coming back as wet a it has been down here.
Sounds like palmetto bugs. Like grits, they come with EVERYTHING in the south.
It is the start of the Mormon apocalypse - a warning to those who vote for Romney.
We're eat up with the stink bugs here in Virginia.
I find it hard to believe this is just another mother nature thing just like the virus's that suddenly creep up. I believe it's the scientist working overtime. Like the weather change after the Chem trails are seen in the sky, and the sudden earthquakes one after another, than nothing, orthe sudden dead birds falling from the sky. Experiments done like back many years ago at places like Fort Detrick, Dugway Proving Ground or Plum Island.
Shouldnt the mormons be praying for seagulls?