How do you get rid of ladybugs?

[ilovetivo]

We have soooooo many in dd's room. Some in the living room on first floor (facing same directions as dd's room), but not as many. I must "get rid of" 20 a day...more when it's nicer out. I just don't know where they're coming from and how to get rid of them. We do have new windows and it's much better than before. There's also some flies that start out baby size and most are pretty slow. Also in DD's room.

Ack! It's disgusting!

[psophia17]

I think you're pretty much stuck...there was a hobby farm near where I grew up that bought ladybugs to use as natural pest deterrents, and now there are ladybugs up the wazoo everywhere. We call my sister's childhood bedroom the place ladybugs and houseflies go to die, her windows face east. When I lived in the area in a different house, we also had ladybug issues, and then we had them facing west, towards the sunset.

I believe DS ate lots of them when all he could do to transport himself was roll over, and he seems okay.

It never worked for us in our old drafty farmhouse, but I've heard that scooping them all up and dumping them outside will work, and that if you can get most of them outside in one fell swoop in summer, they will likely not come back until fall/winter, when they all head for warm places to clump together and do the ladybug version of hibernation. Maybe, since you have new windows, this will work for you?

[DebbieJ]

We have a bunch also, especially in the east facing rooms as Petra described. We also happen to live behind an apple orchard :) so I know that they are coming from there.

Ladybugs are pretty much harmless, so I don't worry much about them. Just vacuum them up when they die or throw them back outside if they are alive.

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03
2 year check up: 25 lbs with clothes on and 35 inches!
BFARed for 20 months and 6 days
(Breastfeeding After Reduction is possible! www.bfar.org)

http://www.bfar.org/members/fora/style_avatars/Ribbons/18months-bfar.jpg

[Momof3Labs]

Bay leaves. I tuck them around the window, and a day or two later, the ladybugs are gone. Just set them around anywhere you see the bugs.

Can't help you with the flies, though!

[ilovetivo]

Wow! Like the ones you get by the spices? Fresh or dried ones?

Thanks all!

[ilovetivo]

Lori - when you say around the window, you put them on the window sill?

All -, I just found that you can be allergic to them . I wonder if some of dd's mysterious rashes are ladybug related. She does have food allergies, but sometimes I can't track the cause.

http://www.aaaai.org/media/news_releases/2006/03/030406a.stm

[brittone2]

Huh. Who knew??

Thanks Lori for that tip...I'll pass it along to my parents. They tend to get a lot of ladybugs at their house.

[Momof3Labs]

I've always used dried - the cheap ones, no need to spend big bucks on good stuff.

[trumansmom]

Really? We have horrible ladybug issues in the fall every year.

Will this work for box elder bugs as well? We get those, too. Blech.


Jeanne
Mom to Truman 11/01 and Eleanor 4/04

[Momof3Labs]

Sure, that works. Or tuck them in the track around the window (not end to end, just a couple on each side).

I don't know why they work, but they do!!

[muskiesusan]

Does this work on the Asian Beetles that look like ladybugs? Only asking b/c I never know what bugs people are talking about anymore when they say ladybugs!


Susan
Mom to Nick 10/01
& Alex 04/04

[vdrake71]

I am so glad you posted this because I also have a similar problem and I keep telling my DH to fix it. I live in a 100 year old farm house and we get Asian ladybugs and boxeleder (?) bugs. I have to clean my boy's rooms every night. I have this strange fear that one will go in there mouths and kill them. I know - very strange. The ladybugs are not fun to kill because they stink. I now have a vacumn cleaner downstairs and upstairs. I do belive that I know where they are hiding. The ladybugs are in our atic and the boxeleder bugs are in my basement. They also are in the walls because we put plastic on the windows and the bugs are trapped between the plastic and the window.

I have been looking at buying the book 1001 All-natural Secrets to a Pest-free Property and The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals.

I was at the local Farm and Fleet store this weekend and they have stuff you can put on your property where the ladybugs fly into it and die.

I am looking forward to trying the bay leaves. Thanks!

[psophia17]

>I have been looking at buying the book 1001 All-natural
>Secrets to a Pest-free Property and The Organic Gardener's
>Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete
>Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy
>Without Chemicals.

A big problem with ladybugs is that they are considered an all-natural pest deterrent - not a pest at all - so you'll likely find these books saying to buy some ladybugs from a garden catalog and set them free...the darn things multiply faster than rabbits.

[mamamayi]

We get those both the Asian ladybugs and the box elder bugs, too. I simply hate them! They always come to the same window, even though I taped it shut (and it's a new window).

I saw there were some "bunches" of them outside on the cedar shakes on the upper part of our house. I sprayed them with wasp spray because it was handy and was the only thing that I could get to spray high enough. (The shakes are on the 2nd story.) As soon as I started spraying, both the ladybugs and the box elder beetles started flying out by the hundreds like nothing else I've ever seen. The spray didn't seem to kill them instantly like it does wasps and I was really frustrated and mad. However, several hours later I went back outside for something and there were hundreds of them dead on the ground. It seems like there have not been nearly as many of them as before. I think they must have been living outside underneath the shakes, and when the sun warmed them up, they came out. I didn't know there were that many of them until I sprayed them.

I want to point out that my two girls are old enough that they wouldn't eat the bugs, and even so, it didn't seem like me spraying caused the bugs to come inside and then die there. I don't know if a bug killed by bug spray would harm a baby if it was eaten or not, but it doesn't sound like a good thing.