Anyone dealing with Box-Elder bugs?

[gatorsmom]

I HATE this rental house! We had earwigs most of the summer and now I find box elder bugs in the same areas of the house as the earwigs! This house has more holes in it than a sieve!

I fought the earwigs off with boric acid powder around edges of rooms where I found them and places where there was water. But the boric acid powder doesn't seem to be slowing down the box-elder bugs.

Anyone have any good ideas how to get rid of them? They creep me out!

[wendibird22]

Blech! I hate them. No advice on getting them out of or keeping them out of a rental house. We bought a new construction 6.5y ago and the first fall our sunny side of the house was crawling with them. Thousands and thousands sunning themselves on our siding. So freakin gross. The only way to really get rid of them is to get rid of the box elder maple trees nearby. They don't fly so they go to the closest warm place they can crawl/hop to. We had several dozen trees removed. Wasn't inexpensive by any means but now we only get a few bugs a year.

Perhaps call your local DEC or cooperative extension and see if they have a recommendation.

[daniele_ut]

Sorry, I don't have any really good advice, though I can commiserate. Utah has an entire county named after the Box Elder tree, so you can imagine we have a LOT of them here. We have been thankful that very few get into the house, but when they are in season, they are all over the backyard!

[Tondi G]

UUGH what a PITA! I hope you can find a way to get rid of them. It might be time to call an exterminator.

http://boxelderbug.com/