Whenever someone sees a bug, something is in the body that urges you to squish it. This may be a bad option, especially if the bug you’re looking at is a stink bug! Can you squish a stink bug?
- You can always squish a stink bug, but if you do, you must be prepared to deal with that unique scent.
- When squished, the scent excreted by the stink bug will linger for hours or days.
- Stink bugs are not harmful, but some have an allergic reaction to the insect.
By all means, you can squish a stink bug. There are consequences to doing so and ways that you can get rid of them without having that very distinct odor linger in your home.
Keep reading if you want to know how you can do that and some ways you deal with an infestation or prevent them from entering your home.
Can You Squish a Stink Bug? How Should You Take Care of One?
Stink bugs are not dangerous even though some people have allergic reactions to them or have a bad reaction to being sprayed. Squishing a bug is an immediate reaction, but there are better ways to eliminate these pesky bugs.
These bugs are not dangerous even though some people have allergic reactions to them.
Depending on where you’re trying to get rid of the stink bugs, whether indoors or outdoors, the method of getting rid of them varies.
Stink Bugs in the Garden
If dealing with stink bugs in your garden, you can use natural methods to get rid of them.
Things like kaolin clay or pheromone sprays can be great ways to repel them from your garden.
Along with this, you can also utilize traps as there is a wide range of options out there. And if you live in a warmer climate, make sure you leave those garden lizards alone, because they will happily munch on stink bugs!
If your stink bugs have made it indoors, then avoid squishing them if possible. Stink bugs can fly, but they’re not fast. Often you can gather them on a piece of paper or in a jar, and bring them outside to let them go.
This way, no stinky smell, and good karma.
But if you’re looking for more preventative measures, we’ll take a look at both indoor and outdoor techniques you can use in the next section.
Indoor and Outdoor Stink Bug Preventative Measures
Just like with any preventative measures in your home, the first place you should look is outside. You can use many methods to get rid of points of entry that would allow stink bugs to get into your home.Â
Insecticides
There are insecticides that work on stink bugs. But these are usually not great solutions, unless you’ve got a serious infestation. You’re going to want to take a look at other stink bug control aspects as well.
Dryer Sheets
One of the methods you can utilize is to take the dryer sheets you use in your dryer and rub any screens with them. This transfers the scent from them onto the screens, which will repel stink bugs.
Damp Towel
Another more friendly method to keep stink bugs out of your home is to place a damp towel somewhere where the stink bugs can get to it. Leaving it out for 24 hours, we’ll draw them to it, and you’ll be able to dump the stink bugs that have crawled onto it into a bucket of soapy water.
One of the methods you can utilize is to take the dryer sheets you use in your dryer and rub any screens with them.
If they do happen to get indoors, there are many ways that you can handle getting rid of them. One of the best options would be to make sure that you don’t touch them directly and don’t squish them but find a way to remove them.
Among these, you can use an empty water bottle, sheet of paper, or even a plastic bag to move them to the outdoors.
If you’re looking to completely get rid of stink bugs, an outdoor vacuum is your friend. Use a vacuum that you might use for things like outdoors and garages or cars to suck them up into it and then deliver them to the outdoors.
The key to this is to ensure you don’t use a bagless option. That could leave a stinky scent that is expelled when the vacuum is used.
Cleaning Up Dead Stink Bugs
Maybe you were cleaning the attic or the garage and found a whole bunch of already-dead stink bugs. Your immediate reaction may be to grab the vacuum and suck them up.Â
But the vacuum cleaner’s disturbing motion could release some of those latent scents, carry the scent into the vacuum and then bring it back into your home.
So if you’re dealing with already dead stink bugs, the best option would be to just use the good old-fashioned broom and dustpan and remove them as much as possible.
Conclusion
If you don’t want to deal with a pungent stink-bug scent, don’t squash a stink bug in your home. Squashing isn’t a good solution anyway. Better to carefully remove them and place them outside your home.
There are plenty of ways to repel and prevent them from getting into your home without dealing with that scent. In the above article, we’ve given you quite ideas, and we hope that this helps you with all of your stink bug issues
