It Stinks

Halloween’s ghouls, demons, and witches can’t hold a flickering candle to the horror of relentless stink bugs arriving en masse to haunt houses in October, before temperatures drop. A previous victim of stinker hell, I know of what I write. Facing west, our inviting porch gets the full impact of brilliant sunsets and has hanging baskets of ferns and numerous large pots holding blooming plants that invited the wrong company, the kind that eats plants we grow plus weeds we can’t stop growing. Inadvertently we set ourselves up for the invaders by providing a few of their favorite things. This year we may get even more malodorous guests if last year’s intruders left a message giving our porch and home a top rating among stink bugs. 

This year we may get even more malodorous guests if last year’s intruders left a message giving our porch and home a top rating among stink bugs. 

The stinking invasion of 2018 began as October ended with a couple of grungy-looking brownish stink bugs clinging ominously to the front porch posts. These weren’t the pepita/pumpkin seed sized, bright green Southern Stink Bugs I remember almost fondly from childhood that behaved the same way all stink bugs do, releasing a pungent stench when threatened, hit, or crushed, then flying erratically around the house, bumping into walls and ceilings and careening off bedposts. Despite their signature pheromone-laced  perfume, with a scent comparable to that of dirty tennis shoes, burnt rubber, whiff of skunk, and cilantro—depending on individual olfactory sensitivity—green stink bugs with their flat, shield-shaped bodies outlined in bright yellow are kind of cute but quickly wear out their welcome. Though I’ve never looked one in the eye, experts claim their eyes are black or red, and they have perky black dots on the sides of their abdomens. 

[Read this: Our publisher James Fox-Smith's own battle with a dauntless pest.]

The visitors that came uninvited for sunset cocktails were a mottled brown/gray, not even close to cute. Though unrecognizable at first sight, at first whiff I knew I was familiar with bugs of their ilk. I know a stink bug when I smell one but didn’t know their numbers would be legion. By November, the front of the house, including windows, was plastered with brown bugs. Bugged potted plants trembled with the hordes lurking in leaves and soil while hiding like Greeks bearing shields and weapons inside the Trojan Horse, waiting for us to carry them into the house for the winter, an annual fiasco. Mostly out and about until late afternoon, they converged to frolic in the setting sun’s light, regrouping and summoning others from far and wide by yet another scented pheromone, inviting them to join the party and messaging  this year’s  generation that our home is hospitable and provides decent shelter. If a human dared to try to smack a stinker down, the target and his staunch supporters aimed themselves menacingly at the enemy, buzzing loudly and dive bombing while rudely hurling stink bombs.

If a human dared to try to smack a stinker down, the target and his staunch supporters aimed themselves menacingly at the enemy, buzzing loudly and dive bombing while rudely hurling stink bombs.

The invader in this case, I discovered, is a newcomer known as the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, hailing from Asia but now a world traveler. It arrived in Europe in 1998 via roof tiles shipped from Beijing, China, to Zurich, Switzerland, for restoration of that city’s Chinese Garden. Then it toured Europe, establishing itself in Germany (2011), Italy (2012), and Austria (2016). Settling in, it wreaked agricultural and financial havoc to the tune of an estimated 3.5 million euros worth of damaged fruit crops from the time of its arrival to the beginning of 2020. On our side of the Atlantic, its presence was recorded in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1998 (though it is believed to have arrived in 1996), and it has been pillaging crops ever since. Marmorated Stink Bugs spread to thirty-four states by 2011 and to forty states the following year. By the time they were listed as an agricultural threat, ravenous stink bugs were already out of the bag.

[Read this: Cultivate carnivorous sundews to keep bugs away.]

Stinkers are adept at hopping trains and hitching rides. The brown variety traveled the globe to reach our shores, stowing away in packing crates and machine parts to cruise by boat and plane. Once here, they hopped on truck and train to travel across our nation while humming Simon and Garfunkel’s song “America.” For short flights, their sturdy wings that mimic the roar of a B52 bomber in flight can carry them up to three miles a day. 

Our climate suits them in spring and summer when they sample crops, piercing delicate skins with the needle-sharp proboscis nature provided, destroying the fruit or vegetable’s seeds and its ability to produce. When sucking the juice, they drool and inject their saliva, leaving a stain and deformed skin, rendering the product unsellable. As winter approaches, they search out tiny cracks and spaces in window and door frames as well as attics and closets, tucking their flat, shield-shaped bodies in tight to stay warm as toast when winter arrives, wandering out occasionally in heated homes. In spring, they emerge to mate unaromatically and unromantically. Each female lays four hundred eggs  during her lifetime, set out in orderly rows of 20–30 on the undersides of leaves, producing one to three generations annually, depending on their location’s climate. With no effective obstacles to bountiful reproduction, the stinkers are here to stay. So what’s a person to do when bombarded by them as I was and fear I will be again this year?

Last year I vowed to be environmentally ethical in waging the war.  I tried garlic spray—no vampires, just stubborn stinkers. I tried catnip and mint oil without success but refused to vacuum them for my vacuum cleaner’s sake. I caught them, tossed them into soapy water, and watched them die without denting their numbers. By Thanksgiving, my environmental vow evaporated like misguided hope. I ineffectively sprayed them with a general pesticide. They remained. I lit voodoo candles, cursed like a sailor, yelled like a crazed madman, and finally called a professional exterminator who coated the porch and windows with milky, lethal spray that required scrubbing for passersby to see our Christmas tree lights through the windows. Should stink bugs regroup, I will call his number again—with a mea culpa to the environment. I trust that this year a fragrant Bayberry candle will provide the holiday scent as opposed to stink bug eau de cologne.