PEST PROSpectives

Nuisance Bugs - They Don’t Bite, They Just Bug You

• Pest Pros of Michigan

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In this episode of PEST PROSpectives, Associate Certified Entomologist Amber Byars unpacks nuisance pests that don’t bite or break things but still drive you up the wall, from stink bugs and boxelder bugs to Asian lady beetles, crickets, springtails, earwigs, and pill bugs. We explain why they invade, how to time prevention, and what “success” really looks like.

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Pest Pros of Michigan

PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.




PEST PROSpectives is a Livemic Communications production.

Richard Piet:

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome back to PEST PROSpectives. It's the Pest Pros of Michigan here. Emphasis on pros because we bring them in and ask them about the pesky bugs you deal with, maybe uh rodents, other things. Boy, I tell you what, when these uh associate-certified entomologists like Amber Byars go to parties, they probably get asked all kinds of questions when they tell people what they do. Is that true, Amber?

Amber Byars:

Well, that's true. Yeah, we've become, you know, the expert on all the fun bug stuff. So you spend a lot of time going through why do I have these? What can I do about it?

Richard Piet:

Yes, this is uh what happens when an expert shows up and people are excited and they say, Oh my gosh. And I will wager that uh what we'll talk about today are some of the things they ask about. That is to say, nuisance bugs, not the least of which are stink bugs and box elders and other things. But uh these are the things that generally don't cause trouble, but they're kind of a pain and they're around. And I can, if we stick with stink bugs for just a second, I can remember my uh family down in the middle section of the south and the far south complaining for years about stink bugs. And we would say, Oh, we don't have those in Michigan. Guess what? We do now, and I'm probably not telling anybody anything about that. They're pretty prominent, aren't they?

Amber Byars:

Oh, absolutely, yeah. And the most annoying factor is that they love to invade structures. So they primarily, and this goes for most nuisance, nuisance pests, they primarily live outdoors, and that's where they're going to be most active, except for certain times of the year, stink bugs specifically, they will invade structures when the temperatures cool down. So, and that's not you know, randomly, it's biologically that they do that for a reason. Um, so yeah, that's why people get so frustrated with stink bugs is you know, once the fall comes, they start finding them in the house. And that's when we get the phone calls.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, you do. Now we're gonna get back to them in just a second. But besides stink bugs and box elders, what else is considered a nuisance bug?

Amber Byars:

Yeah, so some other um examples would be Asian lady beetles. They're kind of fall into the same category as box elders and stink bugs as far as occasional invaders and overwintering pests go. Otherwise, you have pests that typically will be outdoors but will wander inside for certain reasons to avoid harsh weather, to just wandering, just like end up there by accident, or you know, certain conditions in the home are are favorable to them. So we have things like crickets who love to be in moist areas. We have springtails, springtails, occasional invaders, they'll they will move into the structure if there is certain vegetation outside of the home and then favorable conditions inside, they will wander in and move in. And then we have earwigs. I know everybody knows what an earwig is. They're the ones with the little pinchers, you know. Um and they're they're incredibly uh frustrating when when they get in and kind of uh weird and scary looking to some people, you know.

Richard Piet:

Right. And they look like they might bite you with those pinchers, but they don't do that, right?

Amber Byars:

No, yeah, none of these pasts necessarily cause anything. Uh they're not critical, which we classify as something that could cause damage, disease, or discomfort. Um, and I guess you know, define discomfort, but yeah.

Richard Piet:

All right, and are the Asian lady beetles the ones that look like ladybugs?

Amber Byars:

Yep, exactly. Yep.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, I see a few of those.

Amber Byars:

They they look like ladybugs. There's some characteristic differences in the Asian lady beetle.

Richard Piet:

I see.

Amber Byars:

Um, they can have a numerous variety of different amounts of spots on their on their wing pads, and they can be different colors and range from like a really light yellow through orange to a bright red. Um, and ladybugs are always going to be that nice, beautiful red color.

Richard Piet:

I see. That makes sense. They're the tint of that color is a little bit different, and they are certainly around too. You talked about uh pill bugs, or at least we referred to it initially. Those are uh what we sometimes call rolly pulley bugs. I think my fourth grade teacher called them that. Yes.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, they're they're considered a crustacean, their biology. They're uh very, very interesting pusts, but they will also wander in the home or come through cracks and crevices inside, and again, they won't cause any damage or anything, but they're just annoying. They'll be in the basements around the the exterior walls and caught in spider webs and stuff. Um, they might make their way up into the main levels, but uh yeah, they're not gonna do anything. They just, you know, they're a nuisance.

Richard Piet:

Yes. Uh so I can I can speak to that. I've had pill bugs around. I think I've eliminated that problem now. You guys actually told me there's some moisture somewhere and they like that. Same kind of thing with crickets. I've had those two, and uh, we discovered the uh source of that and eliminated it, so they've gone away. But I want to come back to the stink bug thing because uh it is so prevalent. The stink bugs, uh, I've had people say, yeah, they really stink when when you smash them. I don't smell it. Do they have a stink?

Amber Byars:

They absolutely do. They they don't smell great. Um so all throughout the entire summer season, they're feeding, they're plant feeders, so they're sucking the juices out of plants. And um after they're doing that for an entire season, they're gonna be most pungent in the fall, um, which is when they smell pretty bad. Like if somebody goes to, you know, manipulate them, grab them physically, um, they will stink pretty bad. Um, that smell, weirdly enough, over their diapause in the winter will go away as they have not fed throughout a whole season. So in the spring, they might not smell as bad, but they absolutely do stink. Um, that is why one of the main reasons we will not recommend clients to necessarily use like a zapper. Like, you know, outside you can hang up those um those those lights that have the zap to them. Um, we do not recommend those for stink bugs because they will release that defense smell and it will just be be no good. Um, even, you know, sometimes vacuums that don't have a great filtration or a HEPA filter in them are very great either because they will stink. And then, you know, it, you know, when you vacuum something smelly, it kind of, you know, just goes everywhere. And then your vacuum stinks for a long time.

Richard Piet:

So yeah. Well, I think you described why I haven't smelled it because I don't get down and and uh handle them. So maybe that's why you go. So what is the approach when somebody calls you and says, I'm loaded with stink bugs, how do you handle it?

Amber Byars:

Well, great question. So um the the biggest thing that I find effective with clients is to really set expectations and educate them well up front first. That's that's the most important thing that you can do initially is just explain without, you know, boring people or going too crazy with it, uh, explain biology and behavior of the pest to the client so that they can have a reasonable expectation of what the service can provide. Okay, because people have this weird illusion that, you know, we'll come in with a pesticide and we'll treat and poof, all the bugs will be gone. Which um, if you don't explain up front that that's not the case, is a valid thing to think, right? But the truth is pesticides can only do so much. So if you can explain to your client in a reasonable way that pesticides are one piece of the puzzle and we can start controlling populations with a barrier around the structure, it will reduce the amount of activity that they have, but it will not, it won't do two things. It will not eliminate them and it will not keep them out of the house. That's two very, very important things for them to know because um, and we I've learned this from failing in the past that you know, we'll get calls and clients will say, I'm getting stink bugs in my house still, your service is failing. That's not true, you know. Uh what really needs to happen um is conducive conditions outside would either need to be eliminated, which are removing all the the trees and the the plant sources, which is usually impossible. Or two, if they don't want to see a stink book in the house, then they need to seal off any entry point or gap around the structure that the stink books could be getting in. So that's kind of how we try to explain these services to clients. We'll, you know, try to um set their expectations up front as as clearly as we can.

Richard Piet:

So there's a good chance that uh we'll still see a few around at least, even with some of the more common approaches to dealing with it. You're not gonna level your whole yard of vegetation just to get rid of stink bugs. Yeah.

Amber Byars:

Right. And you know, most of the time, the the thing that clients are worried about is usually like just reducing the amount of activity that they're having in the house. And by the time a client's calling in the fall or or even the spring, the problem has been manifesting itself for a period of time prior to us getting on the property, right? So uh that's another important factor to try to explain to people is um if we're coming mid-winter for sink bugs being in the home, we're about six months past when we should have been on the property, you know? Um, we should have been on the property um starting either springtime when there everything is starting to wake up and move around, or at least by the middle of the summer, you know, to try to get some preventative barriers down.

Richard Piet:

That makes sense. So I presumed that uh when it got cold, those stink bugs were dead and gone. I think you've inferred that that may not be the case.

Amber Byars:

Exactly. Yeah, no, you're right. Um so we call it uh well, science calls it diapause. It's the same as a as a mammal going into hibernation. I see. The animal the the insect kind of goes into a very deep sleep like state over the winter when the temperatures drop. They're they just can't function, you know. So that is their biological reason for moving into structures to try to stay at a reasonable temperature long enough to go into diapause and survive the winter. Um so they're not inactive, um, they're still alive, they're just um, you know, in a diapause state, they're just tucked away, out of sight, usually in the wall void and attic space under the insulation. And so uh when we think about that in relativity to where we need to treat and when, um, it's very important to focus on areas that they're gonna use to enter the home, which is again why exclusion efforts are important. Um, because some areas that they're using to gain entry, we can't treat like roof level peaks, ridge vent to be specific. Um, our our power sprayers are not reaching those areas. Uh, it would it would pose best interest to to you know put a a guard over the ridge vent to keep them out uh of the roof level. Um we can also do something that's called attic dusting. Once they've already made it in, you can go in and do a light, uh light dusting in the attic around the still plate areas and the insulation to kind of control what's already made it in. But that's a you know, it's a high-level service, um, usually tied to a higher dollar amount. And, you know, that's the that's the position clients get into with themselves is do I want to invest that much into this for stink bugs?

Richard Piet:

Yeah.

Amber Byars:

You know?

Richard Piet:

Yeah, that makes sense. I can relay my experience, which is in the spring they come out and then when it gets hot, they disappear.

Amber Byars:

Right.

Richard Piet:

And then in the fall, when it cools down, they're back again in in some sort of hurrah. I don't get them in the house, but they're outside. So at least I say I don't get them in the house. Like you say, maybe they're in the attic, maybe they're somewhere else under the siding. Yes, right. So you described the approach here with stink bugs, but is this a common approach with a number of these nuisance bugs we've talked about?

Amber Byars:

You know, it can, it can relate to a lot of this. Um, again, it's how far, how extreme do clients want to take it? Uh, it's definitely up to them. But that's why setting the expectation up is so important because pesticides are the number one way for clients to maintain populations as far as efficiency and financially. It is definitely the way to go for maintenance. You, you know, you come out and you you apply an appropriately labeled pesticide to appropriate areas, and that does keep populations of insects down. It it does, it's the truth. It will not, however, like I said earlier, eliminate or keep them out of the house. So you can absolutely look for exclusion efforts to um try to control all sorts of pests, but maintenance services with pesticides are key. Um they have a they have a part in this in this cycle. And um as long as we're doing them on a regular basis, it should definitely knock down that population to a reasonable amount for the client.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, I was just gonna say we can have our expectations adjusted and and maybe not work so hard with these solutions that then just reduce the population, but a few of them will still be around.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, and it definitely depends too on the environment. Um, you know, I live in an urban, suburban area. Um, I'm, you know, there's not a lot of vegetation around me. I mean, it's Michigan, so we're surrounded by forests, but there's not, there's not a ton in my direct property. So I don't have a lot of pressure on my house. But then, you know, I drive 10 minutes south of here, you know, and I have a wooded lot that has a ton of pressure on it. And so um, that service might look a little bit different than mine. I might need a little bit more, um, I might need more frequent services on that property than I do at my house. Uh, I might need to talk to them about vegetation maintenance and getting trees cut away. I might need to talk to them about having systemic pesticide applications done to their vegetation, something that they might want to consider. But um, environment, environmental factors are definitely huge in trying to figure out what's gonna work best for the client as well.

Richard Piet:

Yeah, and so the point is made each piece of property that you're working with has to be evaluated for its own environmental factors and probably others. So that's important. You're talking about trees, that's the whole box elder thing, right? Uh they like trees, don't they? Yeah, these are these narrow bugs that that are kind of long and they have uh what looks like a shield, an orange kind of marking on their back. Uh, I see a lot of those too, and they're attracted to certain vegetation also.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, specifically, right? Black seldom trees. They love maple. Um so yeah, that it poses a challenge when you're on a property with, you know, such luscious vegetation around, specifically those trees that that people are not going to get rid of. I have had a couple of clients go to that extreme to chop down their trees. I I literally have. It was like while they really weren't messing around with these box other bugs, they chopped down some trees. And, you know, it did really lower their population, but that's few and far where you're finding clients that go to that level.

Richard Piet:

Yes, well, that that's true. You really hate to uh rearrange your whole environment that you love so much just uh for these nuisances. Yeah. Nevertheless, I'm sure you see the other side of it where you meet folks who say, I don't want to see a bug in a house anywhere. And and so you've got to deal with that.

Amber Byars:

Right, exactly.

Richard Piet:

Well, these are the questions and discussions that happen from the pest pros of Michigan and what we bring you here on pest prospectives. Amber Byars, of course, uh understands the nature of this as an associate certified entomologist, ace as we call it, she also oversees field operations. You hear that knowledge come through in these conversations too, and those which you have with them. The information is in the show notes. Just click through if you have a question you want to ask the pest pros of Michigan, and we invite you to subscribe to this podcast where you get them. Amber, thank you. Till next time. See you later.

Amber Byars:

Yeah, see ya.