Stop the Ladybugs in My House!

Do you have lady beetles in your house? Every fall Asian Lady bugs invade countless buildings in search of winter shelter. What should you do about them?

Every gardener likes ladybugs or lady beetles in the garden. There, they serve a useful purpose and devour aphids, keeping our roses and flowers and other plants aphid free. But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Where do ladybugs go in winter? Normal ladybugs would shelter in leaf litter or a similar snug place. But Asian lady beetles are different. They mass up and spend the winter in huge groups. They like to shelter in caves set into cliffs. What's the next best thing? Your house.

The Asian ladybugs come indoors in October in search of a place to over winter in safety. Once indoors, they will move about on a warm day, much to our dismay. There is nothing quite as disgusting as seeing thousands (or millions?) of ladybugs crawling on a wall or ceiling, or swarming on your front porch.

The level of grossness is exquisite in an odd sort of way. Ladybugs land in your coffee, divebomb you at dinner, crawl on your bed. There are so many the cat loses interest! They leave orange-yellow stains, bits of red ladybug skin, and to top it all off, they smell bad when you have lots of them. Worst of all, once indoors, many will die there. And it gets worse. The dead lady beetle bodies are then an open invitation (food source) for carpet beetles and the like to invade your home, too. On the bright side, they don't really bite or chew up your furniture or anything vicious like that. They just want to shelter quietly and not freeze to death.

Controlling the lady beetles in your house is a two part effort. The first prong of attack is to exclude them from your home. Exclusion starts with caulking and sealing every crack on the exterior of your house. (Seal even the tiniest cracks -- I once found one behind the glass of a professionally framed picture, to give you an idea of their ability to move through narrow gaps.) If you have old wooden windows with cracked putty around the glass, reglaze them, too. Screen openings into your attic and soffit vents. Be creative, think like a ladybug, and do a careful inspection. Close off every point of entry you can find. Pay special attention to the south and west sides of your house and the attic as these seem to be the most popular hiding places in ladybug terms.

The second method of control is to catch them if they do manage to get inside. This is far safer than spraying pesticide throughout your home. A canister vaccuum with a long wand attachment is the easiest way I know of for this. A small rechargeable hand held can also be handy for quick pick-ups. After collecting the ladybugs, empty the collection compartment or dispose of the bag or seal the end of the wand/handle so they can't climb right back out. (Plastic wrap held tight with an elastic band works well.)

If you are thorough in your exclusion efforts, you will see fewer lady beetles inside next year. In the meantime, keep that vaccuum handy. Good luck everybody!!!

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