Have you tried a black light trap?

Build it yourself:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/ent/notes/Other/goodpest/harmoniatrap.pdf

Buy it:
http://www.biconet.com/traps/asianTrap.html

I wonder if you could just set up a black light directly behind some fly strips and catch them that way?

I guess you’ll be facing this problem in the spring too when those that made it into the walls come out again. If your walls (from the outside) are very
“porous”, is there any way that you could physically freeze and kill the ones in your walls this winter by using a CO2 canister with tubing on the nozzle?

Good luck in any case!

Great Stuff is, indeed, great stuff. I was up on the ladder yesterday afternoon, desperately spraying it into gaps before I realized that there’s not enough Great Stuff in all of Lowe’s to seal our house. Hence the tarp. :)

Good luck. They’re a bitch. Especially since they have few natural enemies.

The trouble we have here is that they take up residence in the walls. They live in there until they decide that it’s warm enough that they should leave. Unfortunately, they don’t do this all at once but, rather, over the course of the whole of winter. So to vacuum them means to do so several times a day for months — we can’t do it all at once.

I should mention that we went through this last year, so I’m no stranger to the process. :) Last year we had significantly greater numbers swarming — I’m hoping that between the insecticide and the hosing, I reduced the number of them that released the volume of the chemical scent that they release that says “hey, other beetles — come here, it’s a good place to spend the winter.” Because we hadn’t learned better, we spent a whole day vacuuming hundreds of them as they came in the house, not realizing that far more were bedding down in the walls. Now we know that we’ve got to cut ‘em off at the outside wall, before they get in.

We’ve got a couple of 20′x10′ tarps. I’ll tack those up to the roofline in the morning. I’m hoping that their bright-blue color will be sufficient to repel them, since it’s grays and whites that attract them. We’ll see. :)

Waldo, you are dreaming in a big way if you think that you only got a few – those are just the ones that you saw. There is NO stopping them from getting into every nook and cranny of your house. And you think they will be done swarming in a day or two? Not likely. Your only defense is to vacuum the ones that get inside (BTW, it’s easiest to do this at night when they congregate in concentrated bunches in corners and near lights). I prefer to pick my battles, and most of them have to do with the kids. But by all means, continue on – I will be fascinated to follow along. After all, there is always the outside, very unlikely chance that I could be wrong… :-)

Because it’s not inevitable. :) The day’s battle let rather few into the frame of the house (I suspect), and if I can just stick it out through tomorrow, that may be the end of the onslaught.

Last year, we had tens of thousands of lady beetles in the house. It’s a disgusting way to spend a winter. For starters, they bite. And when disturbed in any way, they engage in reflex bleeding, releasing their foul-smelling blood from the base of their legs. They end up in everything, crawling through our food, swimming in our water, drowning in the shower and hibernating in our drawers. On warm days, they awaken and swarm, hundreds emerging from the walls and flying through the house. I can vacuum up a hundred of them, leave for ten minutes, and find another hundred in their place. There were days in which I’d spend hours just vacuuming lady beetles. I can’t help but wonder if they’re disease-bearing (though the creatures themselves are sufficiently numerous and unpleasant to warrant extermination).

Not this year. We’re going to hang dark-colored tarps over the side of the house in the morning (they’re primarily attracted to light-colored surfaces), and spray down those that congregate on the tarp with a hose-mounted sprayer containing a mixture of detergent and pesticides.

Now, if only I could figure out how to keep the wasps out of the house…

I. Publius, what are you thinking? The really misguided decision was when the Feds outlawed the use of lead and arsenic insecticides. So what if a few orchards have heavy metal levels that measure off the charts?

And reproduce they did.

Another result of the tragic banning of DDT. Before that misguided EPA decision, you could’ve wiped those suckers out pretty quickly and safely.