No one wants stink bugs in their house. Sometimes, they become excessively frustrating and hamper the overall look and ambiance of the house.
Therefore, a detailed guide is required to prevent them from destroying your sweet home. And the smells can be the biggest weapon for this.
Seven smells that stink bugs dislike and how to use them
Stink bugs are highly smell-sensitive creatures. As much as the scents attract them, they are also repelled easily by some scents that they dislike. Smells of various oil – like clove oil, lemongrass oil, spearmint oil, ylang-ylang oil, and rosemary oil – are common ones they dislike.
Table of Contents
As there are handfuls of scents that stink bugs dislikes tremendously, it would be real fun to use these against those little demons.
With a few guidelines and practical implications, you will also be able to deliberately use them to keep them out of your homes.
Clove Oil:
Backed up by several research and studies from reputable journals, such as the Journal of Applied Entomology and Malaria Journal, they prove that stink bugs loathed the smell of clove oil.
It is believed the chemical ingredients in them are responsible for this repulsion. Being the main ingredient of the clove oil, no wonder this is the effect of “eugenol.”
How To Use Them
A spray of clove oil can be the best thing for this. Find the perfect one according to your needs and mix it with water.
You should add ten to fifteen drops of oil to one cup of water for the expected results. After that, pour them into the sprayer and shake it. Surely this will be enough for the complete mixture.
It is crucial to spray their spray on the outer parts, for instance, windows, doors, backyard, and gardens. Stink bugs hide areas like this. Therefore, putting the scents there does half the work.
Lemongrass Oil:
Lemongrass oil is the refined oil extracted from the leaves of lemon. Prominently lemons are known as the main deterring factor. Thus it is evident that lemongrass oil is no less compelling.
How To Use Them
Though they are commonly not used as a repellent, they can be used when mixed with spearmint oil. The method is straightforward and similar to do as the clove oil mixture.
Ylang-Ylang Oil:
Ylang-ylang is not the name that you hear every day. However, the usage of these oils has a wide array of benefits. They are used not only as perfumes and flavoring agents but also in medicines for asthma and malaria.
How To Use Them
No exception. You can mix 5 to 10 drops of oil with each cup of water. Mixing them up clearly and pouring them into the bottles would make the work easier. Again, as they are aromatic, using them indoors will not harm.
Rosemary Oil:
Rosemary oils can be the best repellent when used perfectly. These are the extracted oil of herbal plants having a woody smell. You can find them available in both online and offline marketplaces.
How To Use Them
Using them requires no extra knowledge. You can make a mixture of them using water and spray. As it is sweet to the human senses, spraying it inside the homes would also be appealing for you and the guests.
Germanium Oil:
Germanium oil is relatively more effective than much other essential oil. It has a track record of vanishing more than 80% of the stink bugs from the home. They are mainly the oil from the graveolens flower.
How To Use Them
Although they have floral scents, stink bugs seem to dislike them immensely. As a result, you must use them. Using them like a sprayer would eliminate every bit of pest, introducing a new home to you.
Peppermint Oil:
Peppermint oil is another popular item. Despite some rumors that suggest peppermint oil is less useful, the consumers seem to get pretty good results from them. And, it is actually impressive.
How To Use Them
It is true that peppermint oil may have a less powerful ingredient to resist stink bugs. Yet, they are very vital while preventing these naughty bugs.
Hence, mixing them with oil mixtures like clove oil or rosemary oil gives the user a total guarantee of a bug-free house.
Dryer sheets:
It is another trending repellent that is being used in a lot of homes. Disliked by the dears, they have a unique scent that makes stink bugs mad. While researchers have not yet approved this fact, the proof is the home that uses it.
How To Use Them
Just naturally rubbing them inside and outside of your homes, especially windows, you can bid farewell to the stink bugs for life.
Where do stink bugs hide in the house?
To hide, the favorite place of stink bugs is inside the walls and attics. Stink bugs typically find their way to their secret concentration camps when temperatures go down, and it starts to freeze everything.
Apart from that, even in living rooms, sometimes piles of bugs appear. This is often a sign of a large infestation of stink bugs in your homes.
Other prominent places are backyards and gardens. To warm themselves, they often take a break from their hibernation and have a buggy sunbath under the sun. Therefore, it is no new news if you see places like them.
Not to mention, if you see stink bugs in the last two mentioned places, there is a high possibility that infestation has taken place. In these cases, professional prevention methods and some DIY techniques can come in handy.
What attracts stink bugs to your house or garden?
Stink bugs may attract to your house or gardens for several of factors. Among them, white color, lots of light, homes in rural areas, or having walls of loose plaster can be some of the triggering aspects for them.
Research has time and again proved that white color and lights often attract stink bugs. And it is no joke. Keeping lights on the whole day can hideously infect you with these bugs. Again, some house having a white color combination often shows a similar trend,
Being herbivores, stink bugs are undoubtedly attracted to green gardens and agricultural fields. Therefore, houses having such gardens full of these creatures is no surprise. Along with the rural area, houses also have the same scenario for this reason.
As the common living place of the stink bugs is inside the walls, they often find a way to get inside them. And the loose ends of the walls with cracks and crevices just made these walls their ideal homes.
Tips to get rid of stink bugs from the house
Yes, some tips are really necessary to get rid of the stink bugs from the house for a lifetime. Luckily, there are some exclusive tips and techniques suggested by professionals that can quickly help you get rid of them. Here goes the list-
Seal the home:
At first, we should need the leading source or the living place of the stink bugs to identify. Then all these places should be closed down and sealed. The cracks of the walls should be grouted, and the windows that attract bugs should also be closed down.
Vacuum the house:
This technique works well if you have the vacuum cleaner with the bag. Just sweep the area that has stink bugs and collect them in the bag. Later, dispose of them altogether. It is an absolute ingenious method,
Spray garlic spray:
Add two or three drops of garlic to the water. Mix it carefully. Now you can put them in the sprayer and pour them into areas that are infested. Hopefully, a better result can be seen.
Use night lights:
As white-colored lights are infamous for attracting these disastrous creatures, it is often recommended to use night lights in the house. Keep them at night, and the piles of bugs can be seen lingering around the light.
Squish some bugs:
Though it is not extensively practiced, this method also works completely fine in most cases. Here, the homeowner needs to squish some of the stink bugs that they have seen and leave them there. It is believed that these repelled the bugs from living there.
Final thoughts
To conclude, some essential oils are the smells that act as a repellent for stink bugs. The most common ones are clove oils, lemongrass oil, rosemary oil, and germanium oil, along with several minor ones. Besides, dryer smells can also prevent those bugs from entering the house.