Stink bugs: Everything you were afraid to know about the invasion
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Dean Osterritter, 33, of Spring Hill vaccums dead stink bugs in his attic with his son Dean Jr., 2. -
Dead stink bugs at the attic of Dean Osterritter house in Spring Hill.
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In flight they sound like aggravating little helicopters. When threatened they release a vile smell. The brown marmorated stink bug is something few care to touch.
They taste bad too, Jennifer Osterritter discovered.
The 27-year-old Spring Hill woman was eating buttered toast last fall and began spitting it out when she was overcome by a foul odor and taste.
Spitting and choking, she summoned her husband, Dean, 33, who flipped over the toaster, sending a stink bug tumbling onto the kitchen counter.
PG VIDEO: STINK BUGS PESTER HOMES"I've had it," she told him upon seeing the toasted bug. Soon after, he called the Verona exterminator, stinkbugspecialists, and for months now the company has been using a mild pesticide to treat their house and grounds. They've killed thousands, and though the exterminator says the company has had good results in many cases, fresh waves of bugs keep returning to the Osterritter home.
So last Sunday, the Osterritters went searching for a new house.
"I'm honestly ready to move over this, it's that bad," Mr. Osterritter said.
Consider an opposing argument. Stink bugs neither bite nor threaten human health or homes. Unless you grow the crops they like to eat, what's to hate about them?
So suggests Allegheny County Health Department entomologist Bill Todaro, who's been getting daily calls from distraught county residents.
Relax, he suggests. Let bugs be bugs. (At least, don't call the health department. It cannot provide a SWAT team.)
"Insects are a powerful force of nature, and people don't give them the credit they deserve," Mr. Todaro said. "Stink bugs stick around and are proven tough bugs and at least they don't bite, sting or do damage to the house. There are worse things out there."
"They are so ugly, and even if they don't do anything, I still hate them," Nancy DeMuro, 48, of Jefferson Hills, said in a desperate-sounding email. "I don't ever use that word [hate], but there is no other way to describe how I feel. They fly around and buzz when they're active and then land in our lights or on our robes or on our beds."
First Published May 8, 2011 12:00 am
