When it comes to trying to figure out what is the best way how to kill stink bugs, very often you will find that a caulking gun can be a man’s best friend. Prevention is half the battle when it comes to trying to deal with the threat of a stink bug infestation. It’s one thing to deal with the problem of stink bugs once they have already entered your home. But that’s only dealing with half the problem. You still have to contend with the problem how to keep new stink bugs from attempting to gain access into your home.
Unfortunately, the problem of how to kill stink bugs is made more complicated then, let’s say, trying to figure how to kill ants or roaches, because stink bugs of two things: one is their trademark odor, which they release when they are threatened; and secondly, is the fact that when one stink bug is squashed, other stink bugs will allegedly follow them, thanks in part to the aggregation pheromone that they are known to release. You can kill stinks that have made it into your home all you want, but you aren’t really dealing with the problem at its core until you have figured how to prevent them from getting into your house.
And that’s where the solution of caulk comes into the picture, when it comes to figuring out how to kill stink bugs. If your home is currently overrun by these unwelcome visitors, then you probably have already figured out that stink bugs are extremely determined to get into your home, once they have made up their mind that they want to. They somehow always seem to find a way. So even if your doors and windows are all shut, somehow they will find a way to get into your home, whether it is a gap in your foundation a crack in your window sill, or an exposed vent without an insect-proof trap door.
Believe it or not, stink bugs are notorious for being able to gain access into peoples’ homes through entryways that you would least suspect, let alone even be remotely aware of. If there is a gap in your window sill due to poor construction, deterioration of your exterior paneling, or cracks in the drywall, then your friendly neighborhood stink bug will, eventually find it, and will make it its life’s purpose to crawl through it until it reaches the great indoors.
Stink bugs thrive on warmth and light, and are attracted to both. So at night, stink bugs will be attracted to the lights in your windows. Or on cool days or nights, during non-summer seasons, they will be attracted to the heat that is emanated from your home. And it is for this reason that stink bugs are driven by their instinctive desire to seek shelter in warm and bright places. The bottom line is that the reason why stink bugs are constantly trying to get indoors is not by mere random chance. They are deliberately looking to seek refuge from the cold air outside.
Therefore, if you have little to no experience with using a caulking gun, now may be a great time for you to head on down to your local Home Depot, Ace Hardware, or Lowes and get yourself one. You’re going to need to identify any cracks or gaps that you may have in your window sills, your doors, your foundation, or your siding, and fill them in. Caulk is essentially a rugged, permanent building material that is used to fill in gaps and create impenetrable barriers. You see them in your bathrooms where the tub meets the tiles. And you see them in window sills. If you have ever had to fill a hole in the wall, you probably used to caulk to fill it.
And so one of the best preventative measures you can take in your efforts for how to kill stink bugs would be to identify each and ever gap where stink bugs are likely (or even unlikely) to slip through to get into your home. If that seems like an overwhelming or time consuming task, then consider doing it one room at a time. Tackle one room per week, or if you only have time on the weekends, do one room per weekend. Eventually, you should see a decline in the number of stink bugs entering your home, because you are eliminating the possible entry points through which they might be able to gain access.
Not only will caulking up your window sills prevent new stink bugs from creeping in from outside, but it can also trap any stink bugs that have made it into your house and are hiding inside the walls. In my own house, I once had a problem wherein stink bugs had already come into house… and no matter how often I would kill them, more would appear on my window screen. So I went through my entire house and duct-taped all of the window screens. Yet the stink bugs kept coming in. I had even done an inspection of the outside of the window, and found that there were no gaps. As it had turned out, a whole swath of stink bugs had come into my house through the window one day and went inside my walls through a crack in the window sill. So what I ended up doing was filling the crack in the window sill with caulk… effectively trapping the stink bugs that were inside.
Of course, caulking up your house is not a way how to kill stink bugs, but it is a way how to prevent them from getting into your house. There are many other things you can and must do in order to tackle the problem, but one step in the right direction in terms of your efforts is to caulk up all of the gaps in your house.
If you are not much of a handy person, you can always call a professional to help you do it. But nonetheless, this is an extremely important task you should take care of right away and strike it off of your checklist, in your efforts for how to kill stink bugs.