Bye Bye Stink Bugs
Do you hate these little buggers as much as I do? Stink bugs are technically known as the brown marmorated stink bug and have were introduced to our area back in the late 90s.
They usually drive me crazy in Spring, because like magicians they appear and disappear at will... and don't even think of crushing them, or your house will smell like a car that's had takeout sitting in it all weekend.
There is reason to be mildly excited though, because in 2014 researchers with Virginia Tech found that the extreme cold experienced in the Polar Vortex that year may have killed 95 percent of stink bugs. Per the Washington Post:
The punishing, prolonged blasts of arctic air this January proved too much for most stinkbugs to overcome according to Virginia Tech field researchers.
We are just now coming off a second Polar Vortex that threw similarly cold and miserable temperatures our way, so a second mass decrease in the stink bug population could very well be on the way.
You know what this means? I can throw away that old pill bottle (my method for capturing them) that I have had in my bathroom drawer since the late 90's!