We have a bug problem.

We have a bug problem.  Ironically, the stinkbugs were not nearly as bad as predicted, and we are only seeing them come in through our chimney flue.  But we knew they were coming, and we did various things to try and keep them out, including putting screening over the eves and the bathroom vents, as well as pulling bushes/shrubbery lining the house. 

The week after Thanksgiving 2010, I went into our basement and discovered bugs... lots of bugs.  Camel crickets, in fact.  When I couldn't just step on them to squash them because they JUMPED, I got the vacuum.  I went down 3 times a day for over a month and a half and vacuumed 7-10 a session.  I sprayed the baseboards with insecticide of some kind.  I saw a reduction, but I don't know if it was because the weather got warmer and they moved outside or because I was actually winning "the war".

An adult camel cricket, and not the biggest we've seen either!!

With the basement being redone, I thought that maybe the camel crickets would be gone since we put in new windows and doors, we well as sealing the cinderblock with drylock and framing/insulating/drywalling 90% of the basement.

Then, a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, I saw Mr. Camel Cricket.  Then I saw another one... another...and another.  Out came the vacuum, and the war began.  Again.  I was seeing the majority of them in the unfinished utility room, but they were venturing out into the new laundry room and bathroom.  

I decided to try an experiment.  I put a towel down to block the threshold between the laundry room and the utility room, I caught all of the bugs that I could find, and then laid down glue traps in the utility room.  Apparently, my experiment is working.  

I have not seen 1 camel cricket since in the laundry room or the bathroom, and my traps are filling.  Of the 4 traps I put down, 3 of the 4 are about 1/3rd full.  The 4th trap was flat out disgusting when I looked on Saturday. 

I tossed that one in the trash, and put down a fresh one.  In 24 hours, it had another 4 bugs.  Since Saturday, that trap has another 5-6 bugs on it.  

This begs the question: how/where are they getting in???  Don't know, but I seem to have them under control at this point.  The glue traps placed in strategic places are working, thankfully.

Yuck.