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box elder bugs

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  • Super User

Well spring is here I got box elder bugs coming out of the wood work time to bust out the dawn dish soap and hot water in a squirt bottle. My cats having a blast though chasing them.

i get a plague every spring. can you elaborate on the soap and warm water solution? do you just squirt them? what does this do?

I used to have that problem too, Until a nasty storm in 2007 dropped the Elder tree on my house. No more tree no more bugs

  • Author
  • Super User

Just dawn dish soap and hot tap water as hot as it will go in a squirt bottle shake it up and squirt them. Dont know how or why but it kills 99% of them

I'll have to try it when the lady bugs come in the fall.

They have a special formula just for boxelders at most hardware stores.  Find where they are concentrated(usually under siding and in cracks in your foundation on the south side of the house).  Then spray the areas that are concentrated with them and where they hang out.  This "special formula" does not kill them on contact,  but does not take long to work.  The key is that the spray will get on them even if they weren't directly sprayed,  they just have to walk over an area that was.  Then when they bring it to the nest it spreads like a disease.

This IS a outdoor spray,  but if you spray the right places outside it does a number on the population in general.

I've fought many a battle with those annoying things!

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