What you are able to do when bugs and rodents transfer in for the winter

This story was originally published in September 2018.

Seasonal migration of wildlife has little impact on humans unless that migratory path is directly home. And when warm summer days give way to cool autumn days and colder winter days, that can happen as animals try to find a warm place to stay.

So what’s a homeowner to do in Maine? It really comes down to what’s coming in from the outside and how tolerant the individual is when it comes to sharing the space.

Annoyed by ladybugs?

Once a frost or two hits, ladybugs, or more specifically the colorful Asian ladybug (Harmonia axyridis), respond to their genetic trigger to group and find a warm spot to overwinter.

As they do this, residents will see more and more clusters of the tiny windows in the corners of windows, attics or under eaves in homes.

“You can put a cluster of them on the side of a building or house,” Clay Kirby, an insect diagnostician at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, told the Bangor Daily News. “But if they find a crack or an opening or a crevice, they’ll get into the heat.”

The obvious solution to preventing the bugs from entering is to inspect the house and seal any of those cracks. If they do get inside, the beetles only hole up for the winter, but become active again when the temperatures rise.

To pull them out, Kirby suggests picking them up with a dust pan or using a nylon as a filter to vacuum them over the vacuum hose so they don’t go all the way into the vacuum.

A natural predator of garden aphids, ladybugs are harmless to humans other than emitting a foul-smelling discharge when disturbed.

Invasion of the fruit flies

Fall means ripe tomatoes, apples and other fruits in Maine.

Unfortunately, this also means the presence of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) heading straight for that ripe fruit.

“This bowl of apples might look good on the counter this time of year, but if they go a little soft or bruise, it doesn’t take much [to attract fruit flies]said Jim Dill, a pest control specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, earlier this summer.

Fruit flies, also known as vinegar flies, are attracted to overripe and rotten fruit. Their populations increase with the abundance of produce available, and they gain access to the overripe fruit itself or simply through an open door or window.

It’s almost impossible to keep them out, but they can be controlled inside by keeping all produce in the fridge or covering on a table or counter and keeping the trash covered.

They can be caught using either store-bought traps or a home-made method using apple cider vinegar as bait.

A simple fruit fly trap can be made from a small plastic bottle. To make the trap, cut off the top of the bottle at the shoulder, put a few capfuls of apple cider vinegar in the bottom of the bottle, and then flip the cut piece back onto the top of the bottle to make a small funnel of sorts .

The apple cider vinegar lures the fruit flies into the bottle through the narrow inverted opening, but most don’t make it out. Once in the trap to kill the flies, cover the top and either shake the vinegar around to effectively drown the flies or place the trap in the freezer for about an hour.

A grouped mess

One way to stay warm when it gets cold is to find a quiet spot indoors and snuggle up with a few hundred of your best friends.

At least that’s what the grape flies, which belong to the pollen fly family, do in the winter months.

Their name derives from the behavior of piling, or “clumping,” out of sight behind household siding, clapboards, or other cracks and crevices in attics, attics, or other wall voids.

“The reality is that they’re part of nature,” Kathy Murray, an entomologist at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, told the BDN last winter. “They hibernate in our home somewhere nice and warm [and] They come out every warm, sunny day.”

Because of this, even in the middle of a cold Maine winter, you can see cluster flies buzzing on windows.

They are particularly prevalent in areas with healthy earthworm populations, as a clusterfly’s life cycle involves an outdoor parasitic relationship, feeding on the worms.

As with other insect home invaders, the best defense is a good attack, whether caulking those cracks in the house or putting screens over attic vents and soffits. Large clusters of flies can be vacuumed up and taken outside, and commercially available products like insect strips and sprays can help.

The good news, according to Murray, is that grape flies don’t carry disease or pathogens, and they don’t bite.

Of Mice and Homeowners

When it gets colder and the stoves turn up, mice – along with rats and squirrels – take it as an open invitation to move into the house.

According to Dill, they seek warmth and regular nutrition, and all they need to get into a home is a hole or crevice no bigger than the diameter of a pencil.

As such, Dill said that the important way to prevent mice and rats from entering a home is to pay close attention to hygiene and home maintenance.

“Clean up trash and food so it’s not available to rodents,” he said. “They should also walk around your house and look for any small cracks and crevices they can get in through.”

However, should rodents gain access to a home, the situation can quickly escalate from a minor nuisance to a serious threat to human health.

The word “rodent” comes from the Latin “rodre” which means “to gnaw”, and with their single, continuously growing incisors on the upper and lower jaw, rodents can cause great damage in a short time.

They are also carriers and transmitters of disease in their feces and urine and can transmit rabies.

If rodents are heard scurrying into walls or if feces are observed within, homeowners should look for areas where they are most active and set traps to capture them. The most popular traps are plastic traps with a “claw” that closes when the rodent searches for the bait. These traps are equipped with a mechanism that allows the dead rodent to be removed without ever having to touch it.

If the infestation becomes severe enough, homeowners can call in professional exterminators.

No reason to go crazy

When it comes to natural insect control, few things can beat a hungry bat.

According to Cory Mosby, a biologist of furry small mammals at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, all bats living in Maine are insectivores and are capable of eating their weight in insects each night. That’s up to 1,200 mosquitoes every day.

Bats are usually much happier outdoors, but it’s not uncommon for them to take up residence in the attic or under the roof of a house. And regularly invade the human areas of the house.

According to Mosby, it is important not to panic. Just open a door or window, clear a path, and the bat’s good eyesight and echolocation will do the rest, and they’ll disappear on their own.

Bats can squeeze through a hole or crack much smaller than their body, so this is another reason to seal all entry points in the walls, foundation, or roof of the house.

They are not typically aggressive, but can transmit rabies, so care should be taken with any contact with bats.

One last Spidey-Sense

Many people report seeing more and more spiders indoors during the summer.

Since they feed on insects like the Asian ladybug, fruit flies, or grape flies, it really isn’t a bad idea to have a few spiders hanging around, Murray said.

The easiest and most humane way to scare them away is to place an upturned glass over the spider and slip a piece of paper under the spider and let it outside.

They can also be sucked out, Murray said, but they won’t survive the experience.

Again, to keep them out, seal any cracks or holes in the house that they can get in through, Murray said.

And something else.

“Declutter,” she said. “Clutter makes great hiding spots for spiders.”

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