Not much you can do...they will disappear soon on their own and only do very minor damage or none really. They are not as bad a nuisance here as they were back home...thank goodness...but now a cousin (another true-bug) moved up are way last fall. Much smaller and they come indoors by the gazillions...suckers even fit thru the screen! Now they are back...Argh!! I actually collected the first specimen from eastern Wa and had it ID by the state entomologist. He had no idea they had moved up from western WA!

Vera

Here is a link that might be useful: Boxelder Bugs

Um, Vera? You aren't going to tell us the name of this other critter? I think we'd like to know.

Jackie, I don't know how to get rid of them with chemicals. But I had a horrific problem with them until I removed two large Golden Raintrees from my yard. The boxelder bugs left immediately. They were feeding off of the seedpods of those trees, and used the trees as their home. You don't have any Golden Raintrees in your yard do you?

Randy

I live on 5 acres 3 1/2 of which is trees. then I'm surrounded by Amish woods that probably is at least 300 acres so not like I can do anything about the trees themselves. I had 4 Box elder trees come down in the last icestorm so I don't know if that's what made them worse or not but they are all cut up now. I just need to know how to kill the bugs. I think I'll try the detergent!

jackie

The only way to get rid of the bugs is to get rid of the boxelder trees. I got rid of the tree, but the boxelder seeds are still around here. So the population has diminished, but I see them swarmed all over the seeds that are still around. You should probably get rid of the dead boxelder trees that are laying around. I think they nest in there or breed in there or something like that.

I know what you mean! They're creepy and gross!

Deanna