Mountain Home Lady Bug Problem

[Jose Menendez]

Hello!

We purchased a very nice 2/2 home in the Burnsville area of North Carolina back in February. It needed a good amount of work which has been slow to complete but we are nearly done with everything. When we purchased it, we noted a large number of dead lady bugs inside the home, basement, and around the windows. We hired Terminex and put new screens on all windows. The bug problem seemed to go away but now that we’re almost done getting the house ready and listed the lady bugs have come back! I’m guessing it’s the change in weather up there.

Terminex basically said they can’t eliminate them completely. The windows are original (house built in the 80s). Do I need to change them? Any tricks for this issue?

We also have a cigarette smell in one of the bathrooms. We’ve painted several times with Kilz, including the ceiling. We ripped out the flooring/shower/bath and installed all new tile. Got rid of anything wood in there. The smell is 90% gone but still lingers a little. We have a company called Servpro coming out to inspect and help us with that this week.

I feel like I can’t list the property as a vacation rental with these 2 pesky issues! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

This is our first STR. We previously owned an LTR for several years that we ended up selling. It was a new home and basically had zero problems.

[JD Martin]

OK, you are where I live.

1. Asian ladybugs (that's what they are) will swarm the south/west side of your house this time of year on the outside and look for places to hide from the cold weather. If you have siding they'll crawl underneath it. If you have any - and I mean any - openings from the outside of your house to the inside, even inner walls, they will find it, and they will find their way out of it into your home via light fixture, electric outlet, etc. The only 2 things you can do is seal up every possible opening on the outside of the house, and vacuum up the dead ones from inside regularly. I still get them in my house and I've been sealing holes for almost 30 years. On the positive side, for whatever reason we've been seeing less of them around here the last 3 or 4 years than usual. For many years it was swarms of ladybugs. Then stinkbugs started displacing them. Last 3 years or so stinkbugs and ladybugs and japanese beetles all seem to be thinning out, no idea why.

2. Cigarette smoke: since you've repainted, try getting an ozone machine in there for a while. That will usually neutralize most odors. Don't run it while you're inside or right before guests, ozone is really hard on your body.