Odd Asian beetle question in heater.

Jflattem · 11-23-2023, 12:12 AM

I have been smelling the bad odor of burning Asian beetles in my trailer inside and out. I have seen these beetles all over the trailer. But does anyone know if them being burnt in my heater could be affecting my allergies?? My eyes are watering and nose is runny. I can smell them when the heater is going and plan to clean it out tomorrow. Is anyone else noticing this or is it just me??

Thanks in advance. Looking forward to the answers. Happy thanksgiving to all.

wiredgeorge · 11-23-2023, 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jflattem

I have been smelling the bad odor of burning Asian beetles in my trailer inside and out. I have seen these beetles all over the trailer. But does anyone know if them being burnt in my heater could be affecting my allergies?? My eyes are watering and nose is runny. I can smell them when the heater is going and plan to clean it out tomorrow. Is anyone else noticing this or is it just me??

Thanks in advance. Looking forward to the answers. Happy thanksgiving to all.

Dept. of Agriculture brought ladybugs into the country to combat plant aphids. They are not harmful and while you may be allergic to them burning in your furnace area, it is probably only an annoyance.

Ladybugs like to come in during the winter. Campers are about as porous and there are many ways from these critters to enter. Bob Villa wrote a how-to for ridding them from a home... might be helpful:

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/how...asian-beetles/

TXiceman · 11-23-2023, 06:19 AM

An Asian Lady Beetle and a Lady bug are two different critters.

We fought them for two years in our previous RV. They will crawl in around the slide seals and any little crack. Pull your slides in a few inches and vacuum up all the critters hiding in there. Be sure and dump the vacuum ASAP as they do stink. As for the furnace, the best of luck. You will probably have to pull the furnace completely out and get it on a work surface to fully vacuum it.

Ken

dutchmensport · 11-23-2023, 06:38 AM

We get those horrid stink bugs every year, especially at home. What worse, even after they finally hibernate, whenever the camper warms up again, a new infestation breaks out. We (use) to battle them all year round, even when not in season.

I got aggressive one year and I've been doing this ever since. At first, this took 3 treatments, but after that, it's a yearly thing now.

Remove all exposed food, put up all dishes, clean everything up real good. Then, set off bug bombs. The first time I did this, I set off 5 of them in my fifth wheel: one in the front living room, one in the middle kitchen, one in the bathroom, one in the rear bedroom, ..... and I removed the back wall of the front basement and set one off UNDER the front living room floor in the open space.

I made sure the AC fan was turned on, blowing, all windows were closed up tight, and set all the bug bombs off.

2 hours later I went inside, and the place looked like an atomic bomb exploded! Dead bugs everywhere. Every thime I thought all the bugs were finally swept up, the next day, there would be more. This went on for a couple weeks until I started seeing live ones walking around again.

So, I did this a second time about 2 weeks after the first time. Again, more dead bugs, but not as many. And again, about 2 weeks after that started noticing a live bug ever now and then. So, that resulted in setting off a 3rd set of bug bombs.

Well, we never saw any "live ones" again. But, for the next year, we kept finding dead ones on the floor, on counter tops, in weird places, in the shower stall, everywhere, but... always dead.

The next year when the "invasion" started again, the bugs came in. But, I think crawling through the cracks and air leaks between the slide seals, the windows, floor gaps, holes where wires, bolts and things attach are all now filled with bug bomb poison. Anything entering has to pass through the residual poison, it gets on them, and they die quickly.

So, every year now, it's part of the Spring cleaning process to do the bug bombs again. Sometimes, I'll still do a second set a few weeks later. But, we NEVER have bugs inside the camper now. No spiders, no ants, no roaches, no beatles, no mosquitoes, nothing! Even when we see them crawling on the OUTSIDE of the camper.

For what it's worth, I get the 4 or 5 pack of Raid bug bombs from Dollar General. Cheap, work very, very good, and compared to other stores for the same product, did I say, "cheap!"

After doing this, wash the top blanket or sheet on all the beds, wipe off the counter tops and kitchen table and the arms of the chairs in the living room. Floors will eventually get swept and moped anyway, so no need to bother with them. Any dishes left out, wash them. Wipe off the seals around the refrigerator, and the toilet seat. Leave everything else untouched. So if a bug does penetrate your camper, anything they touch will have the bug spray poison and it WILL continue to kill for months. If you have pets, wash out their bedding or remove it from the camper before you spray. Once the smell goes away (about 2 hours), you can go back inside the camper and resume normal business.

NO... the camper will not explode because of the pressure of the bug spray. Myth Busters disproved that stupidity. It would take something like 10 thousand cans of bug spray, set off all at the same time in a shoe box to blow it up.

**JRTJH** · 11-23-2023, 06:50 AM

Yep, Asian Beetles are a different (and very persistent) critter. They seek "light colored warm places" to hibernate for the winter. We were infested with them about 6 years ago, they got under the vinyl siding, some found a small space around a vent stack to enter the house and they DO STINK (or have a peculiar odor). The next year I found a "insecticide spray" specifically intended to get rid of them. I sprayed the exterior of the house and we haven't seen any inside since then. They do still flock to the trees and some out buildings, but not the house.

When crushed or disturbed, one of their "survival protections" is to emit a substance that smells and can cause an allergic reaction in some people. So yes, they do affect your allergies and they can make the trailer smell such that you don't want to stay in it....

Here's a link to a smaller (RV sized) spray bottle. Just spray around the openings, slides and places like the furnace openings. Hopefully you get the same "beetle free" results that we got...

https://www.amazon.com/HARRIS-Odorle...RoCMvgQAvD_BwE

NH_Bulldog · 11-23-2023, 07:37 AM

The Asian Lady Beetles smell even when not “baked”. We had a bad infestation at our hunting lodge and when we opened for hunting season one year we vacuumed them up thinking they were just “regular” Lady Bugs………the stench was unbearable. We had to bug-bomb the entire place a few times, did lots of cleaning, more appeared and then we did a hot thermal fog treatment (one of our business partners owns a fire cleaning service) and that finally got them (and made the place smell nice).

**JRTJH** · 11-23-2023, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NH_Bulldog

The Asian Lady Beetles smell even when not “baked”. We had a bad infestation at our hunting lodge and when we opened for hunting season one year we vacuumed them up thinking they were just “regular” Lady Bugs………the stench was unbearable. We had to bug-bomb the entire place a few times, did lots of cleaning, more appeared and then we did a hot thermal fog treatment (one of our business partners owns a fire cleaning service) and that finally got them (and made the place smell nice).

Treating them from "inside the house" to keep them from coming in is IMO, sort of bass-akwards.... My thought is that if you can prevent them from finding their way in, then you won't need to poison them (and breathe it yourself) to convince them to leave....

Spraying the outside of the house or RV, puts a film on the EXTERIOR that they don't like, so they won't even land on the house to start looking for ways inside.

That said, once they're inside, they are SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult to drive out. About the only way is to kill them, vacuum them up (making the smell unbearable) and then keep repeating as their "life cycle" continues, until a time when there are no more eggs to hatch and grow into smelly bugs....

Discourage them to not come inside and you don't have to deal with them being inside.... YMMV

dutchmensport · 11-23-2023, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRTJH

....
Spraying the outside of the house or RV, puts a film on the EXTERIOR that they don't like, so they won't even land on the house to start looking for ways inside.
.... YMMV

The only problem with this, especially on an RV, the first time it rains, the bug protection washes away.

Jflattem · 11-23-2023, 11:05 AM

Thanks for all the responses and helpful tips. This is my first year dealing with these Asian ladybugs. Always had American lady bugs and they love getting into my double wide and no harm so no foul. But these damm Asian ladybugs are horrible. It’s rough walking around the trailer outside from the stench of them in the heater. I will work on this and hope to feel better soon.

Thank you all Again. And Happy thanksgiving. To all.

Dbullet · 12-03-2023, 08:24 AM

Hi,
I started to have a similar problem with the beetles and stink bugs coming into the camper. I placed dryer sheet around the windows and in the vents. This done the trick for me. I think the key is the strong smell they hate. You might be able to use a spray with a strong scent in your furnace area.

Shedboy · 12-04-2023, 08:48 AM

Got some annoying insects into my rig via a postal package from China routed thru San Diego that had them hiding in the carton cardboard corrugations. I took them to the local University where they were easily identified as similar to western termites. Speculated that they were eating the cardboard that was stored in a warm warehouse.

I was advised to store the RV in a freezing environment, they wouldn't survive the winter. - WORKED, however had to clean up the mess, occasionally still finding stray carcasses.

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