Stinky Problem Bugging Residents - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG

The Latin word for them is Halyomorpha Halys.
Some people call them tank bugs.
But if you take a whiff of them you'll soon know why most people like Kim Vella say , "I just call them stink bugs!"

Kim Vella and her Smith Mill Farm, Delaware neighbors battle stink bugs ever fall.
But this year's fight seems to be one of the worst yet.

"This is the last couple weeks, " Paul Teloh says holding up a 2-liter tapping bottle he learned to make on YouTube. "I

threw a bottle out that had this many in it," he showed us by holding his finger a quarter of the ways up the bottle.

Teloh got fed up with the insects creeping in through his patio windows or cracks in walls, trying to take over his house.

His neighbor Kim Vella got fed up too, but she's using a more powerful weapon to catch the critters, her vacuum.

"Oh! Look there's one" she says with the nozzle in her hand sucking it up off the ceiling. "I love that," she laughs.

" It's a feeling of satisfaction. Like I've accomplished something. That's horrible. But that's what it's become with these
stink bugs. I'm very obsessed. "

"We did see the summer population  later this year and it seems  to be more than last year," explains University of Delaware
entomologist Brian Kunkel.

He's studying the bugs trying to figure out what caused this years influx.

He's  also looking at what can help to get rid of them.

Especially since they're not only causing troubles for people in their homes but also their groceries.

"It damages fruit to where it doesn't' T grow right. It causes blemishes on the fruit. Blemished  fruit doesn't sell well

and we're seeing a fair bit of that."

Just one more reason why people are ready to see the native East Asian bugs likely brought here accidentally in shipping containers to fly away.