Yes, and it’s not a coincidence. Stink bugs leave aggregation pheromones when they find good overwintering sites, and those chemical markers persist long enough to attract bugs in the following year.
Every Central Illinois neighborhood seems to have one house that gets stink bugs and one that doesn't. The unlucky homeowners who get them notice the pattern repeating year after year. There are two reasons for this.
One reason is chemical. Brown marmorated stink bugs communicate by scent, and when individuals find a promising overwintering site, they release aggregation pheromones that call in others. This scent lasts year to year and will remain on siding, trim, and in the wall voids themselves. So next autumn, the bugs will know where to start looking to overwinter.
The second reason is that your house was a good place to be in the first place. Stink bugs favor large, sun-warmed, light-colored surfaces, especially south- and west-facing walls, and they favor houses near the fields, orchards, gardens, and woodlot edges where they spend summer feeding. Once they mass on the walls, all they need is a way to enter. Stink bugs are small and flat so they can easily slip into cracks along window trim, siding seams, soffits, vents, and utility line penetrations. Those openings tend to widen rather than close as homes age.
Breaking the cycle means addressing what you can. The most important is to seal entry gaps in late summer, before they start massing on the walls in September and October. That way, if they gather on the walls, they at least can’t easily get inside. If that doesn’t help, perimeter treatment on their favorite walls can further thin out the crowd that gathers there.
If stink bugs return to your house every fall, Mosquito Squad of Central Illinois can help. Mosquito Squad's home and yard coverage treats the outside of your home where stink bugs gather. This will help you protect your walls before the fall flights begin.
