Stop bugs from coming inside in winter? Take steps NOW

What you can do??

For starters, Joe Boggs says, “I always tell people to go up in their attic with the lights off, so they can look around and see if any light is coming through (from the outside).”

Seeing light coming in where it shouldn’t means there’s a gap, a possible doorway for bugs into your home, he said. Come fall, stink bugs and lady beetles could use that gap to get in. So could western conifer seed bugs and boxelder bugs, among others.

Common places for those gaps are window frames, doorjambs, soffits and unscreened attic vents.

Soffits themselves may have small, bug-proof vent holes in them that let in light, and that’s OK, Boggs said. But if you see light streaming in where a soffit meets a wall, “that’s a problem.”

Attic vents let light through, too, but are, or should be, screened against bugs.

“I also tell people to consider walking around the outside of their home and taking a look,” Boggs said. “Even on a 10-year-old home, the caulking can start pulling away from the windows and doors.”

The solution, he said, is to get out your caulk gun and fill in the gaps. It may not be fun. But it does the trick.

“Who doesn’t love caulking?” he asked with a laugh.


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