How to Kill Lady Bugs

What you think of as a lady bug may not be one. Lady bugs have been seen in the United States for a long time and won't invade your home. Asian beetles or Asian lady bugs, on the other hand, are more recent. If you see these little reddish orange beetles in your home, most likely these are the Asian beetles. They can multiply and become a nuisance. They are quite prone, especially, in older homes, particularly older, drafty windows. However, there are several methods to kill lady bugs. It's relatively easy, but you have to keep at it.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Paper towel
• All purpose spray or insect/wasp spray
• Insect fogger
• Vacuum
• Rubbing alcohol

1. Paper towel The simplest way to kill lady bugs without purchasing anything is by manually crushing them with your fingers or in a paper towel. If you kill lady bugs with your fingers, obviously that could be a little messy. Your fingers will also take on a certain smell (which is a liquid the beetle releases as a defense mechanism), but that is harmless and can be washed off with soapy water.
2. All purpose spray You can also spray the beetles with all purpose spray cleaner or an insect/wasp spray. Simply spray until they drop.
3. Lady beetles If you come home after being away for a while and find that the beetles have taken a great liking to your home (they're all over the place), an insect fogger (i.e. one designed to kill flies) will work. [Be sure to follow the instructions on the bottle, paying attention to precautions. Always cover furniture and valuables, keep the windows/doors closed for a set amount of time and leave the area for a few hours.]
4. Vacuum Another step to kill lady bugs is to vacuum them up. If you have killed them manually or with a spray or fogger, you should now vacuum them up. Then, just empty the vacuum and you are done! Alternatively, you can skip Steps 1 through 3 and just vacuum them up. If that is the case, please move on to Step 5.
5. Rubbing alcohol If you vacuumed the beetles without killing them first, you might want to empty the vacuum contents into some rubbing alcohol to ensure they are dead.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep on top of removing them. If you wait too long to do something, you may be dealing with them all winter. In that instance, the only way to kill lady bugs would be with an insect fogger.
• If you kill lady bugs on a wall, especially if it's white, they may leave a reddish stain. Instead of ending up with red spots on your walls, clean up immediately with all purpose cleaner and a paper towel.