Children love it when a lady bug lands on them, for then they can recite the age-old rhyme, “Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home…" Serious gardeners also love lady bugs, purchasing them and setting them free to eat other bugs in their garden and hoping that they stick around instead of “flying away home." A single ladybug is capable of consuming 50 to 60 aphids per day and eats a variety of other insects and larvae. (If you're fond of these little insects, learn how to make a lady bug)
Getting Rid of Ladybugs
That said, a lady bug problem has developed in America. Companies who raise and sell lady bugs to gardeners and farmers began some years back importing them from Asia. The foreigners are supposedly more voracious than our domestic variety. Our lady bugs die off in the winter; foreign lady bugs hibernate, problematically in people’s houses. They would prefer rocks and caves, but they don’t always have them available. These lady bugs seek out structures with an abundance of cracks and crevices which they can use to gain entrance. Homes with cedar shakes or other wood siding, older houses, and houses painted a light color seem to be more vulnerable. The pheromones they excrete while in your home attract more bugs that mass over a period of years and become unbearable when they start overflowing from the crevices and the attic into living spaces. Although they do not destroy anything in the home or pose economic problems, get enough of them and they will be buzzing around your lamps, landing on you, and beginning to bite; food is scarce for these bugs during the winter months, so they are known to randomly bite things in an effort to find sustenance.