How can we keep winter-invading insects out of our farm home? Winter is not commonly a time we think about insect issues inside a home. However, there are still a number of insects that can cause consternation. Some of them can be prevented well in advance of winter, while others are handled during winter.

Getting active

On warmer days during the winter, a couple of insects will become active indoors. The most common one would be the multicolored Asian lady beetle. These lady beetles would have entered the structure in the fall looking for a good place to spend the winter. Another insect, not in all areas of the state yet, is the brown marmorated stinkbug. It also will invade structures in the fall. Fortunately, both these insects can be handled the same way.

To keep these insects out, you will need to make sure your home is properly sealed up before fall. A number of potential entry points will need to be inspected and secured. Lady beetles will often enter through attic vents.

It is common for these vents to have a quarter-inch metal screen or equivalent opening size. This may keep out other invaders, but lady beetles are small enough to make it through. To keep them out, window screen can be used behind the other screening.

Dryer vents, furnace vents and electrical conduits should be checked where they enter or leave the building. The gap between the vent pipe or conduit and the structure wall can be a highway for anything small enough to get through it. A can of expanding foam insulation works well for filling in those gaps.

Another common incursion point is through windows and doorways. With the typically milder weather of fall, many windows are open for the fresh air. Screens are important barriers to encroaching insects. Make sure that screens are free from larger-than-normal holes, rips and tears.

Both windows and doors need to have their weather stripping inspected regularly to ensure that the weather stripping around them is providing an adequate seal to thwart entry. Look for gaps or damaged stripping. One other spot to check in doorways is the threshold. Normally, there is a rubberized strip that sticks up and contacts the bottom of the door.

Other pests

One last group includes ants, spiders, cockroaches and wood-boring beetles. All of these come into the home in firewood. Stacks of firewood outdoors are common places for all of them to spend the winter or where they would make their home. All of these critters can be avoided simply by burning firewood as you bring it inside. The insects and spiders in the firewood only become active after sufficient warming.

For instance, I had brought in some firewood in early spring during a cold snap, and that summer, we had some ants in the house that were not the typical home-invading ants. It wasn’t until that fall when I burned wood in the fireplace again that I discovered an ant nest in one of the slightly rotten pieces of firewood.

Sometimes firewood is brought indoors before precipitation events to have dry wood to burn. In these cases, the wood should be stored in a garage or shed to keep the insects and spiders out of the home.

The good news is that these issues can be minimized or eliminated with some planning and a little effort ahead of time. Sealing up the home before fall can prevent entry of some insects. Also burning that firewood as you bring it inside keeps those insects and spiders from escaping into the home.

Ohnesorg is a Nebraska Extension educator.