Ronnie Ray: Pungent bugs were the bane of summer

Editor’s Note: This is the second part in a series.

The hot and dry weather of late summer and early fall finally cooled in October. The cooler temperature sent the dreaded “stink bug” looking for cover.

The cover was often under the rug where we liked to sit on the floor and listen to the radio in the early ’50s. We learned at a young age not to smash those bugs. When we did, they left a pungent odor that filled the room.

There was not a good way to rid the house of these smelly little critters. We tried several approaches.

Picking them up with a piece of paper and running for the door didn’t work so well. They tried to get away and ended up releasing that smell that got on your hands. They hid around the edges of the rug. We wanted to sit and play on that rug. There was a running battle to rid the area of stink bugs and not stink up the room so bad that it was better to be outside. Everything that we tried ended up in a stink.

Then Mom came up with the perfect plan. As we rolled back the rug, she sucked the bugs up with the vacuum cleaner.

I said perfect plan, but it was also flawed. The vacuum works by sucking air in, and there has to be an outlet for the air after the particles of dirt are filtered out and trapped inside. The filter held the bugs inside but the pungent smell came right on through, blowing out the exit vent that seemed to spread the smell even faster. In the end, the vacuum was the best method because it was fast and efficient. After vacuuming up the pests, the vacuum had to go outside.

Opening the windows for fresh air gave some relief. Then we had to be ready to repeat the process the next morning because the bugs move at night and more would find their way inside. They fly at night and crawl like fast beetles in the day.

At night they flew toward the lights, then dropped like missiles and crawled for cover. Sue Lane (Mytych) recalls, “It was disgusting. We would sit down for supper, with all the food on the table. Then those little devils would dive bomb the light over the table. They hit the light and dropped into our food. When we tried to get them away, they crawled under a plate. By the time you track them down they left behind their stink that overpowered the good smell of the food on the table. If they fell into a hot dish, they would ruin it by an immediate release of that awful smell into the food. Yuk!”

An invention of the early ’50s called weatherstripping was seen by my mother as the solution to many of her housekeeping problems. The selling point of the weatherstripping process was that it prevented the cold air from coming into the house through the cracks and small openings around the doors and windows.

It was strips of metal that were attached to the door frame. Another strip was attached to the door. The strip attached to the door and the strip attached to the frame had grooves that were molded in mirror images of each other. When the door closed, the strips fit tightly together forming an airtight seal. A similar process sealed the windows.

The salesman had little challenge selling the product to my mom. She immediately saw it as a barrier to the stink bugs, flies and mice. She could not get it installed fast enough!

This story was originally published September 30, 2014 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Ronnie Ray: Pungent bugs were the bane of summer."