Photo by hthrd

Thursday is going to be yet another warm and pleasant summer-like day, even though technically, it’s still the tail end of winter. Earlier this morning we told you all about the toll these past weeks of unseasonable warmth have taken on life in the District—stuffy libraries, crowded sidewalk cafes, premature cherry blossoms, weather-fueled editorial distractions.

But WTOP uncovered a most unseemly upshot of this lovely spell: Stink bugs. Encouraged by the warm air above, these creepy crawlies are coming out of their wintertime burrows and invading homes and gardens all over the United States, but especially in and around the District, a University of Maryland professor says.

“The exodus has begun,” says Mike Raupp, a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland in College Park.

In the past week, he went from seeing a few stink bugs a month, to seven or eight each day.

“As I see these little rascals up here in my house, I simply annihilate them,” Raupp says, adding that he then freezes them, before recycling the dead stinkbugs as compost.

“These guys are major pests.”

Raupp tells WTOP that while it’s easy enough to stomp out ants, spiders and beetles, it’s a different story with stink bugs, who, true to their name, release a foul stench when trampled underfoot. He suggests instead sucking them up in a vacuum then emptying the canister in a bucket of soapy water.

Stink bugs, WTOP notes, are not an indigenous species to North America. Originating in Asia, they were first discovered in the United States in the 1990s near Allentown, Pa. and are now found across 33 states as well as the District.