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Ladybirds

(55 Posts)
Sparklefizz Sun 03-Mar-24 17:57:56

For the past few months I've had a few ladybirds coming into the house, mainly in one of my bedrooms. The number has increased and today I've found about a dozen which I managed to encourage out of the window on a piece of paper, only to find several more about an hour later.

I remember seeing an article online of a woman's wall which was crawling with them last year. I really do hope I don't end up with that!

I don't know how they're getting in and I've sprinkled drops of peppermint oil now in all the corners and around the window as I use this fairly successfully every autumn to repel spiders. I'm hoping it will work.

Is anyone having a lot of ladybirds coming into the house?

SueEH Tue 05-Mar-24 22:09:32

I saw so many ladybirds out in the garden when I was tree pruning yesterday. They all seemed perfectly ok.

Sparklefizz Wed 06-Mar-24 08:33:36

Alison333

Sparklefizz, if they are the Harlequin sort, try to avoid squashing any of them because they leave a horrible smell behind them. If you succeed in encouraging them outside, make sure you clean where they've been because they leave a scent for other ladybirds to follow!

Thanks for telling me that. Very interesting.

As it happens, my improvised remedy of sprinkling peppermint oil around the window of the room where they were mostly appearing, seems to have worked. No sign of a single ladybird since ... which may just be coincidence. Watch this space.

jacqui67 Wed 06-Mar-24 09:06:30

We had this problem in a holiday let, apparently lavender dispels them ,,, spray air freshener or use a lavender surface cleaner we brought a couple of cheap sainsburys gel air fresheners to stans around and did seem to work. as someone said they are amazing for your garden.

Sparklefizz Wed 06-Mar-24 18:57:24

Aaarrgh. Spoke too soon. Just found a dozen all round the window frame.