Stink Bugs Looking For Shelter

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - With winter approaching, those "stink bugs" plaguing the region may be making their way into your home.

There are species of stink bugs native to the region but the little buggers that are drawing attention originated in Asia and believed to have found their way to this country in some packaging sent to Allentown in 1999.

"It's the brown marmorated stink bug."

Jon Gelhaus curator in the Entomology Department at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia:

"They are starting to move into buildings now, in attics, and they are looking for places to hibernate. So people are noticing them now either in their houses or on the side of their houses."

Gelhaus says the insects are hard to exterminate. They don't bite, but their sheer numbers are the concern, and they just stink.

"They will give off a sent usually when they are disturbed when they are handled or smashed or something like that."

For more on stink bugs you can listen to the podcast in the player below...

Reported by John McDevitt, KYW Newsradio 1060