Yes! And you may have to get use to it. Had them in southern Virginia the year I lived there. It seems it is an oriental ladybug which will overwinter in houses in the South. I had them inside the house and use to vacuum them up regularly. At first I would take the bag out and release them in the woods but after awhile I just dumped them. The realtor I bought the house from use to have them in his medicine cabinet when he would get his shaving equipment. They like light colored houses to over winter in. When I had some vinyl siding replaced, under the old siding were hundreds of lady bugs.
Do a search on the internet, that is how I learned about them.
Jim

All the time.
These are a different ladybug than our spring ones, but they can also be useful. Apparently they were imported to fight a pest on pecan trees and they weren't supposed to spread.
I've seen several hundred in one room in our (old and not air tight) farm house.
They stink if you mess with them.
But they do control the wooly hackberry aphids around here.
To get them out of a room, darken the room and open one window. Some will immediately fly out. Others can be coaxed to fly out with a broom.
On the side of your house, you instinctively did the right thing. You might want to wash it with a mild detergent as well, to remove any residual pheromones.

There are worst pests out there and these will eat some of them.

Well, learn something new everyday! I wonder how common it is elsewhere.

Thanks for the info., Jim. At least I don't feel alone.

Kate

Kate - these horrible things are actually Asian lady beetles (orange and some are yellow, right?). We have had them here in Illinois now for about 5 years and they are like a plague towards the end of October when it starts getting cold. They are actually looking for a place to hibernate and they come out in warm days after the first frost and swarm your house. They will leave a nasty-smelling fluid on your hands if you pick them up or also on your walls. I've actually come home and my southern walls inside the house are full of the nasty critters and I've had to take the vacuum to 'em. I sweep up their dead lil' bodies all winter until they fly out in April. Every year they make the front pages of the newspaper because they are such pests...they even bite! You can Google Asian lady beetles and read up on them. So sorry they have made their way to Kansas. I dread them every year.

anntn6b--we must have been cross-posting. Thanks for the additional info.

I hope this doesn't turn into a regular problem, but at least the pecan trees are safe. LOL. Of course, I've never seen a pecan tree around here, but what the heck.

Kate

Yes, we have had them. As Ann said, they are more brown than lady bugs but they love to come indoors!

Carla

Get some lizards and coral snakes and control problem in an environmentally friendly,Florida way.[he said,ducking for cover-lol].

Oh, terryjean--don't tell me stories like that. I don't want to hear such things. Geesh--what will they import next? Sorry to hear you are plagued each year. I'm still hoping (against hope?) that this was just a fluke at my house. (Please!)

Carla--you too. How come I never heard about them before this?

Kate

Heck, Pete--why not throw in an alligator or two while we are at it! I'm sure they would love Kansas.

Kate

I don't know if these are the biters but the ones that are hurt.No kidding.

Think they've been slowly making their way westward. My sister who lives in town in Peoria doesn't have them near as bad as I do, and I live in the country. Now that I think about it, it's probably more like 10 years that they've been around. One tip is to keep your windows shut tightly on sunny days to keep them from getting inside and I do spray bug spray around my two french doors on the southside of the house. It seems to help some.

Thanks for the tips, terryjean. It was so nice out this afternoon that I didn't close the inside door, but just the storm door. Unfortunately, the storm door doesn't have a tight seal in one corner--I guess that is where they got in. From now on, all doors tightly closed!

Hope I don't have to resort to bug spray, but I refuse to live in this house with several hundred ladybugs--if you know what I mean!

Kate

We've had them here now for a few years, and every year there seems to be more. You cannot open a door without a bunch getting in!

Kate,

The same thing happened to me last year and the year before. They got in through the basement windows, how, who knows since they are always kept shut. Maybe through cracks?
I'd vacuum up the dead ones and it smelled like vegetable ugh!

This year not bad at all. I've seen more fruit flies hanging around than ever before though, I have to cover my wine glass or else they get into it.

My GF asks if maybe it's global warming? She's an evironmental lawyer so she wonders...LOL,

Betty

I'm still amazed at how commonplace they are, but I never noticed them until today. Like where have I been? Hmmmmm.

Kate

Oh! So that's what I've got here in north Georgia! The past 2 years they've been hibernating inside the metal track part of one of my windows and a couple of dozen usually find their way inside. And the other week one landed on me outside and I tried to gently move it off to a plant and that little stinker BIT me! I'd never known of ladybugs biting anyone and it was certainly the 1st time it happened to me! It HURT too! I had to get out the Benadryl spray to make it stop stinging. So is there a way to tell the difference between this biter and the ones we mean when we say "ladybugs"?
Thanks!

The Asian lady beetles have been around for quite a while. 2 weeks ago on a warm day I was watching them hang out on the sunny side of my friend's white-colored house. They do the same at my house, and a few end up getting in, but I don't have the numbers like they seem to in the midwest. My mother-in-law in Mich. gets tons of them in her house each year.

Why don't I have swarms of ladybugs when the roses have aphids?

We have them as well. I only notice them in the fall when they invade the house. The Box Elder bugs do the same thing. I've been sucking them up with a shopvac.

Both of my sisters live in grassy meadows and are plagued with ladybugs in the spring when they want to get out and fall when they want to get in to the house. Neither of them gardens much, but I do, so if they call me on a sunny spring day, I'll go over and remove their bugs for them and bring them here. It certainly doesn't seem to make a lot of difference for me - I rarely see a ladybug, but both my sisters loathe them, and I guess I might too if they buzzed me in the house, or released stinky pheremones.

My niece gets them as bad as you. Vaccum them up in a clean bag, store over winter somewhere & let them loose in the Spring as they will eat the aphids that eat your roses! 1 Ladybug eats 5000 Aphids in its lifetime. Their blood is what has that foul odor.

My office in N. New Jersey has been full of them the last few winters. We have replaced all of our windows at home to repel stink bugs so the Asian Lady Beetles are not a problem for us there.

I put up a ladybug house before the asian type invaded. I put up with a few bites.

Where are they in the spring when we need them? We saw an assassin beetle and a huge praying mantis this weekend.

Good bugs!

The lady beetles here are yellow or orange instead of red, and are a little fatter too. We had problems with them in our old apartment where they would get in during the winter and we'd find them on the outer walls or in the bathroom. I haven't had them get into my house but I have seen them on the roses. I think they were eating the apples when I was picking them at the local u-pick orchard a few weeks ago. They might have just been on them, but it made a few of the apples look very unappealing.

Same thing is happening here....there are about 8 congregating up in a corner of the ceiling right now...and I have caught and taken several outside earlier this week.
It has happened here at least once every couple of years.
Phyl

Me too
Last week there were ladybugs flying every where
They were also inside my house,
Just yesterday I saw 2 in the ceiling.

Where are they when you really need them?
Niecey