Thrips invaded my house in Pennsylvania the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It's now January 15th and I've finally had 2 days free of them. I use peppermint essential oil to keep them off me. Off and deet are useless. The ones I killed have been identified as idolothripinae. Native to the Philippines and SE Asia. We buy things from wal mart or online that comes from China, well now their Thrips and Mites are here. And they are very aggressive. I own no plants and it's taken me all of 6 weeks to get to this point. They disappeared for a week or so around Christmas but that is when the Mites, spider and bird were most prevalent. I know that it was warm after Thanksgiving and had a wood stove going to get the chill out of the air. Well it got a little too hot and I stupidly turned on an AC unit. Just for a few mins I thought. I vividly remember seeing what looked like a whisp of smoke float by as I watched football. I smoke, but looked at my ashtray and thought, that's weird, I put that out ten minutes ago. That "whisp" was their eggs. By morning it was already too late. Within a week they had gotten into everything and were crawling "all" over me. Biting, trying to get into my eyes. The mites came about a week later. Craziest thing I've ever experienced. I having no plant knowledge had to find answers and fast as everything on the Internet said they were harmless, and did not bite. Lol. Not only did they bite, 3 eventually got into my eyes. I would have to deal with at least 50 a day trying. They would also spray eggs as they fly by. More than once I'd look down only to see their eggs and fluid across my shirt. They also are very vindictive. Once a couple weeks back after they resurfaced the 2nd time I found they had made a huge nest in a small crevice between cabinets. I sprayed them and killed them with a sulfur h202 and vinegar mixture (figured that one out. Kills them and their eggs all in one.). That night I was about to fall asleep, and thought I saw the whisps. I drifted in and out of sleep. I suddenly felt an urge to get up. I started to sit up and noticed a small batch of eggs just to the left of me on my comforter. When. I sat up completely to my shock they had laid eggs all around my head. On the pillow and comforter. They are some real sons a B's. But now I am adept at handling them, and getting them out of my clothes, since they would nest in my dryers door gasket. Also the were in my vehicle and would hatch when I turned the heater on. Even worse is they would hatch from what looked like perfectly clean clothing I just took out of the dryer while I was at work. Adding some sulfur powder to the laundry fixed that. The car is being helped as we speak with a cold spell we are getting here. Temp has been below freezing for 2 days. 3 or more should wipe them out. So I turned the heat on full blast on the way to work, so that they hatch only to be stuck in freezing temps for 10 hrs while I work. It's been quite the ordeal. But I've learned the internet hides what these things have evolved to. Not to mention the article in 2020 talking of how the military has started using them for farming purposes to inject plants with whatever. Basically story goes they could stop a plague of locusts by unleashing them and other aphids ahead of the locusts, as they eat the crops they are injecting a chemical to stop the locust and whala no plague. The reality is it's a kick ass bio weapon. At any rate if anyone ends up in a situation like mine, here is what I've learned. H202 kills their eggs. Vinegar kills the insect. Combining the peroxide and vinegar creates paracitic acid. Be careful, it will burn some if left on skin. But it really decimates them. Then using wettable sulfur will kill adults as well as repel if sprayed about your home or yard. Peppermint oil alone is the best repellant if they are aggressive and biting. Air diffusers that you can use essential oils with also help keep them at bay but they won't keep them away if they are hellbent. They killed themselves killing my 1st diffuser. Then the ones that didn't die laid eggs all over the interior of the thing. Was pissed but admired their resolve. At any rate hope this helps someone. Lord knows how desperate I was when this became my life for the last several weeks. I pray this last bout was the end of it. I am moving from this place in a few weeks. But they say it only takes 1 female which can lay 10000 eggs, and the party starts all over again. Good luck.

I’m outside of San Antonio, Tx . I had chili thrips damage last year but didn’t realize it and thought the browning and small leaves were related to the summer heat. I didn’t treat last year. when it cooled down, I trimmed off the growth and the new growth and blooms at the end of Nov and Dec were beautiful. This summer I had really funky growth and found out that what I was seeing all over my plants was from chili thrips. I cut off all the affected growth, and then sprayed with Captain Jacks Deadbug Brew late Aug or early Sept. I had a healthy flush from most of my roses around the first week of Oct. It took care of the chili thrips but some of the plants developed almost a chemical burn from the spinosad on the leaves. I don’t know if it was spraying it when it was so hot? I sprayed near sunset but I’m assuming the residual the next day may have caused problems. I’m not sure if i will use spinosad again as the whole point was not to have damage and I started with chili thrip damage and ended with a chemical looking burn.

Ashley, your blooms look like many of mine did this spring. I do have thrips, lots of them. I think that was part of the problem so I sprayed Spinosad several times. But I continued to have buds that balled like yours show on your second photo and I didn’t think that was thrips related. I live in a bone dry climate and should NOT have problem with balling, but I did. For me, I finally figured it was a fungal issue and since I sprayed with Immunox, it’s clearing up. I have had quite a number of roses with powdery mildew in spite of a good watering schedule and the balling seemed to be connected with the PM. I hardly ever spray anything in my climate and hope I won’t need to do this in the future, but I did have a lot of roses that were newly planted and I’m hoping once they settle in better the PM won’t be an issue. Obviously the thrips are something I will need to continue to battle. Interesting note: none of my DA roses had any PM or balling issues. I didn’t expect that after hearing they can be some of the worst.

IMPE, insect pests sometimes seem to gang up on spent plants - along with diseases and fungus. I've had bad problems with chili thrips on my peppers, so much so that I stopped trying to grow any. I think I'd pull and discard the infested plants, then maybe treat the area with something non-toxic like soap or DE.