Houses and patios in the Capital Region have become popular hangouts for stink bugs this fall, much to the dismay of home owners.

Even the owners of a local pest control company, Albany-based Thomas Pest Services, have not been spared.

"We've seen some of the stink bugs around the house," said co-owner Bill Clark. "It's like the shoemakers having holes in their shoes. We're going to be spraying tonight."

The company has experienced an uptick in calls about stink bugs and yellow jackets, said co-owner Sarah Clark.

Charlton resident Pamela Howard found a plethora of stink bugs on her window screens earlier this week, far more than she noticed in her home last summer.

"I had never seen so many all at once," she said. "I hate them!"

Brown marmorated stink bugs have been popping up in people's homes throughout New York state since 2007 but this year they are especially prevalent in Syracuse, Buffalo, the Finger Lakes and the Hudson Valley, said Peter Jentsch, director of the Hudson Valley Research Laboratory. The lab is a farmer-owned nonprofit that focuses on agricultural research and includes Cornell University faculty.

Native to Asia, the bugs have brown, marbled markings and emit a pungent odor to protect themselves from being eaten by predators. Kyla Shannon, who lives in Albany, found seven of the insects on a futon in her daughter's room recently. She immediately flicked them off.

"Some come every year, but there seems to be an invasion this year," she said.

After filling up on fruits and vegetables during the summer, the insects start moving into people's homes in the fall in preparation for winter hibernation, which is why people in the Capital Region are starting to see more stink bugs, Jentsch said. When they aggregate in a house, they produce a chemical compound that draws other stink bugs to the same area.

"They're coming off a feeding frenzy and they're congregating in homes they haven't been in all summer, ready to hibernate," Jentsch said. "The next six weeks are going to be mayhem."

While the stink bugs are an unattractive nuisance for home owners, they pose a greater risk for farmers. The insects feed on peaches, apples, pears, tomatoes, jalapeno peppers and other fruits and vegetables, decimating crops.

"They're a huge agricultural pest," said Jentsch. "We're at a point in the Hudson Valley where they're really starting to see fruit injury."

Jentsch and other researchers are working on several solutions to the problem. Samurai wasps are a type of wasp that kill stink bugs by laying their own eggs in stink bug larvae. After raising the wasps in the lab, researchers deployed the insects to kill stink bugs in 10 orchards in six different counties in New York. They're currently looking for 10 urban counties to distribute the wasps.

They are also teaming up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cornell University and other groups to map the stink bug invasion, with the help of citizen scientists. They are inviting people to take photos of stink bugs and report their findings online at eddmaps.org/bmsb/report through Dec. 1.

So far they've received more than 2,000 submissions from New York state residents, Jentsch said. Eventually they plan to select people from the submission pool to disseminate Samurai wasp eggs in their communities.

To protect their homes from stink bugs in the meantime, people should check to make sure there are no openings around window air conditioning units and fans that critters can squeeze in through and use caulk to seal any openings.

Adding screens can also help, Jentsch said. He recommended ZeroFly, an insecticide-incorporated screen developed by Switzerland-based Vestergaard, to keep bugs at bay.

miszler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5018 • @madisoniszler