The Inescapable Stink Bug Trap

It seems like the warmer it gets around here the greater the waves of stinkbugs that wake from the pits of hell. I'm convinced these little suckers are the spawn of the underworld. After suffering through this winter hearing them bounce against the windows for hours or stepping on them in the dark D: I was fed up! Enough was enough! So I started watching the bugs in my house and I found they are addicted to light. So I decided to combine an old gardening trick and the stinkbugs love of light into the ultimate bug trap.

Step 1: Supplies

2 empty 2L Pepsi Bottles
Masking tape
Electrical Tape
Scissors 
Drill with a 1/8 inch drill bit
3 bulb LED tap light
5 volt, 300mil amp plug in power source
Wire strippers

Step 2: Cutting the Bottle

Using the label on the bottle as a guide, cut the top off the bottle and set it to the side. On the other bottle, cut the bottom off, and set to the side. 

Step 3: Prepping the Light

I didn't want to have to keep cutting the bottles apart to replace the batteries over and over, so I decided to make the light plug in. I used a tap light from Lowes that has 3 LEDS, super bright and not hard on power. 

Unscrew the battery door on the back of the light. Drill a hole through one of the side of the feet of the bottom of the pop bottle bottom you just cut off and through the battery door cover. 

Cut whatever plug is on the end of the cord, mine was a micro USB, you wont need this. Pull the end of the wire through the holes you just drilled. Strip the casing off up about 1/4 an inch. For most power supplies you usually have a red(hot) and black wire. Solder the red wire to the + side of the battery terminal and the black to the - side.

Reassemble the light, being careful not to break your solder joints. Set the light in the cut off bottom.

Step 4: Assembly

Set the bottle that has the top cut off on top the bottle bottom that has the light in it. Flip the top that you cut off and put it upside down in the open bottle.

Tape the bottom to the bottle with black electrical tape. Wrap the electrical tape up another inch passed the seam between the two bottles and all the way down and all over the bottom of the bottle, like shown. This just keeps the light from bleeding out the bottom of the bottle, because the stink bugs will just cluster around the bottom of the bottle and not go down in it.

Step 5: Building the Roads

Since the plastic bottles are too slick for the bugs to crawl up easily, and we do want to make this as easy as possible for them to get into, we want to add little tape roads for them to crawl up. That's what the masking tape is for. 

Run masking tape strips up the sides and just to the top, don't go over the edge, just to it. 

Now plug it in and get to bug catching!