Several summers ago, the National Park Service introduced several million ladybugs into the park to combat a tree-killing insect that is laying waste to thousands of the park’s trees. As we understand it, the ladybugs eat the food source or the larva of the bug causing this widespread blight. Some of you might recall form your grade school biology that the ladybug is a “good” bug because it eats aphids and scale insects. Its current use in the National Park illustrates its “good” bug status.
Unfortunately, ladybugs have no sense of boundary, and the Gatlinburg area is occasionally host to vast populations of them. They do not enter indoors on purpose, but accidently. Once inside they can’t find their way out. there is no safe treatment for ridding them from indoors other than simply vacuum them up!
The lady but is attracted to warm, sunny surfaces such as the sides and roofs of buildings, and they accidently enter inside tiny cracks and window runners. Scores of removals have been undertaken, only to have them reappear in less than a day’s time.
The ladybug is a small reddish or greenish bug, with a smooth surface and black spots. They do not harm humans, nor do they post a health or food threat. We will continue to remove them at checkout but if they appear during your stay we will do all we can to take care of them.
Please contact us if you have any questions about ladybugs that this notice has failed to give you.