Bugging Out! Those Friendly Looking 'Ladybugs' May Be Boarding In Your Walls

DETROIT (WWJ) - They may be living inside your walls right now - ready to "make a run for it" both outside and inside your home.

They're bugs; like the Asian Lady Beetle, the Western Conifer Seed Bug and something called cluster flies.

"They look like big, black, sluggish house flys but they hang out in bunches," says Gretchen Voyle, a horticulture expert at the Michigan State University Extension Service.

"They are not like regular house fly, like, 'oh house flys - you have a dirty house,' in this case," explains Voyle, "(they) lay their eggs and the eggs, when they hatch, the little larvae become parasites of earthworms. And eventually they kill the earthworm but after that they are free-living. Then they show up at your house in the fall - looking for a free room."

Voyle says the bugs spend the winter inside your insulation, and when the sun hits your home in the Spring... they start to move again. Voyle says they aren't dangerous -- just a nuisance. "They are going to sleep away the winter until the sun hits the wall and begins to warm it up - then they decide it's time to go back outside."

She says these bugs aren't dangerous... and the best way to protect your home from these bugs -- have a brick home.