No one likes to see flying insects buzzing around the house, no matter how beneficial they might be. Here’s what to do if you find green lacewings in the house.
Lacewings are beneficial insects that help to control aphid infestations and other pests in your home and garden.
But you will most likely not want them as houseguests! It’s easy to stop them from coming into your home as long as you keep your plants free of their main food source.
Which Lacewings Come into Houses?
It is usually the green lacewings that come into a house. Scientifically known as Chrysoperla nigricornis, green lacewings have a tendency to seek shelter indoors, particularly during the colder months.
They come into your house seeking warmth. Insects that overwinter usually do so in open spaces. However, this species of lacewings prefers to stay indoors during this period.
Green lacewings do not feed on anything in the house. It is also unlikely that they will bite you or reproduce inside your home.
Apart from seeking warmth in winter, green lacewings may also enter if there is a food source like moth eggs already present.
If you have a lot of indoor plants around, you may have aphids, and those will definitely attract lacewings.
Households that keep plants outdoors like to have a few lacewings to control aphid infestation, and if that’s the case, some of them might accidentally come inside as well.
How To Identify If It Is a Lacewing?
The first thing before trying to prevent them is to make sure that what you have seen is indeed a lacewing. Here are some things that you should check to be sure that it is a green lacewing.
Adult lacewings are green, as the name suggests. However, some may be slightly brown as well. It’s hard to distinguish between green and brown lacewings, but usually, the green ones have more green than brown on their body.
The size of green lacewings is about ¾th of an inch. Each adult green lacewing will have six legs and antennae.
They have two pairs of long and transparent wings, which appear netted. You can also recognize green lacewings by their beautiful, round, golden-colored eyes.
Lacewings usually don’t pupate inside the house. This is why you are less likely to find lacewing larvae indoors.
How To Treat Your House For Lacewings?
The treatment depends on how many lacewings are in your home.
If it’s just a couple of lacewings, you can simply swat them with a newspaper or a book. If they are flying near a window, just open it, and guide them outside. One or two green lacewings won’t be a nuisance.
If you find many lacewings coming in, you need first to figure out where they are coming from. If you have a garden or plants outdoors, lacewings may be coming in from there.
You need to control the lacewing population outside so as to prevent them from coming indoors. Lacewings prefer places where there is a steady supply of food, so there are likely some thrips or aphids in your garden.
To get the lacewings to go away, you need first to finish off these pests. You can use products like Supreme IT and Dominion 2L.
The former is used to get rid of small insect infestations and insect eggs that are food sources for lacewings. The latter gets absorbed by plants and kills aphids and thrips that inhabit them.
You need to spray these pesticides once every three months and then avoid the area for the next 24 hours.
However, if you are considering using these chemical pesticides inside your home, please get professionals to do the job.
It is unlikely that you will find lacewing eggs in your home as they do not reproduce indoors.
How To Control Lacewings Organically?
Green lacewings are useful for controlling predatory mites, but too many in your house will become a nuisance.
To control lacewings organically, you need to stop aphids and thrips from infesting your plants.
Check your plants regularly to see if there are pests in them. Avoid bringing in any houseplants from outside because they may already be infested.
If you only have indoor plants, then those plants must have an infestation that is attracting lacewings. You can treat these plants with organic pesticides like neem oil or DE.
How To Prevent Lacewings From Coming Inside Your House?
Lacewings try to find warm spots during winter to lay low. At this time, it is important to make sure they have no way to come into your home.
Examine your windows and window screens for any small gaps or holes from where these insects can fly in.
Look for small cracks and crevices in the wall, especially in your garage and other places whose doors open outside the house. Make sure to close all such gaps with caulking or tape.
If you have plants in the garden, try to make sure there are no pest infestations on them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there green lacewing in my house?
If you find green lacewing in your home, it is probably because it is cold outside. They like to overwinter in warmer temperatures.
Lacewings might also enter if your garden has an infestation of pests. In that case, you need to get rid of the pests first.
Are lacewings harmful to humans?
Lacewings are not harmful to humans. They may be dangerous to other insects, but they don’t attack humans.
In fact, the larval form of green lacewings, called aphid lions, is quite beneficial. They prevent pest infestations on plants, such as aphids, spider mites, thrips, and other soft-bodied insects.
Can green lacewings bite humans?
Green lacewings usually do not bite humans, but they might bite if they feel threatened or are trying to defend their eggs.
Green lacewing larvae are biters. If you are bitten by green lacewing larvae, there may be some redness or itchiness due to the caustic venom in their mouths.
There might also be a small bump, but that, along with the irritation, will fade away quickly.
How long do green lacewings live?
The lifespan of a green lacewing is dependent on what the climatic conditions are like. Usually, in optimum conditions, which is around 75 F, an adult green lacewing will live for about four to six weeks. But, it also needs enough food sources available for sustenance.
Wrap Up
Many people who have gardens love to invite lacewings, lady beetles, ladybugs, and other beneficial insects to keep their pest problems at bay.
You don’t need to worry about them much as long as they remain in the garden. But if they start entering your home in large numbers, you can follow some of the tips that we shared in this article.
We hope this article helps you control lacewings in your home. Thank you for reading!
Reader Emails
It’s never a fun site to watch bugs flying around your house, beneficial or not. Here are some of the experiences of our readers with these bugs, when they decided to enter human homes.
Letter 1 – Green Lacewing
Green Little Bug
June 7, 2010
Its Green, Wings Twice Its Size And Looks Like A Fly Or Something.
Ositsraniellen
Chattanooga, TN
Letter 2 – Green Lacewing
Tinkerbell Insect
Location: burbs north of Atlanta
May 2, 2012 7:03 am
First, I promise this is not unnecessary carnage, the tiny beauty was found already expired. My mother came home and found this delicate creature dead on her kitchen counter. She knew my kids and I would love to study her so she preserved her for us. Her iridescent wings and bright green body were so captivating we dubbed her Tinkerbell. Can you help us identify what she is? I’ve included a photo alongside a penny for size reference. She was a little shy for that angle, though.
Signature: Resa
Letter 3 – Green Lacewing
Subject: Please help me identify this flying insect
Location: Southeastern Pennsylvania
July 30, 2012 11:51 pm
Hi – This little guy is a brilliant green – He was hanging out in my bathroom for about a week. Very happy to stay in one place on the wall for hours, before moving to a new spot. I can’t seem to find out what he is. Can you help me? Thanks!
Signature: – Scott
Letter 4 – Green Lacewing
Subject: Green mantis looking bug
Geographic location of the bug: Oregon coast
Date: 08/18/2018
Time: 04:19 AM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Me and my friends have ran into these a few times now. Even though I’ve spent a while looking I can’t figure out what it is.
How you want your letter signed: Your help is very much appreciated
Do these bug bite?
We have received some reports of people being bitten by Lacewings.
I have one in my kitchen. In Bakersfield, California. How did it get here?
Through the door like you, or else through a window.
This is my second one in the house. So glad to hear they are good. I will try to coax them to fly out the door. Thanks for great picture!
This was the first one I ever saw. Do they usually travel as a grouo..
They do not swarm in the true sense.
My daughter loves these bugs and she calls them goodie I’m not sure if I should be worried but every month for the last 5 or 6 months she has had 1 in a plastic container with wholes should I be worried?
For your daughter or the Lacewing? We occasionally received submissions regarding bites from Lacewings, but the bite is not considered dangerous. Lacewings are very delicate insects, and careless handling of them might result in a mortal injury.
I have an infestation of green lace larvae and they ARE reproducing in my house! I’m currently working with an entomologist. We are being bitten or stung by these things (the larvae are white, different sizes, and are absolutely everywhere (countertops, floors, furniture). They’re nearly driving us out of our home!
The larvae of this insect can quickly infest a home and we are literally trying everything to kill them but to no avail!
I think you need to rethink that they “don’t reproduce indoors”. That’s just not true.
I have pictures of this nightmare!
12 months ago we fitted insect-proof screens to a window in each room to enable ventilation while stopping all insects from coming inside, as we live in a long south-facing house and insects love to bask on the south side of the house.
Nevertheless, 12 months later we are still finding green lacewings indoors! No other insect has entered in that period! So we are flummoxed as to how the lacewings are getting inside. Unless they are nipping in when we go quickly through the front and back doors, the only other possible routes are the ventilation grilles and ducts connecting the bathrooms with the exterior surface of the house. As lacewings are “heat-seekers” it is possible that they detect a stream of warm air escaping from the house via the ducts from the bathrooms and they are able to fly through the duct despite the rush of air coming from the inside. Even when the ventilation fans are not operating there is probably a slight stream of warm air escaping through these ducts to the outside of the house.
The only other explanation is that at 12 months lacewings are hatching inside the house, but when we moved in 16 months ago we brought our own small number of indoor houseplants and had not experienced the presence of lacewings in the location where we previously lived.
I’m not certain whether or not lacewings leave spots of poo on walls etc., but they are definitely undesirable for one other reason: at night they seek heat, and the only sources of heat in our bedroom are our faces! So you are suddenly aware of an insect fluttering and hopping around on the skin of your face, which is disconcerting.
If I am reading on my device in bed, they are also attracted to light on the screen. I read “in reverse”, i.e. light font on a black background, so I suddenly notice that a word has become invisible, because a lacewing has landed on the screen. I squash it against the screen with a finger-tip so once I’ve dropped off to sleep that lacewing won’t be fluttering around on my face, but the next morning I need to clean the screen.