Tips on managing lovebug season

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) - Love is in the air, and it’s being spread by lovebugs, small insects that attach to each other and mate for certain periods of time.

You may have found yourself consistently cleaning your car due to the large number of lovebugs, like Monique Bass.

“I find myself coming to the car wash often. I found some in my car this morning. I left my windows down last night,” Bass said. “We were coming home from a party, and I left my windows down, my back window down, and I found a lot of them in the back seat of my car. That’s why I’m at the car wash now cleaning them out.”

Folks may be wondering, when this season starts, what can I do?

“To be honest, there’s not much you can do, because these things are literally everywhere,” Havard Pest Control Director of Business Management Shaun Graves said.

Graves said there are two seasons in which these lovers are active, and September is when they are most prevalent.

The bugs can be found in yards and bushes, but they are also attracted to the exhaust from your vehicles, which is why they can often be seen on cars.

“You do not want them to sit on your hood for too long, because what happens is when their bodies are decomposing, the material they leave behind can actually eat into your paint and cause it to chip off,” Graves said. “The biggest thing you want to do is wash your car frequently.”

Despite the lovebugs emerging in large numbers, Graves said there are ways you can work around them, and he does not expect the season to last long.

“Generally, this lasts for about a few weeks,” he said. “It could be two to three weeks, four weeks at the most, and that’s why you don’t usually see them outside of the month of September too much, but yes, generally just a couple of weeks.”

Graves said it’s also recommended to use a wax or sealer for your car if you aren’t able to wash your car often.

Want more WDAM 7 news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.