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They don't bite or sting and are more a nuisance than anything serious. But the influx of stink bugs has created quite a buzz around Olney, where they seem to have settled in this fall.

"They creep me out," Olney resident Maggie McGary said. "It's just freaky that there are so many of them."

McGary said that she has seen them occasionally over the past few years, but nothing like she is seeing this year.

"This year is definitely worse," she said.

Many area residents are reporting similar experiences.

Olney resident Briana Rosenberg said there were so many stink bugs in her daughter Hayley's room that Hayley refused to sleep in there for a couple of weeks.

Hayley, 15, used her hatred for the bugs as the topic for her English assignment. She had to give a persuasive speech and her subject was "Stink Bugs — Why They Shouldn't Exist."

"A lot of the kids in her class agreed; they were dealing with them at their houses, too," Rosenberg said.

Dr. Jeffrey Aldrich, research entomologist at the Invasive Insects Biocontrol & Behavior Laboratory of the Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, confirmed that this region is experiencing an outbreak of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, or Halyomorpha halys.

The mottled grey/brown insect is about three-quarters of an inch long and has a shield-shaped body.

"They are not a native species," Aldrich said. "They are originally from the Far East — China, Korea and Japan."

Aldrich said they were first reported in the United States in 2000.

"They were first found in Allentown, Pa.," he said. "What probably happened was that they came in a cargo ship that came to either Baltimore or New York. The cargo was then unloaded onto a truck that drove to Allentown."

Over the past several years, the bugs have spread in all directions. They have been reported in Virginia, West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, and have hitchhiked to places as far away as Oregon.

Aldrich said chemists have created a compound that he uses to bait traps to catch the bugs at his lab in Beltsville.

The number of bugs caught in the traps has increased from none in 2004 to more than 200 over the past couple of years.

Aldrich has fielded calls and e-mails about stink bugs from all over the area, including Frederick and Hagerstown, which seem to have large numbers, and as far away as upstate New York.

One of the reasons there seems to be so many is that because they are not native and do not have any natural enemies, he said.

"The main enemies of insects are parasites and our native parasites don't recognize foreign insects," he said. "That process could take years."

While Aldrich and his colleagues continue to work on traps and a repellant treatment, he said he is not able to offer homeowners any substantial relief.

"In their native habitat they would look to crawl into cliffs, mountains or rocks, so a house is the next best thing," he said. "When the days get shorter, they look for places to winter, and in the spring they will come out and lay eggs."

The stink bugs have reportedly damaged fruit crops, but other than that, Aldrich said, they are a harmless nuisance.

"They don't bite because their mouth parts are like mosquitoes and they don't feed by chewing," he said. "They can emit an unpleasant odor if you handle them, and that can stain your fingers yellow or burn your eyes if you rub them."

Steven Goldberg, sales manager and technician at Infestation Control, a pest control company based in Rockville, said they have received an abundance of calls about stink bugs in recent weeks.

"They are literally coming out of the woodwork, said Goldberg, who has 35 years of experience in the industry.

He said the bugs are often drawn to light siding and white trim paint because those areas tend to be warmer.

"We went to one house in Silver Spring last week that had white siding and it was completely covered with stink bugs," he said. "There were thousands — it looked like something out of a Stephen King novel."

He said pesticides offer minimal control and are difficult to use due to the many federal rules and regulations.

Goldberg said the best way to eradicate them is to use an indoor/outdoor vacuum. He also suggests caulking around window, cracks and crevices to prevent them from entering a home.