If you are going to erect barriers anyway, you might as well get a few chickens. They are good at keeping the bugs at bay and in my experience, they are a lot less messy than ducks. Chicken poo from healthy chickens dries and hardens into neat little blobs in about a day. You can pick them up intact and throw them at your neighbors poodle. Duck doo is like a large black slimey loogie that stays loogie-like for days, smells remarkable, and seems to spread out towards all the other duck loogies in the vicinity to form a loogie lake. OK, it may not be quite that bad but, deer flies are especially fond of duck doo on those warm summer days and I sure didn't enjoy having ducks. I was forced to find them a new home after a short visit to my yard. I have to admit though, that they all have personalities and it's really hard not to become attached to them as you raise them and watch them mature. And I liked my ducks, but there was just no safe place to walk between the loogie lakes in and around the coop when I went out there. I now have a large pen about 250' from the house, with just chickens. When we want them to do a bug round-up we let them out and lure them down to the fenced garden area. Cheryl

Thanks to all of you for the tips. I'll try the vinegar tomorrow. Pbrisjar--does it matter if it is white vinegar vs. the brownish cider vinegar? I sprayed the floor and all the walls with a peroxide and baking soda solution yesterday (recommended in a thread that I found on the flooring forum). That seemed to help at first, but I think the smell is coming back. It sounds like I will probably have to buy a lot of primer and seal the odor into the walls and/or the floor. I went to petsmart today and bought a blacklight; hopefully that will help me find the worst areas so that I know where to concentrate my efforts. I have a feeling the walls are worse than the floor; when applying the peroxide solution I noticed some discoloration and residue about 2 feet up from the floor on a few walls, so those may have been major spraying locations. I bought a large bottle of an enzymatic cleaner that sounded like it might help with older stains, but it was $35 and I know it won't be enough for the whole area, so if it's not much different from vinegar I may as well return it for a refund. Yes, I'm sure the prior owners knew about it. I have no idea how they managed to hide it every time that I came to the house (I have a sensitive nose), and it irks me that they did. If I'd known, I could have had a painter seal everything before I moved in, while it was still empty. At the closing, the owner mentioned that the cats had been "stressed" because of the move; I guess she knew that I would soon discover the smell. Thanks again!!

About vacuum... It sure works with catching the beetles. If you manage to do it at 4:30 AM. As soon as sun is up - they fly like crazy, and most of them fly away from the vacuum just to land 3 ' from where it is. But even if you catch them... You can't do it whole day watching them landing on the plants. Unlike other insects who actually kill plants by eating them, with C. beetles this is not the damage you care about. It is spread of the virus that can be spread even by one beetle. I grow cucumbers in the screen house, so no beetles inside. BUT! Plants use their tendrils to climb the netting, and sometimes they get through. And beetles do not waste any time - they attack them from outside. And I lost several plants over several years due to virus because of that. This is why just vacuum doesn't work.

I'm in north Alabama (where healthy crabgrass will take over pets, small children, and low flying planes). At the moment, I'm waiting on the soil temperature to come up closer to 50 degrees, so as to apply Scotts® Halts Crabgrass & Grassy Weed Preventer at the opportune time. I completely agree with your statement about growing a healthy lawn, which is why I'm taking steps to prevent the crabgrass and eliminate existing weeds. Since I'm on step 1 (application of crabgrass preventer), I don't have the soil pH info, nor the organic matter content (yet). Drainage is fine. That being the case, what would be the best approach to eliminating existing chickweed? I really haven't had much luck with big box herbicides. I haven't tried the Bayer brand, though the ones I've tried seem to hurt the weed's feelings for a few days and that's about it.