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Column Service Article Advises Home Owners on Cicada Outbreak

An article available through NAHB’s column service provides information on how home owners can deal with the 17-year emergence of billions of Brood X cicadas in late May and early June.

The article is designed for the staff and executive officers of local and state home builders associations for dissemination to their local media and can be tailored to the local market. Some parts of the country will be seeing a full-scale infestation, others only limited activity and some will experience nothing at all.

Heavily infested areas can host up to 1.5 million cicadas per acre and a one quarter-acre suburban lot can produce up to 500 pounds of the insects, according to the article.

Cicadas are considered basically safe to humans but pets can become sick from eating too many of them, and the NAHB article reports that egg-laying females can damage plants, including browning, breakage or scarring to affected tree branches. Most large, healthy trees should not be significantly harmed, but saplings can be damaged.

Home owners who are concerned about their landscaping, should delay planting smaller trees and shrubs until after the outbreak; limit or delay pruning until after cicadas have finished laying their eggs in June; and prune damaged twigs. Young trees can also be covered with a mesh cloth to fend off the insects.

For more information on the NAHB column service, click here to read the related story in this week’s issue of Nation’s Building News. Or e-mail Stacy Hope at NAHB or call her at 800-368-5242 x8132.

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