Swarm of large fruit fly/gnat like bugs on front of my house

Royal Oak, MI

I came home today to about a hundred little (maybe 1-2cm long) flying insects. They remind me of fruit flies or gnats but much larger. They are reddish brown in color, see-through bodies, 1 set wings that stay folded on back and only as long as their body (or just barely longer). They crack when you crush them so there is some sort of shell. They are all over the front of my house - windows, doors, siding, mailbox, etc. Curiously they aren't anywhere else (side of house, etc). I just had my inside plumbing redone 2 days ago, but the plumbers didn't do anything near the front of my house. Otherwise, there is nothing that has changed in the past day or so to trigger such a swarm. It is almost like there is a smell or something in my house that attracted these guys to flock to the outside wall of my house. Any advice on what they are and how to get rid of them would be helpful!

Thumbnail by jenn5175
Sinks Grove, WV

This looks like a birch catkin bug, Kleidocerys resedae (Hemiptera/Heteroptera: Lygaeidae) - see http://tinyurl.com/2bdtts9 for an image. They basically are nuisance pests that do little if any real damage, and should go away on their own as weather gets colder. See http://tinyurl.com/2fqvva6 and http://tinyurl.com/ydum8u4 for more detailed information.

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