carpet beetle please help

[craggles]

Hello im new to the forum and hope someone can help me,last year i kept finding these little lady type beetles on the walls,windows cills,not a lot just a few,,i found out they was carpet beetles.

i completely cleaned the flat top to bottom,found no larve/wooly bears anywhere.

Towards winter they seemed to just go,great i thought they have gone,,well they have come back in the last month.

IO seem to be finding 1 a night on the wall in the lounge near the uplight,,and the odd dead or alive one on my bedroom window cill.

I have today upturned both my sofa's,inside one of them,i had taken the black bottom of about january last year to hoover inside and forgot to stapple it back on,so today the corner i forgot to stapple back on there was 3 on the right hand foam type wool stuff all sat near each other.so ive caught them in a jar.

i still have not found any wooly bears,or skins.ive not taken out the foam in the sofa binned it and hoovered fully.I cant really get rid of the sofa,as they prob come into a new one.and im sure they are elswhere in the flat.what can i spray or put down to catch these things,,i do have marine fish so nothing to kill them,,ive ordered some moth balls as a few sites say they can kill them.

As said im find 1-2 a night,,maybe 5-6 out of the 7 a week.

thanks for help,its driving the mrs mad!

[triops]

The beetles may not be in the sofa! Carpet beetles don't necessarily eat carpets. They eat dry organic material such as hair, skin, feathers, wool, in fact any dead dry animal material.
Consider old bird nests or even a dead (and desiccated) bird or mouse in the attic or under the floor. Finding beetles is not necessarily connected with hygiene-you can vacuum all you like but will only catch the adults. To get rid of them you will need to find the source and the larvae. If they are not eating something precious to you just ignore them. However, if you are catching all the adults they will not be able to re-infest!

[craggles]

Hi,im going to check in the loft tomorrow,1.5 years ago we had new roof fitted and new insulation,i like in a 2 story flat,no floorboards under me only the neighbours

It beging to drive me mad a little though,as far as i can see nothing has been eaten yet,,although i cant see right under the carpet,but clothes,rugs curtains etc are not eaten,,the flat is only 2 bedroom and its cleaned once a week,and a full sofa out/wardrobes bed etc about once a month.and have never seen the larve or similar.

But i am concerned that if i dont act now i will see an infestation of them,as they are clearly hiding from last year.

I have seen a couple of products called blitz kits carpet beetle killer and protector c..both have some kind of fumigator/spray and powder.have you heard of them?

also is there anything else i can put down whilst im searching out the source.

[craggles]

Ok I have gone round and managed to find 11,had all furiture up/moved inspected.been in the loft.And i cqnt find any 'nest' but im finding more and more of the bugs.

I would ignore them but i feel they will just multiply.

Found another black beetle also tonight,it ran out of a crack i was steaming.

Anyone got an idea what it could be,,it ran extremely fast,im thinking it could be a black carpet beetle.

the beetle is about 7mm not including antene

[Jason Green]

Evening Craggles,

The latter is a harmless Ground Beetle, from the Carabidae family - may have been hibernating.

Take care,

Jason

[craggles]

Originally Posted by Jason Green

Evening Craggles,

The latter is a harmless Ground Beetle, from the Carabidae family - may have been hibernating.

Take care,

Jason

Thanks jason,,much relief id not had another infestation,,never seen one in here before,but it goes to show if you go looking you can sometimes find more than you bargained for

thanks for the id
craig

[craggles]

almost forgot to ask,,will these carpet beetles eat loft insulation?

[juliette200]

Evening, I have an obsession with carpet beetles. I hate them and as a result I tend to notice them so much more than the normal person! I've seen them in every house I've lived in since I first discovered them 6 years ago. I've also seen them at work and in other people's houses so I think they are in every home as someone on here said. I still hate them but I can't get rid of them no matter how much cleaning I do :-( I vacuum daily and am very clean but still they pop up, I've never found any "nest" of them so no idea where they come from (and I've searched my house and everything in it thoroughly!) The internet scared me big time when it seemed to imply that if you find one or two you have an infestation!

[craggles]

hi juliette200

Thankyou for your reply,im revieved in a strange way to find someone else i can relate to completely,,they are driving me insane,i hate them to,i can hoover/clean and shake stuff outside,and they just still show up,,I actualy don't mind insects,when i was 15 to the age of 22 i used to keep alsorts of spiders,scorpions anything,,im 34 now and dont have them,but for someone who doesnt mind insects i hate these.

yesterday I hoovered behind the sofa,with a fine tooth comb,10mins later one is walking up the wall from that area,,i must admit i am looking for them all the time,the adults dont both me as much as the larvae,I woke up the other morning and one was on the wall right next to me,they are so small

i live in a 2 bedroom flat,fairly new build and the steps ive done so far are.

taken spare room and hall carpet up,bought a steam cleaner,steamed the bed,curtains,carpets under wardrobes furinture etc,took all kick panels of the kitchen and cleaned/hoovered....hoovered like a mad man,thrown a lot of stuff out at the tip.pulled all carpet up to check underneath and been in the loft,silcones sealed around skirting boards,i dont have floorboards just large sheets of wood,so sealed them where i can.the list goes on,,but like you no nest!!!thats why i asked if they eat loft insulation as they could be up there.

what winds me up though is there ability to just pop up in an area you just checked/cleaned..I find myself saying everytime "where have you come from"

Hey just wondering if you ever heard of or tried a spray called PROTECTOR C,,or the other PRO-ACTIVE C,,same different name?or any you tried.

[juliette200]

I totally understand what you mean. What annoys me most about them is that I just don't get where they suddenly spring from! I'm exactly the same I do a thorough clean and then one shows up 5 mins later where I just cleaned! Like you, I hate the larvae more than the adults. I saw a larvae the other day crawling up a bathroom tile. I don't understand where it came from. There's an extractor fan in there, maybe from there? I don't know! There's nothing else in there! The only time I ever found a few in one area was 6 years ago when I first discovered the buggars. I saw about 6 on a leather bag. Since then I'm paranoid about them but they just turn up in odd places randomly. I have OCD with cleaning and these things drive me mad!