Help identifying these insects please

[alochans]

Can anyone tell me what these little creatures are called and how do I get rid of them !

3 years ago Starlings made a nest in a space under our roof tiles, some time later these insects started to appear in our upstairs bedrooms and were found to be more prominent up in our loft.
The starlings were back last year but did not nest in that area which leads me to think that these little critters must have been inside the original nesting material that the Starlings used !

Any help and advise would be very much appreciated,
Alex

[Dogghound]

These are Ptinus Spp they often live in old birds nest.

[Klaas Reißmann]

Niptus hololeucus. It's got nothing to do with the starlings. Those beetle must have been for much longer in the house. They can keep a low profile for many years.

The beetles are nocturnal. On one hand you maybe just didn't notice them because of their nightlife.

On the other hand, when they appear as suddenly as they did in your case something changed in the house. Did you repare a wooden floor or wooden wall? Is it an old house with so called dead floors? Did anything happen to those floors? Those beetles can live for many decades in the floors without taking any notice of them. And when the floor gets repared and therefor opened the beetles get set free.

It is very difficult to get rid of these beetles. Normaly the pest exterminator uses something that is called (I hope it is right in English) silica dust, which is non toxic for human. The dust gets blown into the cavities of floors and walls. To get it everywhere you need to open the cavities in many places.

The beetles and their larvae crawl over the dust and dry of within a few days. But even this silica dusts are very good it does not work easily and the work must be done several times. What you can do with low effort to keep them in smaller numbers is the following:

Get a few damp cloth and lay them in those places where you normaly notice those beetles. Check the cloth in the morning. The beetles will hide under and in between it, because of the water. You can kill those beetles and if you don't see any for a longer time you can stop it and start it again a few month later or when you see them again in bigger numbers. You don't get rid of them in this way, but you can keep the numbers really low so you seldom see them.

If you don't mind those beetles it should be no problem. They are no food pest and they are no vectors. They only make a little damage in material in dead floors by eating the straw.

If you don't mind I would appreciate it very much if you could send some over to me (if postage to Gemany is not to expensive). As much as possible.

Regards
Klaas

[Dogghound]

Oops sorry

[Klaas Reißmann]

Hi doggy,

never mind, you named the right family, which is worth a lot.

Regards
Klaas

[alochans]

Hi Guys,

Thank you very much for the reply's and the information that you have given me.
No work has been carried out on the house in the last 4 years. I would say that my problem area is up in the loft. There are a number of cardboard boxes up in the loft and one of them had a large clear plastic bag in it, when I took the bag out of the box there must have been about a dozen of these critters trapped inside the bag - all dead of course !

Klass, how do I obtain your postal address !

Once again, many thanks
Alex

[Klaas Reißmann]

Send me an Email: reissmann MINUS textilvertrieb AT t MINUS online DOT de

Regards
Klaas

P.S.: Sorry for the funny Email, but in this way the bots will not find it.