Carpet beetles live in many apartments, and the owners do not even realize that they have settled next to them dangerous pest. People don't pay attention to bald spots on carpets, strange holes in books and wooden structures. A woman opens a bag of cereal, sees that the entire product is spoiled by some kind of insects, and begins to curse the sellers who slip spoiled goods to customers. It doesn’t even occur to her that the culprit is the small insects that live in the house.
How to find out that a pest has settled in your house
Don’t judge by the name and don’t rush to check the integrity of leather items. This beetle will not refuse anything, it is almost omnivorous. He will like any natural materials, as well as plastics and concrete. If you find small brown or black bugs running around the house, start sounding the alarm.
There are several types of carpet beetles, and all of them are dangerous to humans and household property.
- Ham. The most common species on our continent. The beetle is black in color and when it enters a room it immediately begins to lay many eggs.
- Carpet. Adult insect Brown does not exceed 4 mm. Larvae eat small fragments organic compounds, the imago does not feed and lives off accumulated reserves of nutrients.
- Fur coat. Black beetle with 5 white dots on its back. Feeds on crumbs, food and waste.
- The Smirnova Kozheed beetle is brown in color and loves to live in wooden window blocks.
Thanks to their miniature size, it is easy for insects to get into any apartment. You can seal all the cracks, install them on windows and ventilation grates dense mesh - the beetle will still find a way to get into the home. You brought a basket of greenery from the dacha, a bouquet of flowers, picked mushrooms in the forest, and the pests hid in the plants, lurking in the folds of clothes or shoes. The owners purchased and brought used furniture into the house, and the beetles moved in with it.
Don't wait for a flying brown beetle to hit you right in the nose or eye; periodically inspect the room. Carpet beetles in apartments especially like to live in upholstered furniture, where they are both dry and warm. Carefully inspect the upholstery of sofas and armchairs. Check the cracks under the baseboards, air bubbles under the wallpaper, parts of window units, houseplants. Insects will like lamps and other objects with a huge number of curls and small parts, from which housewives rarely wipe dust.
You can find out that beetles live near you by the following signs:
- holes and passages appear on clothes, upholstered furniture, carpets and building structures;
- traces of insect activity appear on the floor and window sills: fragments of chitinous cover, wings, feces;
- small holes appear in bags of cereals, sugar and flour, from which the contents spill out;
- bites in the form of small dots are noticeable on the human body.
Stages of development of skin beetles
When a fertilized female enters the apartment, she begins to lay eggs in any secluded places. Further development depends on the microclimate in the room. In a dry and warm place, a new generation can hatch in 2 days, and if conditions are unfavorable, the process sometimes drags on for up to 1.5 months. In just a year, the population can grow so much that entire property is at risk.
The skin beetle larva emerges from the egg. She definitely needs to gain a lot of nutritional components for the development of all organs. Shedding alone occurs up to 7 times at intervals of about a week. The insect needs to grow, develop, and also accumulate nutrients, because an adult will be unable to digest food. The larvae have no time to sleep; they constantly eat everything possible in order to gain the maximum amount of food reserves before pupation. The pupa must lie in safe conditions for some time, and the larvae, at the end of development, gnaw the passages in different materials, damaging furniture, walls and others building construction.
Some types of adult beetles also require food. As for the larvae, the main delicacy for them is natural materials. Insects eat wool, fur, skin, and food products. When the colony grows, they will begin to gnaw on books, wooden structures, wallpaper. Then it will be the turn of plastic insulation of wires and cables.
Damage from insects
A careful housewife, seeing any insect in the house, will take all measures to destroy the colony. If a woman does not bother with cleaning and does not monitor the cleanliness of the room, she may be indifferent to the appearance of bugs: if they crawl, let them crawl. Only when damage is discovered in her favorite fur coat, and all the grains are gnawed, will she perhaps understand that pest control is necessary. Such frivolity may not lead to dangerous consequences, but when the invasion becomes widespread, you should be wary.
The beetles themselves are not very voracious; some species do without food at all, but the larvae eat everything. Cereals will have to be stored in airtight containers, since bags made of any material will not become a barrier to insects.
After a while, you will notice that it is not only food products that become unusable. The following may be damaged:
- carpets,
- fur;
- books;
- wooden structures;
- furniture;
- clothing and shoes;
- cables and wires, which can lead to short circuits and damage to electronic devices.
If you notice bite marks on your body in the morning, treat the wounds with hydrogen peroxide or alcohol to neutralize the infection.
How to get rid of skin beetles
Beetles cannot tolerate sudden temperature changes. In winter, you can take all contaminated items out of your apartment into the cold for several hours. Return the items to the heat, and the next day repeat the freezing procedure. It is advisable to do this at least 4-5 times. It is very difficult to move heavy furniture - instead of cold, you can use heating using a steam generator. In this way, you can process building structures and other objects that cannot be taken to the balcony.
The resource site has collected information about the larvae of the leather beetle, which cause the main damage to things. They live in dark places and cannot tolerate light. When disinsection, pay maximum attention internal surfaces cabinets, nooks and crannies of furniture and building structures.
Which apartments don't appeal to leather beetles?
All kinds of lamps, vases and other antique objects are often decorated with numerous curls, petals and other details, which are very difficult to clean from dust. But for bacteria and insects such an environment is a real paradise. No one will disturb them with a wet sponge; it’s cozy and safe in the centuries-old deposits of dust. Think: do you like living in a museum interior? If you can’t get rid of things dear to your heart, once a week put them in a basin with soapy water and clean each fragment with a special brush.
There are other preventative measures.
- Beetles and larvae do not like the smell of lavender and wormwood. Place dry herbs in closets and hard-to-clean areas.
- Protect your windows and balcony doors frequent mosquito net.
- Leave cabinet doors open from time to time: beetles do not like sunlight.
- Skin beetles often settle in the pile of carpets. Keep these products clean: vacuum them, take them outside for several hours in winter, then knock them out and treat them with insecticides.
- At the end of the season, do not put away dirty things for storage - wash, dry them and put them in sealed bags.
- Every time you clean, think about whether you need to store all the old things that you haven't touched for years. The less trash there is in the apartment, the more difficult it will be for insects to find a place to nest, and it will be much easier for you to clean.
When using insecticides, add special drug– insect growth regulator. Under its influence, females become infertile. If a new generation does not hatch, the colony will gradually die out.
Sometimes, with the onset of summer, people notice insects in their homes. Of course, they appear not only in the warm season, but there are especially many of them at this time. Most often these are small, red, black or brown bugs in the apartment. Then the owners of the house have a question, what kind of insects are these and how to fight them?
Do bugs cause harm?
There are many types of beetles that can settle in your apartment and cause you harm. You will learn about the three most known species Most likely, these are the insects that live in your home.
The anthrenuses range in size from 1 to 4 mm and are black or brown. They spoil clothes and furniture; most often they live in carpeting. They are dangerous because they can cause allergies.
Khrushchak insects up to 4 mm long destroy food. Favorite place their habitat is flour, cereals, sugar. These bugs are bright red or brown in color. They turn cereals into dust and poison food with waste products. There is another subspecies of such bugs - black beetles. They most often live in beans, tea leaves, and sugar.
Skin beetles are very similar to beetles, the only difference is the presence of hairs on the body of the beetles. Their body is oval in shape. They reproduce very quickly, and their larvae can live without food for up to 5 years. Such insects can feed on almost anything, for example, fur, feathers, leather, paper, books, flowers, animal skins. Bugs of this species are not afraid of sudden temperature changes or cold. A few bites from the skin beetle and you could catch it. viral infection or become infected with helminths.
Why did the beetles appear?
Bugs can enter the apartment through open windows and doors or with things, for example, old furniture or a book. You can bring skin beetles or beetles into your home by purchasing products in the store that were stored incorrectly.
Pest control
If you notice that there are bugs in your apartment, do not put off fighting them until tomorrow. To start with external signs determine what type of pest has settled in your apartment.
If these are beetles or anthrenuses, treat the furniture. Wipe it with a sponge dipped in soapy water, it is better to use laundry soap, and then do the same, using vinegar instead of soap. Afterwards, sort out all the cereals, flour, sugar, nuts and other products where bugs may be located. Contaminated food must be thrown away.
If you notice skin beetles on yourself, you will have to make more efforts. In this case, we recommend that you use insecticides against insects, for example, “Combat”, “Dichlorvos”, “Raptor”, “Raid”. Try using tablets and fumigators. You can also use folk remedy: powder boric acid rub with a stiff brush into all possible habitats of bugs. After 24 hours of using chemicals, carry out general cleaning. Clothes, depending on the fabric, can be boiled or cooled at very high temperatures. low temperatures(not higher than -13 degrees Celsius), for example, by putting the item in the freezer. 
Of course, it will not be possible to destroy all insects the first time. It is better to carry out such operations twice a week for a month.
If you do not have enough free time to regularly carry out insect control, contact a special service. Of course, this will not be cheap, but professionals guarantee that after the first treatment you will no longer see bugs in your apartment.
Cleaning up after pest control
A day after applying insecticides, your apartment requires thorough cleaning. The floors need to be washed by adding vinegar to the water. After cleaning the carpets with a vacuum cleaner, the bag must be thoroughly cleaned; insect eggs may still remain there.
How to avoid bugs
Fighting beetles is quite difficult, so we advise you to follow simple rules:
- To prevent skin beetles from invading your apartment, keep an eye on clothes in closets; do not store things in dust or dampness;
- store food in tightly sealed containers;
- do not leave old cereals in kitchen cabinets;
- ventilate cereal storage areas;
- wipe the shelves with a sponge soaked in soapy water;
- wash floors with vinegar.
Now you know how to get rid of bugs in your apartment. If you notice such insects in your home, inspect the entire home. Perhaps it will help you spring-cleaning and treatment with pesticides and insecticides will not be necessary. Follow simple rules prevention, and you won’t have to go through a long and difficult work, getting rid of bugs.
It brings great benefits by destroying the dried remains of animals and birds and, thereby, clearing forests and fields of carrion. For humans, this bug, which is useful in nature, is not only a source of troubles associated with damage to property, it can also be dangerous to health. The carpet beetle destroys stocks of cereals and cereal crops, causes damage to personal property and museums, affecting carpets, books, upholstered furniture, fur and silk products. But the worst thing is that the bites of this insect can transmit pathogens of various infections and parasites, in particular helminths.
In nature, the skin beetle is small insect the size of a pin head - lives in hollows where birds nest and dried animal corpses. These beetles have also adapted to living conditions in an urban environment - the insect thrives in garbage dumps, where it feeds on animal waste. However, being by its nature a heat-loving creature and preferring a dry climate for reproduction, the insect is in no hurry to leave a human home once there. The skin beetle does not specifically seek to enter a person’s apartment; it ends up there along with flowers, clothes, carpets, furniture brought from the street, or it simply accidentally flies into the window.
The presence of dark, dry corners and edible food makes a person’s living space an ideal environment for living and breeding.
Carpet beetle in human habitation
Pest bites
In addition to contaminating food, the skin beetle can transmit the infection to humans directly. Despite its miniature size, this beetle bites painfully. Human blood is not its food - the insect climbs onto the human body, feeling microscopic dead skin particles. A bite from a carpet beetle or its larva not only causes pain and redness on the skin. Any infection that the beetle carries on its legs can get into the wound. Therefore, in the event of a bite, it is necessary to immediately disinfect the affected area, and if inflammation begins, do not delay a visit to the doctor.
Other harm
Prevention of occurrence
It is impossible to insure your home against the appearance of an uninvited guest. But following simple rules will be a good prevention of unwanted proximity. The very first of these rules is compliance with basic sanitary and hygienic standards, regular wet cleaning. It is advisable not only to vacuum carpets and upholstered furniture, but also to treat them with steam. To avoid damage to clothes, you can store them in plastic bags or covers, and also put any anti-moth remedy in the closet - it is also effective in repelling the skin beetle. Cereals and flour should be stored in tightly closed containers, bread products - in a bread bin. You also need to dispose of garbage in a timely manner, and to avoid accidental entry of beetles through the window, use a mosquito net.
