Discovering that you have a carpet beetle infestation can be stressful, and taking immediate action is the first step of treating it. They are big eaters, fast breeders, and not picky eaters. Carpet beetles may not cause any disease, but you should not neglect this because they can damage most of the fabric material items in your house, including upholstered furniture, clothing, curtains, rugs, and carpets.
Infestation of Carpet Beetles in Your Home - What’s The Reason Behind It?
Carpet beetles are big eaters, and they enjoy munching on material fabric items; that’s why the chance of encountering them in your house is high. They are pests that leave holes in furniture, carpets, or even rugs. The carpet beetles are oval and small, and most species only grow up to 4mm. However, some species can grow up to 10mm.
Aside from eating your fabrics, they can also hang around dark places in your house as long as they have a source of food, such as pantries and closets. They are outdoor insects in nature and only make their way inside your house because of the food source. These beetles can usually be found in houses, warehouses, museums, and offices.
Modern Method of Getting Rid of Carpet Beetles at Home
One of the natural and reliable methods of getting rid of a carpet beetle infestation is using an ultrasonic pest repeller. The product can chase away carpet beetles and other pests inside your home through the ultrasonic frequencies that can irritate the bug’s senses.
Using modern technologies like the ultrasonic pest repeller is suitable in any indoor area for getting rid of carpet beetles and other pests. Furthermore, the product is cruelty-free, so you can use the pest repeller without worrying about dead insects and bugs in your home, as you aren't killing carpet beetles.
Things to Know About Carpet Beetles
If you encounter a carpet beetle, you might confuse it with other pests like ladybugs or bed bugs because of a few similarities. Ensure to identify it correctly to avoid wrong treatment options and lessen the cost. Knowing how they look is another step to improve your knowledge about the pests that may enter and infest your home.
Appearance
- Size - The length of the most common adult beetles can measure up to 4 millimeters.
- Body - The body of a carpet beetle is oval.
- Color - Their colors are usually a black, yellow, and white patterned combination. They may also show an orange coloration. These beetles usually shed brown skins as they develop from carpet beetle larvae.
Larvae - The carpet beetle’s larvae colors are black or brown, and they are covered in hairs to protect them from predators. During their development, these larvae have three golden hairs in their abdomen area. They can be larger than the mature ones and measures up to 2.5 centimeters in length.
How Did I Get Carpet Beetles?
Mature carpet beetles can fly through your home and lay their eggs in various areas inside. They may also come from new indoor plants that are from outside. They usually target furniture, clothing, rugs, curtains, and carpets. If the homeowner is not tidy enough and doesn’t maintain the cleanliness inside their homes, the cycle of carpet beetles may continue.
Carpet Beetle Infestation - Is It Serious?
Carpet beetle larvae can damage the fabric materials in your home by eating them. Adult ones are attracted to bright places, and their presence on your carpets and rugs indicates that they have eggs and larvae somewhere in your house. In addition to this, they also have bristly hairs that can irritate your skin.
Infestation Signs of Carpet Beetles
Seeing one to few pieces of beetles in your carpet is already a sign of an infestation, and you’ll need to start finding their eggs and larvae in your house. Here are few signs that you also need to check.
- Damaged Fabric Material Items
Carpet beetles can seriously damage a lot of fabric material items in your home. Check your carpets, rugs, clothing, furniture, and other fabric items from time to time because once one of these items is damaged, there is a chance that carpet beetles are the cause.
- Sheddings
Once you’ve seen the infested items and area, like any other insects, they also go through various stages of development. In connection to this, you may see some tiny piles of their brown skins that have been shed off. The bristles of larvae function as their protection from predators such as ants and spiders.
- The excrement of Carpet Beetles
You can find the excrements of carpet beetles in the affected areas of your home. Beetles are small, but their excrements can still be distinguished if you check them properly. The color of their feces can be the color of the fabric material that they ate.
- Eggs
The eggs of carpet beetles are also oval with a cream color. It’s hard to spot their eggs because they are small and can’t usually be seen through the naked eye of a human being. Most beetles lay their eggs in dark areas and hidden places. That’s why it’s hard to discover it unless you thoroughly check it with a magnifying glass.
- Live Carpet Beetles
Another indication that you have carpet beetles in your house is seeing a mature one eating your rugs or carpets with your own eyes. You may also see these carpet beetles near your window because they can fly, and mature ones usually eat plants and flowers. That’s why they will try to go outdoors after laying their eggs indoors.
Carpet Beetle Behavior and Habits
An adult carpet beetle usually eats plants, flowers, and seeds. However, their larvae can eat various materials from animals and plants, such as wool, silks, leather, felt, animal hair, and fur.
They can also live inside or outside, but most female carpet beetles lay their eggs near their food sources. Carpet beetles can enter your house through plant cuttings, flowers and also through your doorway, windows, and open areas that lead inside your home.
Life Cycle of a Carpet Beetle
The larvae of carpet beetles can grow at any temperature and humidity, but they usually avoid bright areas. The growth of these larvae depends on the source of food and climate, and it can take a year before they develop into full-grown carpet beetles. The female beetle can lay 25 to 100 eggs and hatch them into larvae after fourteen days in terms of their reproduction.
Types of Carpet Beetles
There are various types of carpet beetles, and here are the five common species of carpet beetles that can damage your possessions.
Varied Carpet Beetle
Their size can go up to 3.5mm and stay alive for around two to three years, depending on the temperature and humidity. Varied carpet beetles have brown, yellow, and white patches, and they are oval.
Fur Carpet Beetle
Meanwhile, the fur carpet beetle can grow around 6mm, and its colors are usually brown, red, and black.
Furniture Carpet Beetle
These furniture carpet beetles can look similar to the varied ones. However, they can only stay alive for two months.
Leather Carpet Beetle
The leather carpet beetle is the largest one out of the five species. They can grow up to 10mm but can only stay alive for a few months.
Black Carpet Beetle
A black-colored carpet beetle can have a maximum size of 5mm and has hard shells with a life span of about a week or two.
Follow These Steps to Treat the Infestation
Locating the area of a carpet beetle infestation is the best first step to get rid of them from your house. After successfully finding the source of carpet beetles, you can now get into action by using home remedies for carpet beetles that’ll help you eliminate them faster and easier.
Use Your Vacuum on a Daily Basis
Using your vacuum every day will make a huge difference in getting rid of a carpet beetle infestation. The vacuum can get everything on your carpet - not only dust but also carpet beetles, larvae, and other pests. You should also not forget to use your vacuum in dark areas and house fabrics like furniture, curtains, carpets, and rugs. Make sure that the beetles and larvae won’t go back to your carpet by carefully emptying the vacuum into a plastic or garbage bag, tightly sealing it, and placing it in the trash can outside.
High Heat Cleaning of Fabric Materials
Another step to get rid of carpet beetles is to wash all the fabrics in your house as much as possible; this includes clothing, beddings, towels, and other fabric material house items. After washing, you should use high heat to dry them. Drying the fabrics in over 120 degrees F will kill any carpet beetle, insects, eggs, and larvae. You can also try dry cleaning the items with fabric materials that are not allowed in washing machines, such as silks.
Steaming
The use of steam cleaner on furniture and carpets is also effective for getting rid of them. The direct contact of carpet beetles, eggs, and larvae on steam from the hot water will kill carpet beetles immediately. If you have a busy schedule, you can always call for help from professional cleaning companies to help you steam-clean all the carpets, curtains, and furniture.
Other Treatments That You May Use
If you’ve already tried everything to get rid of carpet beetles and they are still present in your house, it’s now time to use extended help with insecticide sprays, boric acids, and traps. There are different products in the marketplace today that will help you with carpet beetle infestations. You have to carefully read their labels and make sure that you will choose an insecticide for carpet beetles. You can also use glue board traps in dark areas of your home, such as the closet and pantry. These glue traps can be used as an indicator of an infestation.
Preventing Carpet Beetle Reinfestation
Once you’ve overcome the stress of getting rid of carpet beetles, it’s now time to know how to prevent it from happening again. Reinfestation can cause you another problem, and you won’t want that. Tidying your house and keeping it clean is the first step in preventing it, and you should also keep in mind the following:
- Vacuum daily and schedule your steam cleaning for your furniture, carpets, and curtains.
- Always check dark areas in your house and furniture that attracts carpet beetles to lay eggs on.
- Make sure to store your fabric material items in clean storage units.
- Check your doors, windows, cracks and crevices, and other ways to get in your house. Keep them close, especially in warm weather conditions.
- Ensure that you have checked all your new indoor plants that may have signs of adult carpet beetles.
- You may also want to replace your organic fabrics with synthetic ones to lessen the chance of reinfestation.
- Do not disregard any signs of carpet beetle in your home to prevent reinfestation.
Carpet beetles in your house can be inconvenient and damage your possessions. They are big eaters and fast breeders; that’s why neglecting the infestation can be destructive and expensive, especially your antique natural-fiber properties.
Being infested with these carpet beetle can cause you stress. However, keeping your house clean and tidy is the only way to prevent it from happening. If you have spotted any signs of an infestation, take action quickly to treat it. You may also use our ultrasonic pest control that ensures the safety of your home away from bugs and pests like carpet beetles. You can check our products through our website Ever Pest and have your ultrasonic pest control today.
