Carpet Beetle Control
Carpet beetles are simply one of the worst pests to find crawling around your home. As the name insinuates, carpet beetles are tiny beetles that crawl inside and lay their eggs in carpeted places. Most people catch one glance at them and assume they are bed bugs, but fortunately, carpet beetles are drastically different. When carpet beetles show up in your home, you need expert beetle control before they have a chance to spread.
And carpet beetles appear almost out of nowhere and for no solid reason either. So they could fly into your home when a door is open or even catch a ride on the family pet. Ensuring they do not spread around the house is vital because they need to infest thoroughly. Carpet beetles are extremely difficult to control, and it may be an uphill battle you do not want to fight.
Laying Eggs
Carpet beetle eggs are often hardly identifiable because they are typically bigger than half a millimeter. Female adult carpet beetles will lay their eggs inside homes because they offer plenty of resources. She can lay up to one hundred eggs, which may only need about twenty days to gestate. Depending on the species, they may lay up to four generations of carpet beetles in a single year.
Aggressive breeding cycles mean that even just one generation is enough to infest the home entirely. Therefore, if you find carpet beetle eggs in your home, it is essential to get beetle control soon. Eggs gestating inside do not need a long time to hatch, and the larvae stage is the worst.
Carpet Beetle Larvae
When it comes to carpet beetles, it is a well-known fact that they are destructive to household items. They earn their name from the larvae eating different fabrics like animal hair and fur around the home. When larvae are present, they will actively crawl around a room scavenging for food. Therefore, if incidental damages to carpet, rugs, furniture or other fabric items start to occur, larvae may be present.
This stage is when carpet beetles inflict the most damage to the home because they eat an omnivorous diet. They can even go a long time without eating to move around the house. They do not stop at fabric, though, because they will even eat pet food and leather. If given the opportunity, carpet beetle larvae will even eat dead insects they encounter.
Pupa Stages
The larval phase lasts from a few months to two years until they move into the next step. Since carpet beetles undergo complete metamorphosis, they move into a pupal phase. The pupa stage occurs after the larval stage and becomes full adults. During this phase, they are not active than larvae and experience several different molts.
This stage lasts from a few days to almost a month long before they are entirely grown into adults.
Pest Threat Level 3/10
Life As An Adults
Adults live a reasonably short life, only spanning from a couple of weeks to a few months. Once they are adults, they do not have the same diet as they once did as larvae. Instead, their new diet is mainly plant-based items instead of eating fabric. Their colors are black, white, and yellow, with a unique pattern on their back to accompany their oval-shaped bodies.
As adults, their only job is to look for partners and mates and find pollen. Adult carpet beetles will be the most noticeable phase of the carpet beetle life cycle. They can fly, making it easy to find their way inside the home and lay eggs.
Places To Check for Carpet Beetles
Carpet beetles are extremely difficult to identify at first because they are so small. In many cases, they are most noticeable when infestations are already widespread. If you suspect carpet beetles to be active in your home, you should start checking the following places:
- Baseboards
- Mattresses
- Furniture- Under/behind
- Rugs- In between fibers and under the rug
- Drapes
- Blankets
- Closets
- Attics
- Air vents and ducts
- Velvet-lined cases
- On pets, before they go back inside
- In flowers before bringing them in
- Any darker areas in the home
Part of a carpet beetle control program would be a thorough inspection of these areas around the home. Another noticeable sign of active carpet beetle activity is random damage to your fabric items.
Carpet Beetle Control Tips
Controlling carpet beetles can be extremely difficult, depending on how long the infestations have occurred. Unfortunately, the reality of carpet beetles is that you cannot do many things to prevent them. Carpet beetles only happen out of chance, but you can do something to lessen the chances.
- Inspecting items you bring from the outside like flowers or your pet
- Vacuuming- Regular vacuuming will help remove any eggs lying on the carpet.
- General tidiness- A clean home will remove active carpet beetles and their eggs.
- Steam cleaner- If there are active carpet beetles in your home, a steam clearer to the affected places will be effective.
- Hire the Professionals- Contact a professional pest control company for the best beetle control results.
Find Expert Control Stat!
The most critical part of carpet beetle control is disrupting breeding cycles as early as possible. At first sightings or suspicions of carpet beetles, the best step you can take is contacting Prime Pest Solutions. Our team will know exactly where to look and the best way to interrupt the carpet beetle’s life cycles. A carpet beetle infestation is an uphill battle and one you should not fight alone.
The infestations will quickly spread around the whole home, even if daily vacuuming and cleaning. Sometimes these sorts of pest activities should be left for the professionals to handle. If you suspect active carpet beetles around your home, contact us immediately to set up an inspection. Do not let another day pass where carpet beetles continue to grow and spread around the house!
