Found 3 of these little moth-ladybird hybrids in the last week and I’m freaking out.
Never even knew of them before now, are these rare/common in the UK? Has this changed recently?
My wife is OTT with cleaning so there is no dust about & the carpets are immaculate, not sure where they’ve come from or what’s best to get rid if anyone has experience?
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Carpet moths are a thing. As you mention that your wife is OTT with cleaning, I assume it’s worse than you think. I’d suggest getting a professional exterminator in. They can spread very fast. My neighbour had some, thankfully got them sorted very quickly by a professional and no longer has any.
The Carpet Beetles.
Great tribute band name.
i think it’s related to the massive rise of clothes moths – so many pesticides have recently been outlawed. fabrics and carpets would have previously been treated, but no longer are.
You need to find out where they’re coming from. They lay their eggs on natural fibres so that the larvae can feed on it when they hatch. They tend to lay their eggs in dark areas, so check down the back of furniture in the room you’ve noticed the most.
We just had to deal with some a few weeks ago. We found what they’d laid their eggs on, binned it, hoovered as much of the floor as we could, emptied all the drawers to check for beetles and then gave the upstairs of the house a good spray with beetle insecticide, making sure it got behind wardrobes, chests of drawers etc.
Horrible things – I know they’re objectively not that bad but I had bedbugs as a student and it fucked with me, seeing anything beetle-y in my space makes my skin crawl.
I‘ve seen a few here and there over the last couple of years but only had a real problem with them very recently. Came downstairs one morning and there were loads of them chilling on my kitchen windowsill. I spent hours watching my kitchen like a hawk, checking for new beetles every few minutes to try and work out where they were coming from. Ended up finding a bunch of larvae behind my fridge. Chucked them all in an airtight bag, swept/vacuumed/sprayed with vinegar, rinsed and repeated until I stopped seeing them. Took maybe three or four days of constant checking and cleaning before they stopped showing up. Eternally grateful they were on hard floor and not carpet, but vacuuming is apparently very effective either way.
I’ve squashed loads past few days, all around my kitchen window ledge, same thing happened last year. My windows aren’t fitted very well so I think thats how they get in.
Probably totally unrelated but we had a small outbreak of them at work recently and they’d got in via a box of soft toys we’d had delivered.
Common as muck. Take a few steps to address it, but absolutely do not get worked up about it.
Check the loft if you have one, pest control told me that they like birds nests etc and if there are nests there will more likely be carpet beetles
God damn, this is giving me flashbacks when one of my friends (When we were in High School) gave me scabies! I was so so itchy and just had red dots appearing around my body until I went to the doctor and they gave me this cream to put on before bed and it worked a treat! Now even the thought of creepy crawlies makes my skin itch
Edit: Now my heads itching just thinking about it 😂
These things traumatised me. Growing up, we had a severe infestation in the home which my parents never dealt with. The larvae are known as ‘woolly bears’ and they are gross. There would be loads in the laundry basket, between carpet and under skirting boards. They would also be in airing cupboards. Another thing, you’ll find them wherever you find mice. I was in a women’s refuge with a heavy mice infestation and the adult carpet beetles were seen everywhere.
I recommend the exterminators sub on here, a reddit user called PC Duranet has excellent advice for removing them.
I googled it and one of the “signs you have carpet beetles” was “taxidemic items losing hair”
Noticed any of that?
I’ve just killed 2 in my house today….
Saw the Carpet Beetles a few months ago, an OK cover band, but completely botched “Hey Jude”.
Wouldn’t say they’re “taking over the UK”.
They’ve always been around. Just ask any knitter you know, same for clothes moths! They’re just more visible right now because of the time of year as it’s getting warmer and they are coming out of dormancy.
Their larvae will eat anything that’s a protein fibre: wool, alpaca, cashmere, mohair, for example, and silk occasionally, depending on how it’s dyed or if it’s blended with another protein fibre. The beetles themselves only eat pollen and nectar.
They are almost indestructible and can survive being frozen for over 3 years, returning from dormancy with the rise in temperature. They can survive heat and are active at 41° C, and they survive long periods of starvation.
This means that the usual methods recommended by the fibrearts community for when you find moths don’t work. The only option is to throw away anything affected and quarantine anything close by. Put it in tightly sealed plastic bags, ideally in a warm area, such as your car if it’s outside in the sun, to see if any insects hatch.
Prevention is the best way to go. As a knitter and handspinner, I try to keep everything packed away in ziploc bags and plastic storage tubs.
Alpaca is a moth magnet, by the way! Be warned!
Vacuum frequently, obviously:-)
Fibre eating insects don’t like light, and they don’t like to be disturbed, so air out your jumpers every now and then. They do like moisture, so try to keep things dry.
You can kill moth larvae by putting affected items in the freezer, but eggs may well survive, and they are not easy to find and often confused with moth poo!
Likewise, you can kill the larvae by heating the item – some knitters put yarn in the oven for a while, others prefer putting it in a black bag in their car in full sun for a few days. The temperature has to reach over 50° C to kill the larvae, though.
(Reference: The Intentional Spinner by Judith Mackenzie McCuin)
The conditions this Spring are just right for them, so it looks like they are having a population boom. I noticed there were huge numbers this weekend as well here on the South east edge of Greater London.
They’ve been here a very very long time and are extremely common. If you look on the heads of nectar rich flowers you can usually spot a lot of small beetles and carpet beetles are often there. That said there are a few individual species which are fairly recent introductions like *Attagenus smirnovi*.
In nature their larvae usually live in the detritus of bird nests, occasionally the fur of dead things – same with clothes moths, and indeed they have a good few close relatives that don’t turn up indoors.
Vacuuming where they’re from hard usually gets rid of them once you can, and freezing stuff you can’t vacuum. They’re much easier to deal with than the clothes moths at least!
I find an adult beetle or a larva every so often. I’d say a bit more than one a month on average, probably more in the warmer months and fewer over the winter. Occasionally I find a small hole in a jumper or an out-of-the-way bit of carpet, but (touch wood) it never seems to escalate to the point where it would feel like a real problem.
I think there might be more around right now because the weather’s finally warmed up (and because the weather’s generally been a bit odd this year). I wouldn’t worry too much over three. They’re around in the environment; they’ll come in through open windows or when you open the door, same as any other flying insect.
Yeah had loads in my house earlier in the year. No ideea where they came from, only possible (and I am not sure it was them) damage on one carpet.
Just go to a vets and get a inceticide spray. (cheaper than other places usually (bigger spray at least)), and yes the stuff for cats and fleas etc also kill carpet beetles. Look up the ingridients online, it’s all the same (some %’s look differetn on some with the same ingridients (there are a few), but it’s usually die to rounding to whatever SF).
How do you get rid of carpet beetles?
Regular and thorough cleaning of rugs, draperies, upholstered furniture, closets, and other locations where carpet beetles congregate is important to both prevent and control these pests. Frequent, thorough vacuuming is an effective way of removing food sources as well as carpet beetle eggs, larvae, and adults.