What To Do About Carpet Beetle

What are carpet beetles?

If you own a natural carpet or a synthetic/wool mix carpet, be on the alert for the dangers of carpet beetle. This seemingly harmless little bug can cause major damage to your carpet, upholstery and clothing and is more common that people realise.

Electrodry technicians often encounter the damage that these little pests can create and need to explain to customers that they can’t actually treat the problem. Only licensed pest controllers can do that. If you find yourself faced with loosened or missing pile in areas that are not exposed to an excess of sunlight, then the chances are you have a carpet beetle problem.

 

What do carpet beetles do?

Carpet beetles themselves are relatively harmless unless you have an allergy to them. They are about 3mm round, dark grey with wavy lines and like to live outside feeding on pollen. It’s when they lay eggs that they become an issue. The adults will venture indoors to lay their eggs on a food source. The food source needs to be a natural organic material like wool or wool mix carpets, the jute or hessian backing on synthetic carpets, clothing, bedding, leather, upholstery and food stuffs like grains and cereals.

Once hatched, the larvae are red brown in colour and covered in hairy stiff bristles. They can eat your carpet pile down to the backing in no time and are a major cause of carpet damage for Electrodry customers.

They are most likely found in the corners and around the edges of a carpeted room, under furniture, in upholstery, inside carpeted wardrobes, in pantries, linen cupboards and in clothing. If you are looking for them, watch out for insect droppings, remains of skin, loosened or missing carpet pile and even dead bugs around window sills and doorways. The adult carpet beetles will try to escape to the sunlight and will often perish before they can make it.

 

How do I stop carpet beetles?

The best prevention is to keep the adult carpet beetles from coming inside your home. Ensure that your insect screens are well maintained, with no holes and that all your windows and doors have screens.

Another way to prevent them from becoming a problem is to make certain that you vacuum at least once per week and pay special attention to the edges, corners and underneath the furniture. Use the attachments that come with your vacuum cleaner so that you can really get into the pile to remove any loose debris including beetles, larvae and eggs.

Make certain that you have no old birds’ nests around the outside of your home as this is the preferred environment of the adult beetle.

 

How do I get rid of carpet beetles?

The first thing to do is to check the rest of your home for further evidence of infestation so that you can assess the extent of the damage. Check any storage areas like wardrobes, linen cupboards and pantries as well as your upholstery, carpets and bedding. Once you have an idea of the size of the problem, call a licenced pest control expert to treat the infestation.

After the pest treatment has taken place Electrodry will professionally clean any carpet, upholstery and mattresses where infestation has occurred. Usually we do this within 48 to 72 hours after treatment. The Electrodry process ensures any traces of beetles, larvae, droppings, skins and most importantly of all, eggs – are completely removed to prevent re-infestation.