Question: I appreciate your company always answering my "bug" questions.
I hope I never need pest control, but if I do, I am going with your
company! My latest question involves a very small black bug- approx. 1/16
inch. It is oval shaped and seems to like windowsills and the baseboards.
It moves so slow you don't even realize it is a bug sometimes. Most
people probably wouldn't even notice it. I usually just suck them up with
a vacuum. I probably find one or two a day (maybe more now than before).
They don't seem to bite, don't seem to like food and wander around in the
daytime aimlessly. Sometimes I see one crawling on wall. I have never
seen more than one at a time except in a corner of a room when I vacuum.
What are they?
ANSWER Probably what you have found is one of the several carpet beetle species that can occur in houses. The most common of these is the furniture carpet beetle, Anthrenus flavipes. This is a small beetle (a little larger than the head of a pin), that is somewhat oval in shape and has a mixture of black and gray patches. It is characterized by moving very slowly, and rolling over as if dead when touched. The larvae of these beetles have brown bands and long 'hairs' at the end of their body. The adults are most often seen on walls moving very slowly. They are active in summer and relatively inactive in the winter.
Carpet beetles are one of the most common household pests. They can feed on a wide variety of things, from wool, leather, and other animal products to noodles and flour, meal, and other stored food and plant products. This feeding habit also makes them difficult to control. They can infest almost any part of a house.
The best control strategy is to do a thorough vacuuming of the suspected infested sites.Then do a thorough cleaning. This includes looking for all the material that could be infested. In the kitchen, discard infested food. In the bedroom, if yu find infested woolen garments, dry clean and store them carefully.
It is often helpful to apply an insecticide around the outside at the foundation. Check to see that doors close snugly and windows all have screens.
