Carpet Beetle question

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spaztaz

Carpet Beetle question

I live in a 1 bedroom apartment and discovered carpet beetles, either varied or furniture or both in Nov of last year. I found a live larvae under the cushion on my leather sofa and from there my journey began. I started doing reasearch like crazy. Started searching everywhere and in the carpet by the baseboard found 3 dead adult beetles, shape looked like the varied or furniture beetle but was black and almost looked like you could see faded spots. Also found 1 or 2 dead larvae in same area. Maybe a week or two later saw a live larvae crawling on wall in a large carpted storage closet in my living room. Went through everything in the carpeted storage closet. All containers and boxes and found nothing. Went through clothes closets, dressers, examined all clothing and everythign in those closets as well. Found nothing. Examined mattresses and found nothing. Vacuumed everything; all floors, wall to wall carpeting, under all furniture, under and behind all appliances, moved and vacuumed under ALL furniture, even vacuumed my a/c ducts as well as possible. Couldnt find the source of the infestation. Finally read something that said to check the fabric lining on bottom of couches and mattresses. Checked both and discovered a lot of exoskeletons or castings from larvae in the leather sofa. I got rid of my leather sofa and loveseat at the end of november.

Mid January found a live carpet beetle, either varied or furniture on the wall in my laundry room. February I finally told my apartment complex about this, their pest company started treating and has continued treating and monitoring since. He sprays I think a permetherin, not sure around the perimeter of the apartment and puts down sticky traps to monitor. Around Apr or May found one live beetle on kitchen floor right in front of the cabinet. Pest guy put some powder underneath the cabinet. Early May found a beetle outside of my apartment by the door? June 12th had one larvae on one of the sticky monitors on the floor of my bedroom which was the first and only time i found anything in the bedroom. This is the one and only beetle or larvae that has been caught on the sticky traps since this began. A week or so after this found a dead beetle in my sliding glass door. This is last sighting of these things so far. I continue to clean and vacuum but want to get rid of these for good. I feel like its not being treated properly. I am considering treating on my own at this point, what would you recommend?

Status: Open Aug 16, 2013 - 05:34 PM

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RonDawson

Aug 19, 2013 - 10:46 AM

The question is what kind of beetle is it? It sounds like either a hide beetle or some kind of dermistid beetle. Carpet beetles on only usually feed on wool, or some sort of animal hair that contains kerotin.

Unfortunately, the pest guy is probably not trained at identifying or making a proper treatment for beetles of any kind, since putting powder under a cabinet would do nothing to control them.

The thing to remember is that dermistid, carpet beetles, hide beetles, etc are avid flyers. They have wings.

The adults can easily come in from outdoors. They live on plants, etc, too. So my thoughts are to perform a thorough indoor and outdoor treatment to control them.

Indoors, Ultracide is great for spraying almost any surface. It contains an adulticide to kill adults and also an IGR - Insect Growth Regulator to help stop any life cycles that may be occuring indoors.

Outdoors, any good pesticide will work. My favorite is Bifen. Spray everything, lawn, shrubs, under debris, etc. It will kill the adults.

This way you can stop the migration from outdoors, then work on the indoor infestations. IGR's are almost always the way to go with Dermistid beetle infestations indoors.

Ron

Source: http://www.epestsupply.com/carpet_bee...

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RonDawson

Aug 21, 2013 - 11:09 AM

Unless you are treating a wool rug, something like that, I would only treat the perimeter of the room, closet, etc ,and also treat any cracks, crevices, that are near where the clothes are. This would include a shelf above the clothes rod, shelving, etc.

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Can you tell me all area indoors you would recommend spraying with the ultracide? Not sure the level of my infestation and want to make sure I cover all areas. Not sure if I should treat all carpet or just perimeter? I have not seen any in clothes or closets but should I spray cracks around the top shelf?

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