What To Do About Carpet Beetle

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.