WHAT ARE CARPET BEETLES?
As the name implies, a carpet beetle can cause major damage to furniture, fabrics, carpets, furs, and other items of that nature. Carpet beetle larvae do not generally feed on synthetic fabrics but will feed on blends like wool synthetic blends.
WHAT CA– USES CARPET BEETLES?
Carpet beetles get into your home by latching onto you without you knowing. They can spread from there to places where fabrics or bits of fabric can gather. They can be found behind baseboards where lint gathers, in air ducts, in the stuffing of furniture and in places like the bristles of old paint brushes.
Carpet beetles can cause a lot of damage before they are ever found out. This could be 6 months to a year after they initially enter the home. By this time, the problem can be out of control by conventional and DIY methods. Get in touch with a professional exterminator in your local area.
CARPET BEETLE SPECIES
BLACK CARPET BEETLE
The black carpet beetle is the most commonly found species of carpet beetle in New York. They are small, brownish-black in color. They have hard shells and look like the typical beetle you would see anywhere else. The coloration is what will distinguish them from other species of carpet beetles.
Staten Island has been a hotbed for these kinds of pest issues in recent years. Annihilator eX-Termination is well versed in the kinds of beetles that live here and how to get rid of them fast and for good.
Black carpet beetle larvae range in color from light brown to black. They are shiny, smooth, hard, and are covered with small hairs. they are carrot-shaped with a tuft of long hairs at the smaller end.
VARIED CARPET BEETLE
image by Jean-Raphaël Guillaumin
Carpet beetle exterminators have issues as well with this other species. The coloring of the shell on this species is a white and yellow pattern with specks of dark brown and black throughout at random.
Larvae that have matured are about the same size as adults. They are furry (often called the woolly bear) and have alternating light and dark stripes. You can distinguish these because they are broader at one end than other types of carpet beetle larvae.
The varied carpet beetle is the most common species found throughout the world. They are found on every continent aside from Austrailia and Antarctica.
CARPET BEETLE VS BED BUG
Carpet beetles differ from bed bugs in a few ways:
- Appearance – a simple look will help you to identify which of these pests has moved into your home. The carpet beetle has white and yellow-brown scales and tufts of hair on the back of their abdomen (pictured above). Adult bed bugs are a reddish brown color and oval shaped, much like that of an apple seed.
- Behavioral differences – bed bugs feed on blood while carpet beetles feed on fabrics like carpet, wool, and other materials.
In other words, bed bugs reside in your fabrics to get to you, while fabric beetles are there for the fabrics themselves.
Carpet beetle bites are not a concern. They do not bite directly the way bed bugs bite. They can, however, cause irritation and redness from an allergic reaction to the prickly hairs on their bodies.
HOW TO GET RID OF CARPET BEETLES
Once carpet beetles are in, they are hard to remove. Your best bet is to get in touch with exterminators in Staten Island like us.
These kinds of insects are fairly common in professional pest control. Staten Island has hundreds of insect species that terrorize humans. We can annihilate them all.