Carpet beetles

mutley74

I moved into my current house 3 years ago and done a full refurb - new carpets, decorating etc.
Since i started finding small brown beetles upstairs and downstairs every year around this time. Did some searching online to identify them. 
I don't have any wool or leather materials in the house, just about everything I have is synthetic materials. Checked around the air bricks and roof eaves for any gaps for birds nests - nothing.
All my ground floor is laminate and I cannot find out where they are coming from. Vacuuming up and downstairs almost daily. Put out lots of those sticky fly traps to try catch them and filled any holes I find in the skirting boards. 
Anyone have any good advice what i can use to try kill the them and stop them appearing each year.  Thank You. 

theoretica

Are you confident on carpet beetle not furniture beetle? 

Do you have wool/natural insulation anywhere?

Apodemus

If you were able to post some pics of the beetles, we might be able help identify them.

At this time of year, small brown beetles could be furniture beetle.  You say you did a full refurb, but what age is the property?  Is it possible that you have woodworm, either in the fabric of the house or in some furniture?  How is it heated and is it damp at all?

SweetPotatoPie

I had them when I moved in my property. Like little ladybirds but brown. I got an exterminator to come in to get rid of them. I do see a few in Spring now but they come through open windows. Believe it or not, they like to feed on pollen etc, could they be coming in through windows? 

If you have quite a few then I’d just call pest control in. 

mutley74

Thanks everyone for the quick replies. 
I will try take a photo when i next see one, but they look like small brown lady birds, similar to this image
Property is a 3 bed semi, built 1940s. 
Heated with Gas CH. No sign of damp. I had 2 walls with damp when i moved in but got them repaired with DCP. 
No wool or natural fibres. They appear mostly downstairs but odd ones upstairs too. My Furniture is mostly new too except dining table and a sideboard.  

Jeepers_Creepers

The one in that library pic - what's it called? (And don't say Fred)

dickibobboy

I too get them around this time of year, always upstairs. The house was fully stripped back to brick and refurbished with everything brand new too a few years ago. They only appear upstairs and it’s just the odd one i see now and again.

They’ve only started to show the last couple of weeks and it’s in the main bedroom this time, the window is only open now and again at the minute. I’ve seen probably 3 in that time.

Previously it was the bathroom/spare bedroom at the back of the house, i figured it probably (and may still be) that they’re coming in from around the soil pipe through the wall, the other side of the wall is into the extension roof space so even though it’s not open to the outside it’s also not sealed... Filling in around the pipes is one of them things i really should just get around to doing! 

I bought some spray off Amazon that you spray around the edges of the room at skirting etc.. and some paper strips that has chemicals on to kill them off if they move over it. It did make a good difference last year so over the weekend i’ll do a big vaccuum and a fresh spray around the upstairs. 

gozaimasu

I've only ever had them once, and it was last year. I never found a full beetle, only the larvae, and this was in a room where there was a net in the window to prevent flying insects from entering so f knows how they got in to lay eggs. I killed a few larvae and the emptied the room and hoovered everything up and I didn't get any more larvae. Hoovering removes the eggs that the beetle lays. I wonder what will await me this year.

Apodemus

Jeepers_Creepers said:

The one in that library pic - what's it called? (And don't say Fred)

That one is Anthrenus verbasci

Apodemus

Mutley, you've got to remember that in nature there are no carpets!  These beetles evolved for the young to live in the fur, feathers and other animal dander that accumulates in dens and nests.  The adults feed on nectar, so they need to be outside.  In spring the adult beetles emerge and want out into the light to feed.  Later they will want to come back in to lay eggs.  The solution for now is just to open the windows and let them get away!   

Even if you have no carpets, your house will accumulate other material that they can feed on, in undisturbed corners that the hoover seldom reaches.  You may also have birds' nests in your eaves or the odd old mouse nest under the floorboards, which is the carpet beetle's natural habitat.

rach_k

We had lots of them when we moved into this house.  The 'woolly bear' larvae seem to live in the fluff that gets down between the floor boards.  They also like the airing cupboard.  

The first year, they were everywhere.  I thought I was having some kind of eye problem at first as I kept seeing black specks whizz across the room!  I used diatomaceous earth - just liberally sprinkled it around the skirting boards of the affected rooms and also brushed it down between the floor boards.  It was a dusty job (at least there are plenty of masks around nowadays!) but it did work and diatomaceous earth is safe for kids and pets once it's settled. 

We still get a few here and there - now is the right time for them to appear as adults and fly up to the windows to get out - so I just squash any larvae and free any adults, but it's at a liveable level.  I could probably re-do the DE (it's long since been hoovered up) to get rid of them completely, but I'll probably only bother if it gets worse.