Often, the smallest creatures cause the largest damage in your home! The carpet beetles aren’t an exception and these tiny creatures can cause damage to your personal belongings and property. The good news: You have numerous ways to deal with them and when we say deal with them, we mean removing them from your home and preventing their comeback.
For a deeper understanding of these pest management and prevention methods, we must first look at the habits and habitats of carpet beetles.
General Appearance and Habitat
Carpet beetles aren’t immediately visible to the naked eye, especially when they burrow deep into the carpets, rugs and upholstered furniture. These are actually bugs that can reach up to 20 millimeters in length, just small enough to make their homes in soft furnishings yet large enough in numbers to cause significant damage.
These bugs range in color from black and brown to yellow depending on the climate. Their size and structure also vary depending on the food they eat that, in turn, also depends on their habitat. In general, carpet beetles eat wool, silk, leather, feathers, hair and even animal goods. These foods are, of course, abundant in human houses so it isn’t surprising that they are common, if often overlooked, domestic pests.
Their favorite places to live and breed include carpets, rugs, and blankets as well as leather and feathered items. They feed on the materials they live on so they thrive like rabbits. They are also present in humid environments where their favorite food and nesting materials are abundant, such as garment factories, leather workshops and carpet shops.
Furthermore, they love being in old carpets that haven’t been cleaned for some time and lay their eggs in these places.
Possible Harm and Damage
Carpet beetles aren’t rats, mosquitoes and mites that bite people, perhaps feed on human blood. But they can be harmful to human health, too, particularly in terms of carrying diseases through their saliva and feces.
If they come into direct contact with food, they can leave their feces and saliva behind since these bodily fluids can contain pathogens like bacteria. When these pathogens enter the human body through the mouth, these can cause infections and illnesses that may be attributed to other factors. And therein lies the main issue with carpet beetles –you and your family may be getting sick from their feces and saliva but you won’t know it.
But that’s not all. Carpet beetles can cause serious damage to your personal belongings, soft furnishings and other housewares! Again, these bugs eat soft materials like silk, leather and wood as well as feathers, fabrics and hair. By eating these things, they make them unusable. Just imagine your quilts, comforters and blankets as well as pillows, pillowcases and clothes having large holes that make them less attractive to use.
Even synthetic fabrics don’t escape their destructive eating habits! When synthetic fabrics have oil, food or sweat stains, these are easy targets for carpet beetles and their voracious appetites will soon make tatters of these items.
What’s more, their population can grow rapidly that it may be too late to rescue items with small holes, not to mention that they can spread to other areas to spread their havoc.
Control and Prevention Methods
Fortunately, a carpet beetles infestation isn’t a hopeless case. You have several methods at your disposal to get rid of them and to prevent them from coming back. You must, however, be patient in adopting these methods as carpet beetles can be stubborn pets, especially when only half-baked efforts are made.
If the infestation is still in its early stages, you can start by vacuuming all the carpets, rugs and other soft furnishings at home. Your focus should obviously be on the site of the infestation but be sure to vacuum the other areas just as thoroughly. This way, your chances of getting carpet beetles including their eggs and larvae out are higher.
Be sure to tightly close the vacuum bag and throw it in the trash bin away from your home for good measure. You don’t want to spread the carpet beetles in other areas by throwing the bag any which way.
Then, you should call Heaven’s Best and ask for their carpet cleaning services. You should be honest about your main reason since the cleaning staff can use the right supplies, tools and techniques in killing the remaining carpet beetles. You may want to have the rugs, upholstered furniture and other large soft furnishings professionally cleaned, too.
As for the items that you can wash at home, such as linens, towels and clothes, you should wash them with hot water and mild detergent. The hot water should kill the carpet beetles and the soap can deodorize the items.
And if there are carpets, rugs and clothes that have already been eaten through by carpet beetles, it’s best to just throw them away. You may also consider hiring a professional pest exterminator who can use safe yet effective pesticides to kill these pests.
