Carpet beetles, flour beetles, bread grinders - it’s hard not to notice them against the white background of a plastic window. Brownish pests are somewhat similar to ladybugs, but smaller in size. At first glance, harmless creatures, however, cause trouble for the owners of modern apartments: they eat food, damage furniture, and the bite of bugs is unsafe.
If brown pests appear on the windowsill, the useful information from the article will help you immediately begin the fight. For those who do not want to encounter them, prevention can help. The main thing is to understand what insects are and how they can get into the house.
Types of brown bugs and features
There are several types of insects with a diameter of 2-4 mm: there are individuals that eat flour and cereals, others prefer wooden products and books. A separate species is the carpet beetle, which is harmful to human health.
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The following types are adapted to apartment conditions:
- Brown carpet . Its larvae are considered dangerous; the adult beetle uses its own reserves.
- Ham look . It has an oblong shape - a black creature with a yellow mustache; most common.
- Kozheed Smirnova chooses window sills and lamps as her abode.
- beetle is the most harmful of those listed above. Spoils food.
Uninvited guests can be spotted on the windowsill at any time.
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What do kravchiki look like?
Body size varies from 2 to 3.5 cm. Males are larger than females. A characteristic feature is a large head with large jaws. Males have additional fangs. Males use them when fighting with an enemy or competitor during the mating season.
The large head smoothly blends into the chest. The abdomen is convex, making up 1/3 of the whole body. There are no wings, snow beetles live underground and crawl on the surface. The body is covered with a durable chitinous covering. The color is coal black or with a blue tint. The legs are short, strong, ending in claws. A photo of the imago is presented below.
Why do they appear and where do they live at home?
Most often, skin beetles enter a home in the summer through an open window. They are brought from another room when transporting upholstered furniture, books, herbariums, and other collections. When buying flowers in a pot, you also run the risk of acquiring a pest straight from the store.
Depending on the species in the apartment, they can live anywhere. Carpet beetles do not choose a specific corner for themselves. Hard-to-reach places become their refuge, where they lay larvae that feed on dust. Kozheeda Smirnov can be found not only on window sills, but also in lamps. Bugs love dry air; they thrive in dresser drawers, cabinets, sofas, and mattresses.
Risk area
Insect larvae require food. Some homes have more of it due to risk factors.
- Living a long-haired animal in the house. The wool that remains everywhere is an excellent breeding ground.
- Availability of book collections. Then you will have to take care of a safe binding for your treasures.
- The house is decorated with stuffed animals and birds. They will 100% be a hotbed for the spread of parasites.
- The cabinets are full of furs. If the bugs have not yet made themselves felt, it means that the house is damp and cool, the eggs are simply developing slowly.
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What danger do brown creatures pose?
Insects destroy skin, fur, wool, fluff, felt, silk, and will not refuse food products and cereals. So, in the kitchen they feast on cheese, dried meat or fish. Powdered milk and cereals will spoil. Pests will happily attack old books with glue binding.
Brown bugs damage wires, furniture upholstery, parquet floors, picture frames, wallpaper, etc. The danger to the human body lies in the transmission of various diseases. A skin beetle bite can cause allergies and provoke the development of infections; there is also a danger of contracting worms through them.
Are skin beetles dangerous?
Domestic skin beetles cause great harm. They can ruin the entire supply of dry foods, as they easily penetrate even tightly closed jars of cereals or flour. These bugs live in bread bins and cabinets. Of course, you can try to clean the cereal from insects, but there will still be eggs, so you will have to throw everything away.
Books and stacks of papers also suffer from bugs - leather beetles are considered the most dangerous enemies of archives, museums and libraries. The danger zone includes carpets, natural fabrics, products made from wool, fur, skins, horns, feathers, hair, down and felt - bugs will immediately spoil them. In this case, they act no worse than moths - they cut off the fibers and gnaw through entire holes.
The excrement of these small bugs is also dangerous to human health. Once in the body along with food, they can lead to the development of an allergic reaction. Its main manifestations are coughing, asthma attacks, redness of the skin and the appearance of a small rash.
But there is no need to be afraid of skin beetle bites - despite the “telling” name, human skin is of no interest to them. These insects bite only in certain situations - for example, during a sudden change in environmental conditions, repairs and moving.
Folk remedies and chemistry
First of all, cleanliness in the kitchen is important. Carpet beetles cannot tolerate the smell of moth repellents, so you can lay out the appropriate tablets and plates on the cabinet shelves. Of the folk methods in the fight against such insects, lavender and wormwood have proven themselves well. The strong aroma of herbs will repel adult insects from the bookshelf.
Cabinets are wiped with water and vinegar. They also fight with chemicals. A permethrin solution will be needed to treat seasonal clothing before storage. The substance is not dangerous for humans, but it is effective against parasites, destroying both adults and larvae. Prevents their reappearance.
Chemical aerosols of the following brands will help get rid of brown bugs:
- "Clean house";
- "Raptor";
- "Armol";
- "Raid" and others.
A group of insecticides is effective against adults and larvae; white powder (popularly known as dust) is poured under the parquet and near the baseboard, you can make a solution and treat objects, rub it into furniture upholstery. Good old Dichlorvos will also be effective in this case.
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Wood beetle larva
Woodworms go through 4 stages of development from egg to adult. The fertilized female lays eggs in winding passages inside the wood. After 1-2 weeks, larvae emerge from the eggs. They have a C-shaped white body and a reddish head. Strong jaws easily crush wood, and the digestive system processes wood elements, decomposing them into proteins and amino acids. Unprocessed residues are thrown out in the form of brown pollen. The larvae are a destructive force, after which you have to throw away furniture and reinstall wooden floors.
In the second stage, the insect lasts from 2 to 5 years. During this time, the parasite manages to ruin all the wood in the house. The top layer of boards becomes paper thin, and the inner surface turns into a network of tunnels. Three weeks after pupation, a beetle appears and leaves the home through one of the passages. It is at this stage that residents learn about the presence of pests in the house.
Lifehacks for getting rid of brown bugs
There is a more humane way of fighting, but it applies not to insects, but to food. For many, throwing away cereals is an unaffordable luxury.
If pests have left their mark on it, you can do the following:
- Sort and sift well through a fine sieve.
- Heat in the oven or place bags of cereal in the freezer for several days.
- You need to use it first.
- Treat the surfaces of the cabinets with vinegar, boric acid or laundry soap (rub it and make a solution).
- Pour boiling water over the cracks.
- Wash the dishes to completely get rid of derivative bugs.
The vacuum cleaner will suck out hidden parasites and their larvae from all the cracks. After the procedure, the dust collector or garbage bag is thrown away or, once emptied, frozen for 3-4 days to prevent re-infection.
As soon as the cereal is placed in the boxes again, “traps” are installed. To do this, pour a little sunflower oil into small containers; the remaining beetles, which will drown in it, will definitely come for a treat.
Summary
Having discovered red marks on the body, it is not necessary to find out on your own which insects bite in bed at night. SES specialists can do this. Turning to professionals will make your life easier, since the entire processing procedure takes less than 1 hour.
To order services for the destruction of insects, rodents, mold, drawing up PPC agreements for Rospotrebnadzor, conducting laboratory tests and analyzing water, air, products, call or leave a request on the website.
If some insects bother you at night, and when you wake up in the morning, you find bite marks on your body (photo of ant bites), most likely, you have blood-sucking insects in your apartment. Most often these can be: fleas, lice (body lice, head lice), bedbugs, mosquitoes or other bugs.
These parasites need to be gotten rid of urgently, otherwise the discomfort during sleep will only get worse. Insect colonies tend to grow very quickly, and they also bite and are carriers of dangerous infections and diseases with serious consequences.
Prevention methods
To prevent the skin beetle from entering the room, a number of measures are carried out:
- Ventilate regularly and do wet cleaning. Insects seek dry environments.
- Twice a year they go through clothes in closets. Lavender, wormwood, tansy, tobacco, and camphor are left on the shelves.
- In the kitchen, surfaces are often treated with vinegar, the garbage is taken out and the bucket is treated.
- Wash the floors thoroughly with the addition of cleaning products to wash away the larvae from the cracks.
- Mosquito nets are hung on the windows.
- Create conditions for storing cereals and other food products.
Washing powders, bleaches, ammonia, and chlorine have no effect on kitchen pests. If you were unable to get them out of the house yourself, specialists will come to the rescue. To clear your apartment of uninvited guests, you may have to leave your home for several days.
White insects in the apartment - who are they?
While recognizing cockroaches and ants is not difficult, the appearance of strange little bugs causes serious difficulties, since in order to eliminate parasites, one must know their exact type.
Let's try to figure out who can start up in the house.
- The most common type of parasitic white insects in an apartment is silverfish (in common parlance - woodlice). It is a small wingless individual, an oblong body with numerous legs. In fact, the body of the parasite is not completely white, it is rather silver, but in sunlight it appears almost transparent. Such insects feed on starch and products containing it. Due to the fact that silverfish choose damp places, the main area where the insects will be located will be the bathroom or kitchen, especially the sink area.
- The sugar silverfish can be designated as a separate species; it most often appears in food warehouses, kitchen drawers with food, and libraries (since it loves book bindings and glued pages). Such insects come out only in the dark, so it is quite difficult to detect them.
- White midges most often appear on indoor plants; this insect is called a whitefly. It is almost impossible to prevent its occurrence, but it is very easy to escape from it - just treat the soil and affected leaves with a weak solution of manganese, repeating the procedure if necessary.
- Light-colored bugs in kitchen cabinets can be food midges; they feed on cereals and other bulk products, spread very quickly, and in a few days the pest population can increase several times. These insects can appear in an apartment due to improper sanitary conditions - high levels of humidity, the presence of crumbs and other debris. Having appeared in one product, after a couple of hours the midges will move to other places, and they actively infect even hermetically sealed products.
Of course, there are other representatives of parasitic insects that can occur in an apartment; each species has its own means of control, but if you cannot determine the exact type of pest, use complex preparations that help get rid of any apartment parasites.
Harm
Anthrenuses and leather beetles damage food, things, furniture, fabrics (not only wool), leather goods, books, and carpets. Insects chew through drywall, wooden furniture, even electrical wiring. Omnivorous insects live not only in the kitchen: pests crawl throughout the apartment.
Small brown beetles carry dangerous disease pathogens on their tiny legs and antennae. Insects move through dusty corners, food waste, the bathroom area, move into the kitchen, and crawl on food. It is difficult to talk about maintaining hygiene standards after such “travels”.
Tired of fighting pests?
Are there cockroaches, mice or other pests in your dacha or apartment? We need to fight them! They are carriers of serious diseases: salmonellosis, rabies.
Many summer residents are faced with pests that destroy crops and damage plants.
The troubles associated with the proximity of a small brown bug for a person are associated with the manifestation of the following negative consequences:
- consequences of a painful bite especially for children and women;
- manifestation of an allergic reaction in people prone to this disease;
- transfer of pathogenic viruses, for example infection by helminths (due to larvae feeding on the remains of plant and animal food);
- deterioration of expensive and beloved things.
Therefore, doctors strongly recommend treating with a disinfectant after detection. This could be hydrogen peroxide, iodine or brilliant green.
Let's celebrate! Untimely treatment can cause an inflammatory process, which only a professional physician can help cope with and self-medication will not help.
