Expert: Jule-Lynne - 10/10/2007

Question
My wife and I have a carpet beetle LARVAE problem.  I estimate that we have killed over 12,000 larvae in our house since February of this year.

We have had a carpet beetle larvae problem for about 2½ years.  At that time my wife noticed these "tiny little bugs" in the windowsills and on the walls, or crawling across the light colored vinyl bathroom floor, mostly at night.  We didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it, as we live in the country and are used to having an assortment of bugs over the years.  We did not even know what they were but assumed they would just go away after a short time, as most bugs do.

Since about February '07, the problem has worsened.  At that time we became more aggressive about the situation, going from room to room numerous times each day, searching for the larvae, killing them and keeping count of the numbers each day.

We have lived in our house for over 29 years and never had this problem in the past.  We live in an older neighborhood about a mile or so beyond the city limits.  It is in a rural setting, with each neighbor having an acre or so of land.  We live in the foothills where there is a lot of scrub brush type of weeds.

In March of this year we tried a professional insect control service.  The representative identified the insect as carpet beetle larvae and sprayed the perimeter of our house on his first visit, he also did a light spraying inside.  The carpet beetle larvae count went down from about 100 per day we were averaging to about 50 per day over the next few weeks.  The pest control service came again 12 days later and sprayed again, plus put down granules outside.  After that visit the numbers of larvae we caught and killed in the house went down again, but we still averaged about 20-30 per day.  The pest control service returned two months after their initial visit and sprayed once again.  They advised us to cut back some ivy we had growing on the foundation on the north side of our house, and they also suggested that we have our carpets downstairs cleaned.  We followed their advice in both matters, and they returned one final time to spray again, close to the end of their 90-day guarantee period.  On that visit the pest control worker found a dead baby bird close to our house (fell out of the nest) and threw it into a bucket in the back of his truck.  After he left our house, he called about 30 minutes later and said that he had looked in the bucket with the dead bird and noticed about 100 "warehouse beetles"??? in the bottom of the bucket, that he just wanted to let us know the extent of the problem we were facing.  Since it was raining that day (it started to rain immediately after he sprayed), he indicated that he would return in a few days to respray.  He never returned.  

Since that time the numbers of carpet beetle larvae have increased again to the point where we are now getting close to 100 or more larvae per day.  

We are killing (by hand with kleenex) between 50 - 150 carpet beetle larvae a day.  The larvae crawl on the white walls, usually after sundown, and then we kill them.  We can't tell how many are on a few of the other walls because they are painted a different color or paneled and therefore we can't see them.  They are very often on the windowsills; whether they have just come in or are trying to get out, we are uncertain.  They seem to be most numerous after sunset.  We have looked at the outside of the house at night, and the larvae are visible, maybe 1 about every 12 to 18 inches apart, on at least two sides of the house.

We were told by the pest control service that the chemicals they used were Demand CS, Lambda Cyhalothrin, and Suspend.  We know they used granules on one of their visits.

Since June, we have tried different products ourselves, including the following:

    NAME OF PRODUCT                     ACTIVE INGREDIENT

Hi-Yield Indoor/Outdoor Broad Use Insecticide     Permethrin 10%

Spectracide Triazicide OnceDone! Insect Killer      Gamma-Cychalotrin
Concentrate                              0.25%

Bayer Advanced Home Home Pest Control Indoor  Cyfluthrin 0.1%
& Outdoor Insect Killer                     

Ortho Total Kill Lawn & Garden Insect Killer       Bifenthrin 0.1%
Granules                              

Spectracide Terminate Termite & Carpenter      Lambda Cyhalothrin
Ant Killer                              0.03%

Ortho Home Defense Max Perimeter & Indoor      Bifenthrin 0.05%
Insect Killer


We don't know whether any of these products has done any good, as we continue to see the larvae every day.  

During the early summer we also captured in the house a number of adult carpet beetles, probably about 70-100 total.  As with the larvae, they would be crawling on the walls, in the windowsills, etc.

We have been unable to find a source.  As far as we can tell, there has been no damage to clothing in our closets.  When we had the carpets cleaned downstairs, we took everything out of the bottom of the closets but found no source anywhere.  The exterminator also inspected clothing articles and found no damage.  

We feel sure that some are in the carpets but we can't see them (the carpet downstairs is dark colored).  We have lifted up the carpet in one of the closets downstairs, where there is no padding underneath and is directly on the concrete, but see no larvae there.

We do not accumulate trash but have it picked up weekly.  We have no horses, no pets.

We bought a new Hoover vacuum cleaner with a great amount of suction power in June, and we vacuum downstairs 4 times a week and upstairs 2 times a week.  We empty out the dirt cup in the vacuum cleaner after each use, and we keep the vacuum cleaner in the garage.  Still the problem persists.

I have spent at least 15 hours researching this on the Internet during the past year.  I was finally able to identify the bugs as carpet beetle larvae.  We collected samples and gave them to the pest control service on their first visit, and they subsequently positively identified them as carpet beetles.  I believe they are specifically the varied carpet beetle and their larvae.

What can you recommend us to do?  Is there a product that is effective that we have not tried, and is there anything available in LOCAL stores, such as Lowe's or Home Depot, that actually works?

I have found some products on the Internet that have higher concentrations of chemicals than what we have already used, but we haven't been able to find these products at our local stores, they are only available to order over the Internet.  The chemicals that I am considering are:

Demand CS
Cyonara 9.7 Insecticide
Suspend SC
Tempo SC Ultra

They are available at  http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/pi/pick-demandcs.htm  and other sites over the internet.

Could you please help me with this problem.   Thanks in advance.

Bob  

Answer
Hi Bob, what did you find out from Cornell?  i'm curious as to what the insect was.  thanks, Jule-Lynne

Hi Bob, I spoke with our household insect specialist in Georgia and he would like you to email him direct.  His email is dsuiter@griffin.uga.edu  I think he will be able to help you.  This sounds like way more than any carpet beetle infestation I've ever heard of.  I have a feeling that may not be what it is.  Carpet beetles live inside, so I'm not sure why he sprayed outside.  But, you can discuss that with Dr. Suiter.  Please email him.  He's a great guy and very interested.  Let me know if I can help in any other way.  Jule-Lynne