Does vacuuming get rid of carpet beetles?
If the infestation isn’t too severe, vacuuming can help to manage and get rid of carpet beetles infestation. However, for serious cases, you might need to work with more deliberate measures like the use of insecticides, and other tips that would be discussed in this section. First, let’s see what carpet beetles are like;
Facts about carpet beetles
- They have oval and round bodies
- Their outer covering has a mottled to black appearance.
- Carpet beetles have enzymes that help them easily digest wool, felt, and other forms of animal protein.
- Carpet beetles are able to sense the smell of human sweat with their specialized sensory system.
- Carpet beetles are relatively small animals, with their body length ranging from 1/16” to 1/8”.
- The female carpet beetles can lay as many as hundred eggs within items made of fur and silk.
- You can tell you are dealing with a carpet beetle infestation when you begin to find holes and threadbare areas on your carpets and woollen materials. In severe cases, you may also find holes within the materials.
- The often you use a particular item, the lesser the chances of finding carpet beetles crawling across its length.
- Carpet beetles aren’t found on carpets alone. You can find the, lining the seams of clothes, floor vents, bird nests, dead flies, cereals, pet food, etc. They can literally feed on anything obtained from plants.
- The signs of a carpet beetle infestation include the presence of the adult forms lining across the window sills. You might also find some worm-like creatures with hair-like extensions protruding from their body.
- Adult carpet beetles are drawn to houses most times at night. The major factor that attracts them is light. The factors that keep them include dead insects, presence of natural animal fibre like fur, etc. And the only way they can gain entry into your home is when the doors and windows are open.
Most times, carpet beetles are found outside the house. The adult carpet beetles feed on the pollen of flowers.
When there aren’t any guards or protective devices planted around the windows and doors, the carpet beetles can gain easy entry into your house.
Once that happens, the female carpet beetles lay their eggs. When these eggs hatch, they turn into the larva.
The larva is the most destructive stage in the life cycle of carpet beetles. They tear through materials—wool, fur and other form of clothing.
So, the real issue now is the larva stage. The more the eggs laid, the more the larva that’d infest your house. You’d then begin to notice more holes and chewed out portions in your clothing.
It is for this reason that you need to find the infested materials and then, discard them at once. Let’s see some ways by which you can get rid of carpet beetles.
How to get rid of carpet beetle larvae
- Use a vacuum pump
Vacuuming is effective in getting rid of insects as tiny as carpet beetles. The only thing about the use of a vacuum pump is that the bag must be discarded immediately after the cleaning is done.
Failure to do that results in wasted efforts. The carpet beetles would only end up returning to the floor. The other thing about this method is that it may not work for all infested items.
From the list given above, you’d note that an infestation starts when an adult carpet beetle flies in through the window.
Ensure that you check the window sills for adult carpet beetles. You’d most likely find one or two during spring. The vacuum cleaner is the best in getting rid of them.
- Spray insecticides on the infested areas
Carpet beetles being insects means that they can be gotten rid of with the aid of insecticides.
If you do not want to work with aerosol based insecticides, you could spray the powdery form across the infested surface.
The only issue here is that the powder can be easily blown off when you use a vacuum cleaner for cleaning the floors.
- Do your laundry often
The more often you do your laundry, the more you get to reduce the number of clothes that are ridden with human sweat.
Remember, the smell of the sweat attracts the larva form of carpet beetles. This tip isn’t just about doing your laundry though.
Make sure that you have the clothes subject to a very high temperature. Carpet beetles cannot stand that.
- Freezing
In a situation where the infested material cannot be washed, you could seal in within a plastic sheath. When sealing the plastic covering though, ensure that you do so tightly.
That way, the ice won’t have to form against the surface of the sealed material. The material should be kept in the freezer for about a week.
After that, it can then be removed from the sheath. The carpet beetles would all be dead at this period.
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