We found about three of these within the last week. For some reason, my town (Central NJ) seems to be susceptible to them - I’ve heard of numerous people who went through major infestations and had to resort to drastic measures (though I don’t recall having ever heard of them growing up in Brooklyn - strange). Now we are unsure if we should immediately undertake drastic measures ourselves or try to take some intermediate steps, or just wait and see what happens.
My wife showed the bugs to a local exterminator who confirmed that they are carpet beetles and said we need to go into full crisis mode immediately. This consists of laundering and vacuuming every single item of fabric in the house (among other things). Then calling him in, when he will (at a cost of $1,000) spread his poisons all over the place, including inside the walls, where he open up new holes. This is the type of stuff that you do only if you really have to, so the question is whether you really have to. Of course he thinks so - it’s his business.
So my question for the masses is whether any others have had experiences with carpet beetles and what they did about it. (Meanwhile, my wife is going out of here mind worrying about it. )
Dermestids (aka “carpet beetles”) can be found just about everywhere, including towns in central NJ. (Incidentally–I’m originally from South Brunswick. Where in central NJ are you?) I would doubt that your area is uniquely susceptible to these wee beasties.
Unless you’ve got an insect or taxidermy collection, you don’t really have all that much to fear from dermestids. Yeah, they’ll eat the adhesive, and maybe the backing, on the carpet (IIRC, they tend to prefer cheaper carpets with cheaper backings and adhesives. If lots of people in your burg have lots of cheap carpet, you could be seeing lots of dermestids where you live.) Other than that, you don’t have a lot to worry about from your six-legged guests.
Did the exterminator say you had carpet beetles or powderpost beetles? Carpet beetles, IMHO, are no big deal. Powderpost beetles, on the other hand, could ruin all the wood in your house. It’s definitely worth investing some serious cash to get rid of powderpost beetles.
BTW–Dermestids can be strikingly gorgeous under a microscope. The patterns on their backs look like geometrically patterned mosaics.
I think a major infestation of any sort of insect is unpleasant, but in terms of specific damage, I think the issue with carpet beetles is that they eat clothing. People I know of who have had infestations have had holes eaten through much of their clothing.
Yeah, you’re right–dermestids do munch on clothing, especially duds made from animal proteins, including leather, silk, and wool. If you’ve got lots of great Italian leather shoes and custom-tailored wool suits, you might want to consider extermination.
BTW–the procedure your exterminator described doesn’t necessarily scream “rip-off artist!” to me. Dermestid infestations can be hard to eradicate from an entire house. (We just drop some moth balls or moth crystals into insect collections to keep dermestids at bay, and I do know that you can freeze infested objects for a few days to get rid of almost any hexapodal critter.)
What kinds of compounds does the exterminator you talked to want to use? There might be insect growth inhibitors or GABA inhibitors that could be used with very little stink and/or fumigation. The only problem is that those techniques sometimes take a while to really work on household infestations. (I have no idea if various inhibitor things are at all useful in getting rid of dermestids, but I do know that they’re useful for some other insects.) And, IIRC, they’re not cheap, either. Different exterminators may suggest using different techniques at different prices and levels of inconvenience to you. You might want to check out several different exterminators before deciding on one.
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