We’re getting a bedroom ready for our second child (boy, due in January), and this weekend I pulled the old changing table out of the storage room. Cleaned it off, set it up in the room.
This morning I was alone in the room getting some stuff out of the closet, when I heard a scritching, scratching noise. After much goofy spinning around the room, I located the source of the noise - which is the changing table. Now, this noise is loud enough to be clearly audible from 5 feet or more away, and it sounds like some kind of bug scratching or biting the wood inside the table. Anyone have a clue what it could be? (I live in Southern California.) Could it be termites? I tend to doubt its termites, because the noise seems to be spaced out – i.e., skritch, pause, skritch, pause – as if it’s coming from a single insect. I have visions of Mothra emerging from this thing.
Geez. 
Take the thing OUTSIDE, ASAP, so while you’re standing there figuring out what it is, and Mothra decides to emerge, you don’t have to pursue it all over the house.
It’s coming from inside a piece of the wood that makes up the table? Like some burrowing grub is inside, chewing its way out? Throw the thing away, or leave it out on the curb for someone else to deal with.
Or it’s inside the table, somehow? Then it’s almost certainly a mouse.
Take the table outside, turn it upside down, pound on it.
Exactly. I want to attack it with a power saw to find out what’s in it. But I don’t want to have to buy another damn changing table.
Dung Beetle?
Btw, Congratulations!
Groan!
And, thanks!
Scritch, pause, scritch, pause- sounds like a mouse. Are there drawers? Have you checked them yet? I don’t think termites are loud (I am also in SoCal).
I have to second DDG here- get that thing out of the house! At least until you figure out what the hell is in there!
And congrats! Our second (another boy) is due in March, and I am nowhere near ready to turn my guest room/storage unit into a nursery!
Was there any residue (like sawdust or wood powder or light brown pellets) or were there any emergence holes anywhere on the table? Most wood destroying insects leave some kind of evidence behind.
It could be drywood termites, although I’m unfamiliar with whether they can actually be heard. I believe they leave small brown fecal pellets in and around the area they’re infesting.
It could be carpenter ants, but then I assume you’d see enormous black ants in some other part of your house as well, especially the storage room where the table had been and the nursery where you first heard the munching. They don’t actually eat the wood, they only excavate it, so they are constantly pushing out coarse wood residue. I’ve never heard them, but I understand that they are audible.
I also agree that you should remove the table immediately and call a professional exterminator to inspect not only the table but also your entire house. Wood destroying insects are not something to be trifled with, and as you live in SoCal, the temperature allows them to be active throughout the year.
Check in your Yellow Pages under Pest Control and call a reliable company. Many of them will not charge for an inspection, but be sure to ask. Describe what you’ve seen/heard and get somebody out there ASAP. If you have termites, carpenter ants, or powder post beetles, you need to have it treated immediately. The cost of repairing damage to structural members of a house is astronomical compared with the cost of effective pest control.
I doubt it’s a mouse, because, unless it was trapped inside the table somehow when you moved it, it would most likely have bolted from the site once you began to shake things up. Even so, check the area where it had been stored for mouse droppings.
And congratulations on your impending bundle of joy. Bring your new son into a pest-free environment. 
Was there any residue (like sawdust or wood powder or light brown pellets) or were there any emergence holes anywhere on the table? Most wood destroying insects leave some kind of evidence behind.
It could be drywood termites, although I’m unfamiliar with whether they can actually be heard. I believe they leave small brown fecal pellets in and around the area they’re infesting.
It could be carpenter ants, but then I assume you’d see enormous black ants in some other part of your house as well, especially the storage room where the table had been and the nursery where you first heard the munching. They don’t actually eat the wood, they only excavate it, so they are constantly pushing out coarse wood residue. I’ve never heard them, but I understand that they are audible.
I also agree that you should remove the table immediately and call a professional exterminator to inspect not only the table but also your entire house. Wood destroying insects are not something to be trifled with, and as you live in SoCal, the temperature allows them to be active throughout the year.
Check in your Yellow Pages under Pest Control and call a reliable company. Many of them will not charge for an inspection, but be sure to ask. Describe what you’ve seen/heard and get somebody out there ASAP. If you have termites, carpenter ants, or powder post beetles, you need to have it treated immediately. The cost of repairing damage to structural members of a house is astronomical compared with the cost of effective pest control.
I doubt it’s a mouse, because, unless it was trapped inside the table somehow when you moved it, it would most likely have bolted from the site once you began to shake things up. Even so, check the area where it had been stored for mouse droppings.
And congratulations on your impending bundle of joy. Bring your new son into a pest-free environment.
Hey there, shelbo,
Is this changing table made of particle board? Way back in college, I lived in a tiny little travel trailer, the interior of which was constructed of richly woodgrained particle board. All day, all night–skritch, skritch. Skritch, skritch, skritch, skritch. Skritch. Skritch. Skritch, skritch, skritch. AAAAAAHHHHHGGGGGHHHHHH! Buggers of some sort; I believed it was termites, (although it could have been the gigantic palmetto bugs I roomed with) and on preview, the idea of furniture beetles as seen in **astro’s ** link might be it, too. I never called anyone, because, well, it was just a trailer.
45ACP
Thanks for the input.
There are some pieces that are particle board. Thanks for the advice Dave. Man, I hate to think of fumigating the whole garage/storage area.
Well, fumigation may not be necessary. That’s why you really, reeeeeelly need to have a knowledgable, trained inspector out there to see just what the problem is.
That being said, I don’t know about specific pests or control techniques for California. It’s worth educating yourself a little before going with the first guy you call. Get maybe three opinions and estimates before proceeding.
When all is said and done, however, the cost of treatment and contract maintenance is way lower than the cost of repairs.
Any news on what exactly was eating the table?
I’m going to take the thing apart and see if I can find any holes or tunnels, etc., and I’ll keep you posted. I may not be able to post until next week though, but stay tuned.
OK, Hacksaw and I paid a little visit to Mr. Changing Table this afternoon. I spent some time in a closed room trying to isolate the crunching noise – I was able to determine that the noise was originating in an upper corner of the changing table (it is, or was, the second crib from the top – called the liza). We (my six year old daughter was very interested) used a hacksaw to remove a section of the top wood rail – and nothing, no holes or anything. My wife was shaking her head at my crazy antics. Ha! We’ll show her! Next section, a little closer to the corner – bingo! Borings, filled with packed in wood dust, spiraling down the top of one leg, getting larger as they went. Another cut, and, voila, large excavated area, with a little pulsating wormy larva guy visible in the depths. We flipped the table over and hammered on the table leg, and out fell the culprit. It was a grubby looking guy, sort of like the worm at the bottom of a mescal bottle, about 1 and 1/4 inches long, yellowish white, shaped like a mummy (wide at the head, and tapering to the tail) with a dark brown mouth area. It looked a lot like the pupa photo about half-way down this page (thanks astro!).
So, we need to find another changing table, and I guess I should call an exterminator. At least we got some kindling out of the deal.
[snort giggle, quickly stifled]
Um, why do I have the feeling I just watched a Three Stooges skit or something? You know, the one where Moe and Shemp take the changing table apart with a hacksaw, looking for the weird crunching noise, and end up with the table in fragments on the floor, at which point they realize that the crunching noise was Larry eating celery over in the corner?
Anyway, glad to hear that the baby was not, after all, devoured by “The Crudely Done Computer Graphics Worm Monster That Emerges From The Changing Table in Reel Two”.
As I recommended in my earlier post, call at least three exterminators (and try to do some research on how these pests should be treated so you know a little about what you and they are talking about).
I suggest you do a thorough inspection of the room the table was stored in; to whatever extent you’re able. If the framing is exposed, you can check that out now that you know what the evidence looks like. If the room is finished, you’re SOL unless you feel like opening up all the walls. I don’t recommend that.
Keep in mind it may just have been that piece of furniture which was infested. The rest of the house may be untouched. I don’t know if fumigation is necessary. If a borate treatment is feasable, that may work just as well, and be a lot less expensive.
Educate yourself on this matter, then call in three different people and see what they say. No need to panic. Rather, investigate and make certain that whatever course of action you take (even if it’s inaction) is based on factual information.
Oh god I am itching all over since reading this thread, and even more since reading the hacksaw results.
I had a similar problem with an old wooden ironing board I found at a place I rented. Eaten away by something before my eyes (well it was invisible, but there were little dusty piles of sawdust).
Eurrgh I’m itching again…
My wife’s sentiments exactly!
Final stoogish element to the saga:
Last night, relaxing by the fire with my daughter, reading her the third Harry Potter book (it’s getting exciting – they’ve just confronted Sirius Black in the Shrieking Shack), my daughter says, “Dad, I hear it again!”. Sure enough, from the pile of changing table kindling comes the telltale skritch, crunch of my wormy friend. Luckily it was a cold night, and we were able to use up all the kindling.
[Edited by TubaDiva on 11-26-2001 at 06:40 PM]
Grubs is good eatin’.