Maybe larder beetles, except I don’t see a lighter midsection on the critters in your photo.
There is a link on that page, under “Categories”, which leads you to a series of Q&As and photos of various small beetles and weevils that show up in our homes. I bet you’ll find the answer after browsing through the material.
I sent an email and a handful of pictures to them. We’ll see what they have to say. They do seem to resemble Black Carpet Beetles more then anything, but it doesn’t seem like a perfect match.
Do you get the feeling that right now, the bugs have taken the original posters pictures and have it posted on some bug message board saying “What kind of person is this?”
“We think he’s caucasion, possible of the ‘father’ variety since there’s a young, smaller version around. But since the smaller one is only around about half of the time and we don’t see a lifemate we’re going to go ahead and classify this one in a subcategory of Father known as ‘Single Father’”
BTW, about an hour or two after I found that last one (on a wall in my bathroom) I found two more…one in each toilet. Those kamikaze ones really do help the cause.
After I saw the second set of pictures, I would say they are definately NOT carpet beetles. I’ve been having carpet beetles for years. The beetles aren’t solid black like the ones in your pics and the mature carpet beetles are more circular than oval. They are not quick moving, and I find them in carpet or in dusty areas. I’m not sure what your bugs are, but I’m confident that they are not carpet beetles.
That’s good to know…or maybe not depending on what they turn out to be.
Good news - definitely not a bug at all, from the pictures.
I usually find tiny beetles that look like that in a grain context, either with or without weevils too. But I’m not in the States. However, grain beetles actually eat fungus, and love the damp, so this might explain the bathroom context.
Check if they have the diagnostic knobs: [
No pests because you r house is dry, warm, aired, and light in all the right places, and pests have no access to food spills: good.
House without pests because everything has been chemically treated, sprayed and aerosolled within an inch of its life: unhealthy.
Bumping this for the March crowd, though I’d like to stay away from the pests vs no pests discussion. We can save that for a different thread.
I’m still not sure what these little bugs are but I’m still thinking they’re black carpet/fur beetles. I haven’t done anything to get rid of them. Luckily they haven’t gotten any worse then they were before. I still find one or two a day, usually in the bathroom. The other day I did open a bag of flour (and some instant potatoes) that hadn’t been used in a while and find quite a few in there.
The only thing I’ve tried to combat them with is some sticky traps but I haven’t caught any on there. I even put some flour and instant potatoes on the traps and put the trap in the bath room, but nothing.
I hate to start dousing the house in chemicals (mostly because I have a kid and two dogs that I don’t want getting into the chemicals*) for the one or two bugs I find a day in mostly random spots, but this has been going on long enough, nearly a year, that it implies that these things are reproducing inside the house somewhere. The flour that I tossed appeared to have larvae in it, so maybe getting rid of that will cause it to slow down. I checked all the other food in the house and it looked clean and I’ve never run across a giant pile of them anywhere else in the house and I don’t think there’s any forgotten corners of my house they could be hiding in unnoticed unless they’re in the attic.
At least they don’t seem to be doing any harm. They don’t appear to be biting anyone or eating clothes or really causing any problems so that’s good.
Now I just need to catch my Orkin guy at work and ask him.
Wouldn’t the “Orkin guy” have an inherent conflict of interest, since his living is dependent on people deciding to spray?
How recently did you toss the flour with larvae? Could that have been the sole source?
We had very similar-looking critters crop up in the bird room – probably came in with a bag of bird food. We encountered them only occasionally for a while, and I thought maybe they were just squeezing in through the window frame (there’s woods right behinds that room), so I didn’t take them very seriously. But then the population spiked suddenly, prompting me to police the room thoroughly. I found a container of food that clearly had been infested – little holes drilled in the bird pellets and little larvae squirming around.
I got rid of that container and cleaned up the room. Despite seeing a few more here and there for a while, the population did not re-establish, even though the parrots are pretty messy and toss food around a lot. Maybe there’s a critical density required for this species to establish a self-sustaining colony or something? At any rate, they’re all gone now, and all I did was heave the “hatchery” and vacuum (it wasn’t a good idea to poison the bird room.)
The ones in the food might not be from your house, but might have come in with the flour/potatoes as tiny eggs, which finally hatched. Many people recommend freezing dried goods like that for a few days or so after purchase, to try to kill the eggs.
He’s our Orkin guy at work, but he shops here as well, so I always ask him for advice (I wouldn’t be hiring him to do the work). It’s not that I’m against spraying, I just don’t want to start spraying random things all over the house if I don’t have to. If I have a positive ID on the bug and a chemical which I know will deal with it, I’m OK with it. Also, the ‘infestation’ is so minimal, it seems like a waste to spray the entire house to deal with such a tiny population. OTOH, I don’t want it to get ahead of me.
I tossed the flour about a week or two ago, so we’ll see what happens. The bathroom where I find the majority of the bugs is just a few feet from the pantry where the flour and potatoes were, so that would make sense. Also, that was the only time I’ve seen larvae or any accumulation of the bugs.
A couple of those photo’s look exactly like what I’m finding. Like the photo’s and description of what I’m finding of the original post!. His photo’s look like what I’m finding! I see them crawling on me. Very easy to kill. They have this exoskeleton. I only see them in the spring or summer! But I have been finding them all over my bedroom, Mostly crawling on me! I don’t see very well so not sure if hey are on my bed. Though I’m betting they are! :smack: I’m mostly bedridden 
so not 100% sure if they are in my living room, but betting they are! 
:smack: :dubious:
Hello. I’m new to the board and found this post by searching what these little dark brown bugs are because I’ve found them in my house. I haven’t been able to find out exactly what kind of beetles they are though but they’re the same kind as the ones in the poster’s pictures. Has anyone found out exactly what kind of beetles they are? Do they eat pictures and clothing for example? I have a dog and would prefer not to have to spray any pesticide if I can find out how to get rid of them without having to resort to using a pesticide, and because I’m disabled I’d have to call a professional service to do the spraying, and I really can’t afford that at this time. I see at least one a day and dispatch them because I’m afraid they’re going to multiply and possibly eat on my photos etc, or worse possibly give us or the dog some sort of disease.
I never did find out exactly what they are. I just stayed on top of them and kept (and still do) and eye out for anywhere they might congregate. I also keep all my pasta, flour, rice etc in sealed containers or even just put the entire bag/box into a big ziploc bag.
The other place I would find them is in a bowl that I have sitting on my counter that filled with a bunch of random chocolate (hershey bar type stuff). From time to time I’d grab something, notice the wrapper was full of holes and dig down to the bottom to find a pile of bugs.
Any time I noticed anything, I did a good once over of all my food and anything that had any signs of bugs…or even that I was somewhat concerned about, was thrown away without hesitation.
It’s good that whatever these were (are?) didn’t do any damage and didn’t bite or bother me in any way other than being annoying, but I still didn’t want them in the house.
In the end, without any chemicals or outside help, it was just a matter of staying on top of it for a year or so.
You didn’t say where you’re finding them, but if they’re in your food, that’s the place to start. Check every scrap of food in your house and see if you can find something and go from there.
ETA, as my Orkin guy mentioned (specifically about this), it really doesn’t matter exactly what they are, as long as you can get rid of them. In other words, don’t kill yourself trying to figure out if it’s a variegated carpet beetle or a cigar beetle anything else if all you need to do get rid of your flour and start keeping it in the freezer. Identifying is more important when you’re worrying about using a specific chemical or trying to find it’s hiding spot.
Thanks for the reply. I will keep at them then and make sure to go through all my perishables etc. I try to keep all flour etc in the freezer since I had a weevil issue once before years ago.