AIBU to be worried about carpet beetles?

Get some Constrain spray - it can't harm any mammal. And some sticky traps to catch the adults. Put them round the edges of the room, especially in dark spots under / behind furniture. Also move furniture and vac / spray where it was - they like the dark undisturbed spots to lay their eggs. If you've got woollen clothes and you think they're in the area they're stored, put in plastic bags and stick in the freezer for a few days.

But the best way to get rid, as with clothes moths, is to cut off their food supply. Like moths, they eat animal-based proteins (so wool, fur, feathers, silk, taxidermy). If you don't have those things, no beetles. If you have woollen carpets (or underlay), antique furniture stuffed with horsehair etc, they'll keep coming back.

Also think about places out of sight they could be feeding - under floorboards, up chimneys. If there's even an old bird nest up a chimney with a few feather and what's left of a dead chick (to paint a charming image), they can feed on stuff like that.

It’s definitely a carpet beetle larvae

@Mads199
Did you get rid? We cleaned our house as saw a few, no sign anywhere and now a few appearing from behind our loo. Filthy buggers.
Have a new baby so not keen on chemicals

Before you do that, please research the active ingredients. If you find you are getting brain fog after using it you will know what I mean. Indorex is one of the best pet flea killers for household fleas and kills them by destroying their nervous system (or whatever they have) so can also affect humans. I have noticed that after treating the house with insecticides I feel weird for few weeks after, eventually worked out that I have been poisoning myself. If you are very healthy it should be OK but if not...

I prefer diatomaceous earth, food grade not commercial use and have had carpet beetles in several houses. The larvae can cause skin irritations and will eat your textiles but the beetles are tiny and like little black/brown ladybirds. I remove them and get rid when I see them. They nest in cracks of floors etc. and old birds nests so are hard to eradicate.

They can also cause skin problems for pets. I have used DE on pets, avoiding the face, massage in gently, no puffing, then brush though and leave. It won't heard the digestive system and is often used to treat internal parasites naturally.

If you use it on floors, be aware it is a very fine dust and will be around for a long time to come. It did clear an infestation and since then we have only had a few beetles every so often, the dust was worth it to avoid poisonous sprays.

We had them once around 5 or 6 years ago. Every morning I would find a few on the window sill, they did freak me out at the time.
I moved every piece of furniture and thoroughly hoovered everywhere, the next year we only saw a few, the year after hardly any, then they were gone.
I didn't use any chemicals just regular hoovering under the sofa, etc.

I've had this before. I just left them to it. Nobody died.

I would not be happy with this, would want to get to the bottom of the problem deal with the core issue.

We did.
I kept seeing little moth type things and then when I moved DDs bed I found a corner of the carpet underneath had been eaten. Luckily we were moving DDs bed to take the carpet up and replace with laminate due to her asthma.
We then got rid of all the carpets as this was the long term plan anyway. We have no carpets in the house at all apart from on the stairs, we prefer hard floors
Is this an option for you?

You can use a permethrin spray like indorex but the adults just tend to come in through open windows, just hoover around the edges of flooring and carpets behind beds regularly, the adults don’t do much but the larva look like a tiny hairy grub and they eat fabric, we have them every year larva in November and adults in spring summer.

I know this is an old thread but I’ve seen an adult carpet beetle in my house and I’m freaking out. Pest control says it means an infestation somewhere in the house and it’s going to cost me a lot of money to get rid of them and see real harsh chemical sprays I’m really scared.

These are carpet beetle larvae we get them every year they drive me crazy!! We live next to a wood so pretty sure that’s where the carpet beetles come from.
I see more larvae in the autum and the beetles in the spring!

Yes, i got some bug spray and I’m spraying everyday, i washed and dry cleaned everything in the room, hopefully they gone

Nope. Definitely carpet beetle larvae... Had to get rid of my kid's old bed as they nested in the joinings... They're a pain in the bum.

I did have some once and I used ant powder rather than a spray. Don't know if that helped or not. I've since got rid of most carpets and don't have the same problem now.

do they look like bed bugs to you?

I appreciate this thread is a bit old but I wanted to add to the new comments.

@Anablav123
It had been impressed into me that wool/mainly wool carpets are best.
At the time , we only had wool carpets.

I had a sofa in the window space that I never moved when I vacuumed... only occasionally.
One day I decided to do a thorough vacuum.
I pulled the sofa out and noticed, what looked like, grains of rice, on the carpet and stuck to the side of the sofa.

When I removed the sofa, I saw that parts of the carpet had 'worn away.'

Ended up having to remove the carpet and get rid of the sofa. No sprays or smoke bombs would touch it.
No carpet downstairs now except the lounge and the lounge carpet has no wool in it .

How about using diatomaceous earth powder - pretty sure this is child safe (it's certainly pet safe) and supposed to be really effective for beetles.

Hi , how do i know if i have carpet beetles or bed bugs, help please

Adults will not eat any of your protein-based textiles. It's the larvae that do the damage. You likely have a breeding population under the floorboards, or in a similar hard-to-access space. I would not advise diatomaceous earth or any sort of spray insecticide if you have a small person in the house. Plus, you really have to know where the source of the infestation is to know where to target them. Housekeeping is your friend here - throughout the year, not just when you see the adults emerge. If you can determine the species, you may be able to find a targeted pheromone lure. These remove the male from the breeding cycle, which will impact the numbers you find.

YANBU, but if you do a deep vacuum once a month, that should keep things in check without carpet beetle spray.

Main thing is to do the carpet behind the bed/furniture and and the skirting boards and move everything you can.

If you felt you had the money to get a professional pest control company in then surely you have the money to get a cleaner in?

My cleaner comes once a fortnight and does my entire house from top to bottom in 2 hours. She charges $45 an hour. You can also get a one off clean if you don't want to commit to a regular one. Much cheaper than a pest control appointment.

I'm in Australia, so it might be different here (although last time I checked our minimum wage was much higher than UK so it may be even cheaper for you)

My last house we had carpet beetles... I would just hoover every day and detol any/all surfaces .... and windowsill (this is where they were in our house)
After about a month they just went
I called out a pest control and they said they are harmless and just keep cleaning up (cost me £50 that price of information!)

Had them in a previous house and they ate through a lot of the carpets, around the edges under heavy furniture. I don't know if they damage non wool carpets though.

We replaced some carpets and underlay and used a pesticide. Then made sure we moved bookcases beds , chests etc frequently and hoovered the edges. Still saw a few larvae and beetles but no further damage.