Our whole flat is infested with these bastards. What are they?!

[MalcomPowder]

Excuse the dust, the rest of our home isn’t dust like that, I’ve just neglected our windowsill recently.

We are massively infested with bugs, first discovered in the kids cereal this morning. I assumed weevils but these fuckers are everywhere.
Wtf?! Help!

I’ve had a few of these on DDs windowsill this week!

You’re not in the midlands by any chance are you?

It's hard to tell from your pic, but it's not a woodlouse is it??

Looks like woodworm beetle to me...

Looks like woodlice to me.

Yes they are on all the bloody windowsills, they have just appeared in the last two days.
The windows have been open a lot and all the flour is weevil free.

Definitely not a woodlouse.
And they fly!!

We are south east. Brighton!

We have them. I live in Spain though. They’re sort of weevilly flying flea type things that seem to like flour, cereal etc. I think they came in on some —poncey— spelt flour I bought a while back. I’m now having to decant everything into jars in the cupboards, they get everywhere, even found them in my herbal teabags.

Hard to tell from the pic, but maybe biscuit beetles or carpet beetles?

We have these at work. Somebody told me they are carpet beetles. Google carpet beetles and see if they match your critters. We collect ours on windowsills.

Xpost

Yup. The fucking things are Stegobium. “Biscuit beetles.”

Brb, I need to go and burn the kitchen down.

There are a few different types of carpet beetle out there. If it’s carpet beetles you will probably also find larvae (look a bit like little brown caterpillars of varying sizes) and larvae cases (dried up skins that they shed as they grow) around. Have you seen anything like that?

Look like biscuit beetles to me. They love dry foods (flour, cereals and of course biscuits etc).

Not harmful at all, but not nice. Check carefully and Throw all your unprotected dry foods out and any new will have to be sealed (Tupperware etc)

They're definitely woodworm beetle as others have said. I've got then in my bathroom atm. I've had it treated previously but the buggers came back the following year and I've got holes in the woodflooring the bastards

Ahh ok so it is biscuit beetles. I’m glad my pest identification training could be put to good use!

Massive clearout of all your cupboards and put all dried goods in Tupperware!

That's not dust!!

Biscuit beetle makes them sound kinda cute and not at all terrible

Looks similar to a weevil tbh.
Ive never heard of a biscuit beetle.

Is a weevil a biscuit beetle?

A biscuit beetle isn’t a type of weevil but they’re quite similar I think.

We had these a couple of years ago. We paid for pest control to come round and he said they can come from a disturbed birds nest in a loft or similar. He looked in our loft but couldn't find a source. Eventually it clicked that it was probably from when we had a massive tree cut down in our garden. They were gone by winter and we haven't had them since.

Yep, biscuit beetles, we've had a couple of infestations with the nasty little bastards too (& we're neighbours)

As above, throw out everything there in or near & seal everything in killer jars etc. Wash down shelves & scatter bay leaves around your dry stores. They hate bayleaves. We've never had a problem since we used bay leaves. 👍🏼

You will need to hoover thoroughly, then get a solution of white vinegar and water and clean out all your kitchen cupboards, bottom, sides and top. Also keep your flour in tupperware in the fridge after sifting it.

Clean off your windowsills with the same vinegar water.

Wipe your surfaces down with peppermint oil afterwards.

You can also use a solution of water, vodka (or rubbing alcohol 90%) and neem oil or cedar oil to spray all over your cupboards, window sills, etc.

They are known as drugstore beetles in the US.

After cleaning the cupboards, you can get "crawling insect" sprays that dry to leave a film on hard surfaces such as cupboard shelves. I think it poisons them through their feet. It lasts a long time or until you clean the shelves again. Once it is dry I don't think it can affect your food in packets or containers.

If they look like tiny brownish/greyish ladybirds with faint white ripply stripes, google

Anthrenus verbasci a.k.a varied carpet beetle.

Yucky but not terribly harmful as the adults are only around breeding for a few weeks each year. So long as the larvae don't find anything to feed on, they will disappear before too long. Just squish or evict the adults as you find them, they're not exactly fast movers. Also keep an eye on your dry goods.

We have them every year at this time or roundabouts, they're actually a few weeks late this year. The adults live outside but can come in if they smell a foodstuff (bare wood usually) they can lay their eggs on or get disorientated.