carpet beetles and wooly bears, have you successfullly got rid of them? If so how?

[greyriver]

I have searched previous threads and a few have suggestions and a few are left open. I just wondered if anyone has managed to get rid of them? I did an annual clear out of the loft last week and noticed about 4 wolly bears amongst a few old teddies (have been thrown out may I add) I also noticed one carpet beetle (dead).

I am going to put some pheramone things in our loft and see what happens, apart from the obvious (regular hoovering and pack away clothes in plastic etc) is there anything I could be doing?? Especially as i have just read they mate and multiply in spring!

Cheers

What are wooly bears ??

Yeah we had them, they are bloody awful. What you need to do is:

(1) Take the children out of the house (seriously you are going to be playing with deeply unpleasant chemicals - if pregnant, get someone else to do it).

(2) Remove all clothes, wash them. If you can't wash them, vacuum them very thoroughly and place in the freezer for 24 hours (I'm not kidding it kills the bugs).

(3) Vacuum and wipe all surfaces (doesn't matter what you wipe with but some nice fragrant oil makes the whole thing less icky!

(4) Get some raid bug spray - doesn't actually matter which one. Spray the wardrobe, carpets, beams etc (we live in a 16th century house) Basically if a bug can wriggle on it, spray and vac it.

(5) Invest in some Colibri sachets (lakeland do them) try www.lakeland.co.uk/SearchResults.aspx?kw=moths
or some cedar rings (nb if you have the cedar rings you have to sand them every six months or so, I personally can't be arsed so just use the Colibri sachets and chuck them (v. environmentally sound compared to blooming bug spray actually).

(6) Have a long shower to get rid of the feeling of 'ick' (I'm told wine does the same thing

Bon chance!

Woolly bears do sound kinda cute actually, although having eaten through the sleeve of my £500 suit, they I did take great delight in nuking the f*ers!

thank god someone else gets these!

No advice, altho we had a really really bad year the year before last. last year was a very good one but this year i have squished many of the f*ckers already

oh bloody hell...thanks SO much for that though tinkerbelle. I have also read to check for birds nests etc, how the hell i am going to do that in my loft i just dont know (apparantly old nests can attract the adult ones where they subsequently lay lavae(sp) soz drinking wine)

Regards the raid bug spray tinkerbelle, did it smell on the carpets? DD loves to roll on them so that worries me a little?

fio fio - woollybear like little furry caterpillar things and they are different to moth lavae (although I think both eata thro wool etc)

Hi GreyRiver

Yep, sorry in a loft you need to do something a bit different actually and it's EASIER.

Do the above in your regular rooms, after four hours the smell is gone and you vac and the insecticide mostly goes. But if you can arrange it so your LO doesn't spend all day on the rug afterwards so much the better.

Right the loft.

Find a friendly local with some lavender in their garden. Ask if you can have a big big bag of the stuff. If like me you have a massive bush, you'll be gratefull for someone else strimming it - it DOES NOT HAVE TO BE IN FLOWER.

Put it in a pillowcase. Put it in the loft. If you like you can also chuck in rosemary and lavender oil. They hate it like anything. Also it makes you loft smell nice.

Seriously.

We didn't also have Raid you know

thanks for the help tinkerbell, I have hoovered EVERYWHERE in the past week DAILY eek, I have some beetle powder, bug spray on order alongside a loft smoke thingy, where you activate it close your loft and anything living in side it is basically killed. Once DH has done that, the next day I plan to get him back up there to spread some nasty sounding beetle powder (basiclaly kills anything that walks/lands on it) which i like the idea of as since investingating the loft further we seem to have a few flies up there too I think there has got to be a birds nest rotting away in one of the eaves personally....

Have ordered the cedar things from lakelands and the calibri sachets thanks v much for the link. have washed ALL of our clothes beddin etc like you said, and they are currently being stored in plastic containers until i spray the whole house as you suggest. We go to center parcs next v soon, so until then i intend to keep hoovering daily before i spray the whole house and evacutate it for 3 days!!! I since havent found any more wooly bears (since my daily hooverign ritual) . So I am hopeful that once i spray everything that will prevent any more from nestling in my house! yuk
thanks again for your help, its nice to hear from someone who has got the better of blasted little things x

have also got my eye on MIL's lavendar bush