Our home has an infestation of a bug identified by a local expert as a hide beetle. They are a small black beetle with a white underside. On your website you describe hide beetles as good flyers, but we have never seen one of these bugs fly. They only crawl on the floor & occasionally on a wall. Could our ID be wrong? Should I buy hide beetle traps anyway in the hopes of getting them under control?
Thanks in advance for your advice.
Sincerely, S.E.
Both Hide Beetles and Black Carpet Beetles can fly. Additionally, both will “lock” down on a good nest site so what you’re seeing wouldn’t surprise me regardless of just which species they turned out to be. In other words, it could be either you’re seeing in the carpet as they both like to crawl around in carpeting and other good environments (for them). However, you do state that this beetle was identified as a Hide Beetle so for now, I’ve got to assume this is an accurate pest id. I say this mostly because Hide Beetles vary enough from Carpet Beetles that they’re not commonly mistaken for one another. If the person who looked at your sample has any experience I’m sure he’d be accurate in his assessment.
For now, I say get some of the HIDE BEETLE TRAPS to start. But don’t rule out treating the carpets. As our HIDE BEETLE CONTROL article explains, failure to get them where they are reproducing and breeding means the problem will just persist.
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