The appearance of crawling or flying beetles in an apartment is a very unpleasant phenomenon. Not everyone knows what they are called, what they are and how they are dangerous to humans. There may be many such beetles in an apartment, but only a few of them cause concern. Unfortunately, they appear in the homes of even the cleanest housewives, but few know how to get rid of them quickly, what to do.
What black bugs and beetles live in houses and apartments?
Small bugs enter the apartment through the cracks in the windows and door blocks. They can be brought with things or groceries from the store, on outerwear or pet hair from a walk. Cockroaches or fleas are known to everyone, but few people know who the beetles, kozheedy or carpet beetles are. They pose a threat to humans: they spoil food, furniture, things and walls of wooden dwellings.
Large and long (large flour beetle, barbel species)
A large flour beetle is a large cockroach-like insect, about 2 cm long, with an elongated oval body, a brown flat belly and three pairs of reddish legs. They are found in kitchen cabinets where cereals, pasta and flour are stored, and its larvae are called mealworms. Khrushchaks prefer to settle in dark, damp rooms, closer to bulk products. Beetles are capable of destroying not only food, but also knitwear, cardboard, paper, bedding.
Why is a firefighter beetle useful, malicious activity
A firefighter beetle will attack them, injecting a specific poison, cantharidin. Together with the poisonous substance, a digestive fluid enters the victim, which softens the tissues and the individual can only suck food into itself.
If garden firefighters have multiplied strongly in a small area, then in addition to pests, they begin to eat the buds and foliage of garden plants. They love to feast on cherries, especially before and during flowering.
A pest or not a firefighter, everyone decides for himself, but he brings a lot of benefits, and the harm from him can be said to be insignificant.
What to do with bugs at home, how to get rid of them?
If the bugs and insects described above are wound up in the house, you need to urgently take action. You can destroy them in different ways, for example, chemical insecticides or traditional methods.
If bugs are found, you will have to conduct a thorough audit of kitchen and wardrobes, vacuum carpets and furniture. All contaminated food and spoiled items will have to be destroyed, and floors, walls and shelves need to be cleaned.
Insecticidal control agents
Chemical preparations will help to quickly cope with harmful black bugs. It is easy to destroy ordinary midges, ants or moths, but you will have to use a whole arsenal of tools against the beetle and kozheed. The most difficult thing is to rid the apartment of wood beetles-grinders, because one processing is not enough here. All wooden furniture and any wood must be deeply impregnated with chemicals so that the drug gets into the holes and passages made by insects.
The best drugs:
- concentrated emulsions (Get, Lambda Zone, Difox);
- gels;
- aerosols and sprays ("Clean House", "Dichlorvos", "Reid", "Raptor");
- powders;
- sticky traps;
- fumigators.
These chemicals act by direct contact with insects, causing muscle paralysis and death. All pest habitats, including upholstered furniture, walls, shelves in cabinets, are subject to processing.
When working with insecticides, you must strictly follow the instructions and take precautions. It is necessary to handle the room in a respirator, protective clothing and gloves, preferably with open windows. The apartment is ventilated, and the remnants of the prepared working solution are disposed of. At the end of the work, you will have to wash your hands and face well, rinse your mouth, wash your clothes. One treatment is often not enough, therefore it is recommended to carry out several procedures with an interval of 2 weeks.
Folk ways to destroy beetles
In the fight against black beetles, folk remedies are also used at home along with insecticides. They are used during pre-cleaning of the apartment before chemical treatment. All shelves, cabinets, tables, window sills and floors must be wiped with vinegar or soda solution. Enough 1 tbsp. l. dilute vinegar or soda in a liter of warm water and treat all possible places where insects appear.
An excellent remedy for the beetle is considered to be ordinary peppermint, the strong smell of which does not like the pest. The leaves of the plant are laid out in closets with clothes or food, near the baseboards and under window sills. Lavender and its essential oil help with black beetle. A good result is obtained by treating the room with a steam generator or freezing.
Belly
Behind the chest is the torso, which consists of several parts and is closed by the elytra from above. Coleoptera have a cuticle, which acts as the outer skeleton and body cover. It is generally thicker and tougher than many other insects. Distinguish between black, brown, shiny color. And in some beetles, it is covered with colored spots, stripes or a pattern similar to the natural environment in which it lives.
The mobility of Coleoptera is very limited due to the fact that the integuments of the body are rigid, therefore, if the beetle turns upside down on a flat surface, then in most cases it will not be able to take its original position on its own. The hard cuticle, as well as the elytra, perfectly protect the insect from moisture loss and mechanical damage.
Preventive measures
The best prevention is regular cleaning of the apartment, especially the kitchen. We'll have to close up all the cracks in the walls and floors, from where insects can enter, and close the window openings with mosquito nets.
The shelves of kitchen cabinets should be wiped with soda or vinegar solution once a week. Lemon juice with water or an aqueous solution of lavender essential oil works well for these purposes. Cereals, flour, pasta are advised to be stored in tightly closed plastic or iron containers.
It is better to treat new wooden furniture with an insecticide immediately after purchase. It is important to monitor the level of humidity in the apartment, regularly ventilate the room, and wash the floors and walls. When buying bulk products in a store, carefully examine them and check for bugs and their larvae. You should not buy furniture and clothes from your hands, albeit not for long, but used.
Small Khrushchak
The small flour beetle has a brown or red color of the body and causes considerable damage to the food supply of a person in an apartment. It is widespread in Russia and Ukraine, where it often becomes the culprit for grain spoilage in granaries, mills and other places where bulk products are stored.
The red-brown beetle is smaller (up to 3.6 mm), but it loves to settle in various food supplies in the apartment: in flour, nuts, dried fruits and other plant fruits.
Unlike large beetles, the small one has wings and is able to fly. The males of such a flying insect have a rounded abdomen at the end, covered with hairs.In females, the tip of the body is bare; they are able to lay up to 1 thousand pieces in oviposition.
What black beetles can be found on the street?
If everything is clear with domestic pests, then there are many insects living on the street, in the garden or vegetable garden. They can get into the house by accident, through a door or an open window, but they will not do much harm. There are many interesting beetles, large and small, but not all of them are pests.
Beetles on the street:
- Chafer;
- pennywort;
- ordinary T-shirt;
- kravchik;
- blister T-shirt;
- soldier bug;
- ladybug;
- ground beetle.
In the summer cottage, harmful insects are more often present, which spoil the planting and cause serious damage to the crop. You can deal with them both with the help of chemicals and with more gentle methods. Gardeners recommend attracting beneficial insects and beetles and scaring off harmful ones, for which they plant mint, sweet clover, tansy and other aromatic herbs near the house.
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Food
The diet of this insect is not so diverse. What does the dung beetle eat? The main dish on the daily menu is dung, which is what gave this beetle such an unattractive name. He has very developed sense of smell. With his antennae, like "satellite dishes", he catches the food source and hurries there at full steam in order to get ahead of the competition.
Dung beetle larvae feed on carrion or dung. All food is provided by their parents. Adults dilute their monotonous diet with mushrooms and carrion. There are some species that are capable of not eating throughout their lives.
Varieties
Depending on the type of tree beetle and the damage from it in the house is different. Among the huge variety of grinders, we have selected the most typical pests that are most often found in our homes.
House grinder
This tree beetle is distinguished by the fact that it feeds mainly on moist wood. Therefore, it practically does not occur inside houses. Most often, it damages the outer walls of log houses, baths, and other structures.
The size of the body of a wood beetle in length is only 2.5-3 millimeters.
Furniture grinder
But this enemy is already more dangerous, it damages wood in dry rooms, that is, inside our houses and apartments. As the name suggests, it not only feeds on the walls of wooden houses, but also devours furniture. These beetles are struck by picture frames, spines and pages of books and many other things that are based on cellulose.
Since this bug is the most dangerous for our life, let's dwell on its description in more detail. The color of the chitinous cover of this beetle is dark brown, the body length can reach up to five millimeters. At the same time, it is almost impossible to see these insects, they are very shy and hide in the darkest and most inaccessible corners of the building.
The larvae are also not visible from the outside, since the beetles make very few moves, and the larva hatching from the egg leaves the solid wood only after its complete destruction. Mating of individuals also occurs in the thickness of the wood.
And yet, it is possible to determine if this insidious enemy is in the apartment by several signs:
- The characteristic ticking of the "death clock". If you hear an extraneous clock in the house, this is a characteristic sign of the presence of a grinder.
- Presence of neat holes with a diameter of 2-3 millimeters on wooden furniture or walls. These holes are gnawed by the bugs to get out.
- Finding a tree beetle indoors.
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The lifespan of a furniture grinder is from 1 to 3-4 years, depending on the duration of the larval stage. Biologists have divided the entire life of the bug into such periods from the moment the female lays eggs:
- Egg development takes one to three weeks.
- The growth of the larva at a favorable temperature, which is 26-29 degrees Celsius, lasts three weeks. At low temperatures, a winter pause in development can occur, and this period can be up to three years.
- The larva pupates and spends two weeks in this state.
- The beetle itself does not live long either. The deadline is only two to four weeks.
It should be noted that a species can be generated only twice a year. Under the best conditions, when the spring is warm, the beetles lay their eggs for the first time. New beetles will appear only in the fall, and if conditions are favorable, then by the beginning of winter they will be able to produce the second offspring of the year.
This beetle differs from its fellows by its extraordinary mustache, for which, in fact, it received its name. Its body length is usually within 3-5 millimeters. Having penetrated into the thickness of the tree, this beetle sometimes does not come out of it until it is completely destroyed.
Bread grinder
The next type of grinder is bread. This beetle, among others, is distinguished by some selectivity in food. He just won't eat wood, give him grain, cereals, pasta or dried fruits. In general, it is also a dangerous pest, only it strikes from the other flank.
Classification of domestic insects
All insects can be divided into the following groups:
- Harmless insects that do not pose a danger to people and do not harm the house or apartment. These are silverfish, small spiders, millipedes and flycatchers.
- Pests are arthropods that do not directly touch people, but harm food and various objects in the house. They are moths, cockroaches, whiteflies, springtails, termites, wood lice, ants, book louse, skin beetles.
- Parasitic insects are insects in an apartment that bite people and feed on their blood. These include mosquitoes, bed bugs, fleas, and lice.
There is also another group of domestic insects - the so-called "stray guests", flying in through the window, "arriving" on clothes, etc. Among which there may be the above-described parasites. But many of them are not household insects, therefore we will consider the first 3 species.
Names and appearance of domestic insects
Cockroaches are probably the most common household pests. Naturally, the first place is occupied by one of the well-known household insects of the house - the red cockroach (which is also called "Prusak").
The next, rather familiar view for our apartments is a black cockroach. This is a rather large domestic insect, which gradually disappears under the onslaught of the Prussians (the red cockroach actively eats its eggs).
The last species of these insects is the American cockroach. At first, it was quite rare for our latitudes, but with the development of trade, this species began to conquer shops and warehouses in large cities, and only then - neighboring apartments.
The key to the successful "capture" of housing by these insects lies in their biology. Cockroaches are pests that feed on absolutely any food waste in an apartment, and some household items - for example, paper, shoe polish, various adhesives. In addition, they can go without food for quite a long time - sometimes even up to a month.
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Cockroaches reproduce rather quickly, and the lifespan of an adult insect is about 10-15 months.
In addition to the obvious harm that insects cause to various food products (pollute, eat them), they are carriers of various infectious diseases, as well as the eggs of a number of helminths. Therefore, the fight against cockroaches must be carried out without fail.
Bed bugs
These are probably the most unpleasant parasites in the apartment. The main harm they cause to people is, of course, bites. And although today there are still no scientifically proven facts that the data
infect with some infectious diseases, however, dangerous pathogens were often observed in their bodies.
Bedbugs can live in almost any secluded corner of the house, right there they multiply at an extraordinary rate. Being parasites, insects jump on the bed at night, bite people and begin to suck their blood. Surprisingly, the larvae begin to feed from the very beginning of their life and differ from adults only in size.
By and large, several varieties of bed bugs can parasitize in an apartment, but it is almost impossible to distinguish between them without a microscope and some knowledge.
It is much more difficult to poison these pests than cockroaches, since the bulk of the insecticidal preparations on sale do not work against them. As a rule, special dusts, sprays, aerosol insecticides are used to destroy bedbugs.
House ants
Ants are considered one of the most difficult pests to remove. As a rule, representatives of two types of these parasites are found in an apartment -
, which are also called Pharaoh. For a common man in the street, it will be very difficult to distinguish between these two species, however, pharaoh ants are still considered more frequent guests in apartments.
Speaking about the harm caused, it can be noted that these domestic insects - like many of their main counterparts - can spread various infections and also spoil food.
The main problem with breeding ants is that very often their colonies have many nests, which are combined with each other and are even in different apartments. It is for this reason that the destruction of one nest will not give the desired effect: as long as there is a single colony, the parasites will return to the apartment again and again.
It is necessary to deal with them together - preferably by all residents of the house at the same time. Only in this case there will be a positive effect, otherwise, only a temporary removal of ants can be achieved. Almost any insecticide is suitable for extermination, but special poisonous baits will still be the best way.
Spiders at home
They are also examples of non-insect invertebrates living in an apartment. The presence of spiders is probably the most terrible thing that can be expected from them: since spiders in an apartment are not
On the contrary, spiders can be called some helpers in the fight against other insects, since their main "task" in the house is to catch mosquitoes, cockroaches and flies. That is, when spiders do not cover the entire room with nets, then they can be considered more useful.
Spiders are not often numerous in an apartment, and therefore it is very easy to take them out: as a rule, they are simply caught, for example, with a broom and, at the same time as the cobweb, are thrown away.
Summing up, it must be said that it is necessary to fight with domestic insects from the time they are discovered in the apartment. For the extermination of many insects, numerous manufacturers produce special preparations in various forms.
These drugs can be presented as powders, sprays, gels, solutions, adhesive tapes, traps, and also have a compressed or tablet form.
