Small brown bugs in the apartment: types with photos, how to get rid of them

Why do they appear?

These bugs can be seen everywhere:

Under the baseboards.
In places where bulk products are stored.
In closets with clothes.
Behind the radiators of the heating system.
In carpets and runners.
On indoor ornamental plants.
Inside various furniture.
Close to heating appliances.
On the windowsills.
In places where smoked and dried products, including meat, are stored.
In areas where grains or peanuts are stored.
Among the waste paper.

The larvae of carpet beetles are quite tenacious compared to adult beetles. They can live without food for several weeks. In places where it is dry, including behind baseboards, in corners, and also near the back wall of a furniture cabinet, all conditions for normal life have been created for them. Sunlight does not penetrate into such places, which creates comfortable conditions for these insects.

How do insects enter a person’s home?

There are many ways for such insects to enter an apartment or house. For example:

Through open doors, windows and vents, if they are not protected by anything.
With purchased or donated old books or furniture.
With used items, if they were purchased secondhand.
Inside the products if they were not stored correctly.
With grains or cereals.
With dried foods bought at the supermarket.
From attics and basements, unless special services are watching them.
With dried mushrooms or dried fruits, as well as medicinal herbs purchased at the market.
With old carpets, also bought secondhand.

It is quite difficult to somehow prevent the appearance of these pests due to their small size. Since they are difficult to notice even upon inspection, since their brown color allows them to camouflage, they easily penetrate into a person’s home.

7) Centipedes

Unlike labiopods, centipedes have long, round bodies, are slow-moving, and feed on decaying plants. They also have 2 pairs of legs on each segment, one opposite the other. Centipedes have between 36 and 100 legs, depending on the species. In total there are about 10 thousand known species.

Millipedes burrow into the ground, some of them secrete poison through their skin, which mammals lick off, using it as medicine. When threatened, centipedes curl up into a ball and do not bite at all.

Centipedes are easy to keep indoors and can live in groups. Giant African centipede Archispirostreptus gigas

is a popular domestic animal that reaches up to 25 centimeters in length. They are not aggressive and live long.

Millipedes eat fruits or vegetables and need extra calcium to help them moult. They love moisture, live under plant debris and need deep soil to burrow into. Since they are nocturnal animals, they will not show much during the day, so you should think carefully about all the disadvantages before bringing such a creature into your home.

They breed easily, so if you would like them to have offspring, keep males and females together at all times. They are not aggressive, but can cause allergic reactions due to the discharge, so you should be very careful with them.

Types of small brown bugs with photos and names

Carpet beetles mainly appear in human homes, and anthrenuses live in old carpets. Compared to some insects, these bugs do not like excess moisture. Therefore, they are unlikely to be found in the bathroom, or in other rooms if there is high humidity in the home.

All owners should be aware of these bugs, since the insects are harmful and can cause serious damage if they are allowed to multiply indefinitely. In small quantities no serious damage can be expected.

Carpet beetles

Features of life:

The diet of carpet beetles includes various organic matter, such as fur, leather, flowers, fluff, food, feathers, etc.
The insects grow from 2 to 4 mm in length and are dark brown or black in color. The larvae are distinguished by a yellow-brown hue, as well as a rounded body with a narrowing.
The grain beetle prefers to eat nuts, peanuts, cereals, grains, bran, and any kind of flour.
The ham skin beetle penetrates into meat products, as well as smoked meats and dried fish. Carpet beetles tolerate temperature changes well, so they can live in basements, attics, bird nests, etc.
The development period of the carpet beetle is from 6 to 12 months, from the laid egg to the adult beetle. The female is capable of laying up to hundreds of eggs.
Beetles choose places where the sun's rays do not penetrate, and where it is dry and dusty.

On a note! These bugs are so small that many owners do not pay attention to them, much less realize how dangerous they are. If you do not immediately take measures to get rid of them, then after a while they will be everywhere in your home.

Skin beetle. Furry bugs in the apartment.

Anthrenuses

Description of insects:

They grow in length from 1 to 4 mm and are almost black, and often brown in color.
These bugs choose old carpets for their life activities.
Insects are practically omnivores, since they can feed on crumbs, particles of epidermis, human hair, lint, and organic substances that they find on old carpets.
It is also difficult to detect the larvae of these bugs, since they hide among the fibers.
If these insects are few in number, they cannot cause serious damage. Despite this, they can cause allergies in people prone to this disease.
If there are too many bugs, then the result of their vital activity can be spoiled things.

4) Beetles

There are more than 350 thousand species of beetles in the world that live in different parts of the world - in deserts, tropics and even in water. Some are pests that eat crops, others feed on pests such as spiders or mites.

Some of the beetles are very useful, as they destroy carrion and dung. Some of them are food for other insects, birds and animals. The beetles lay eggs that hatch into larvae, which in some cases take years to become adult insects. Adults, as a rule, do not live long.

Hollow beetles, which are called “rhinoceros beetles,”

. They have horns in the area of the pronotum. They reach a length of up to 15 centimeters and sometimes weigh about 80 grams. Often these beetles are used for gambling, forcing them to fight each other using the warlike habits of the males.

Goliath beetles are one of the largest insects, reaching a length of 5-7 centimeters and weighing 80-110 grams. These beetles belong to the lamellar

, which includes other beautiful and colorful beetles. Beetles are more difficult to find at the market, but you can first take the larva, which, however, will spend most of its time buried in the ground. But if you are patient, a charming pet will be born.

The damage caused by these insects

Under certain conditions, carpet beetles and anthrenuses can cause significant harm. These pests chew drywall, wooden furniture, including electrical wiring. These insects can be found in any room of a person’s home.

Tiny insects can infect humans with various types of diseases as they move across various surfaces, sometimes dotted with pathogens. This is the case when talking about sanitation makes no sense at all.

How to get rid of it: effective methods

First of all, you should determine the places where these pests accumulate. Therefore, you will have to look behind the baseboards, examine the furniture in the kitchen, closets with clothes, bookshelves and other places.

It is important to know! This stage requires a serious approach, because soon larvae will emerge from the eggs and then it will be much more difficult to deal with the pest.

After this, you need to decide on the means of struggle. To do this, you need to at least approximately know the degree of infection, as well as the conditions that allow the use of chemical control agents. If expectant mothers, small children, allergy sufferers or frail family members live in the apartment, then it is better to abandon such an idea.

In this case, it is better to give preference to folk remedies, although they are not as effective as chemicals. Often the situation develops in such a way that folk remedies do not cope with the task and one has to resort to the services of special services. This approach will allow you to quickly and reliably get rid of these bugs.

If you decide to fight insects on your own, then you need to be prepared for the fact that this may take more than one day and you will need to find temporary housing, since all family members will have to be evacuated from the apartment, along with pets.

The difficulty of self-processing is as follows:

It is necessary to process a large area, so it can take a lot of time, without special equipment, and only professionals have it.
You will have to check all food products, flowerpots, all drawers and all cabinets.
It is imperative to do a general cleaning, removing old, unnecessary things, and also thoroughly vacuum all places.
If you can get rid of dusty, dark, secluded places where these insects like to hide, then the task of getting rid of them will be much easier.

How to get rid of beetle larvae

How to remove bugs yourself

If you try hard, you can actually remove such insects on your own, but to do this you will have to do some work. For example:

Arm yourself with a vacuum cleaner, put a disposable bag - a dust collector, vacuum all carpets and hard-to-reach places, after which it is better to take the carpets out into the sun or frost.
Boil things in soapy water.
Items made of leather or leatherette are best treated with chemicals.
Treat upholstered furniture using a steam generator.
Items made of wool and artificial materials can also be taken out into the cold.
Make an audit of food supplies, reviewing everything, especially bulk food products.
Remove all items from the cabinets where they are stored, after which the cabinets should be disinfected by wiping the inside with a soapy solution.
Check wooden structures for gaps and cracks. It is better to seal all cracks and cracks with some kind of sealant.

Helpful Tips:

After preparatory operations, all cracks and crevices in the floor, baseboards, all corners and hard-to-reach places, furniture are treated with either an aerosol or a special solution. It is better not to buy universal drugs, but to select those that are designed to combat harmful bugs. Such drugs exist.
Treatment is carried out twice a week for one month. This approach allows you to get rid of bugs completely. After treatment, the floors are thoroughly washed and vacuumed.
Boric acid shows good results in the fight against insects. You can buy the powder at the pharmacy and pour it into all the cracks and cracks. It is in such places that pests hide. Each sachet can contain only 10 g of powder, so you will have to buy several of these sachets. The advantage of boric acid is that it is safe for humans (non-toxic) and for domestic animals, but for many insects it is death, although not immediate. But this does not mean at all that it can be scattered anywhere without getting into it, especially if there are small children in the house. Nothing serious will happen, but diarrhea is guaranteed.

Prevention measures

Despite the very small size of carpet beetles and anthrenus beetles, fighting them takes a lot of time. But the fight may turn out to be useless if a number of measures are not taken that will protect a person’s home from their repeated invasion. That's why:

All windows must be equipped with mosquito nets.
Install fine-mesh grilles on all ventilation systems.
If a cat or dog lives at home, then you need to constantly clean up their fur, which is the source of food for the anthrenuses.
Get rid of old, unnecessary things in a timely manner. Even if no one wears clothes, they attract dust, and this is a favorable environment for these tiny insects.
If things are sent for storage, then before that it is better to treat them with a 0.005% solution of permin, an anti-pediculosis agent. This will protect things from the appearance of moth larvae and carpet beetles.
From time to time, all things must be taken outside (to the balcony) at any time of the year, but it is better when it is sunny and frosty in winter, and in summer, when there is real summer heat. This kills both larvae and adults. This simple procedure will help protect things from infection by many insects.
After using a vacuum cleaner, it is advisable to take the dust bags out into the cold. Particular care should be taken to vacuum carpets and rugs, as well as thick curtains, covers on chairs and sofas.
Periodically clean upholstered furniture using a steam generator, which will help get rid of small bugs hiding in the folds and seams of the upholstery material.
Use garlic or bay leaves to repel insects, which can simply be placed in containers where food is stored.
In order to block the paths of entry into the home for insects, it is necessary to seal all the cracks, cracks and just holes that often occur in rooms such as the kitchen, bathroom, and even in rooms. The builders could have left them when they were making the heating, water supply, gas and sewage systems.

The appearance of any insects, especially in large numbers, in a person’s home can be considered an emergency. Every housewife should have information about what insects can appear in the apartment and know what they look like. In most cases, these are harmful and dangerous insects, since they intend to spoil everything, in the literal sense of the word. In addition, they can infect household members with various, and sometimes very dangerous, ailments. Therefore, if you suspect the appearance of any pests, you should immediately try to get rid of them in any available way.

It is better to resort to chemicals in rather difficult situations when it is not possible to get rid of pests by other means. Most likely, the fight is being waged in the wrong direction and not in all possible, sometimes quite simple ways that require consistency, but some owners are simply not ready for this. You should also remember that it is better to take care in advance to ensure that pests cannot enter your home. Of course, it is impossible to completely protect yourself from this, but you should not leave any chance for pests and parasites.

Ants

These hardworking insects are some of the most fun to watch and keep. Ants are always busy collecting food or defending the colony. The king and queen ants will have wings when they reach maturity. Apart from food and water, house ants require little care.

What ants eat depends on their species. Some eat seeds, other insects and water mixed with honey. To create your own colony of house ants, you will need a paired queen, alone or with several servants. It is important to remember that without a reproducing queen, colonies will not survive.