debugging

[adrian_turtle]

All right. That's enough. That's MORE than enough. For a little while, I was relieved to know I had not been hallucinating that my apartment was infested with bugs, but that only lasts so long. There remains the fact that my apartment is infested with bugs, and it's freaking me out. They don't fly, but the ones that drop from the ceiling are

Comments

[chienne_folle]

*hug* Having bugs in your apartment is creepy, and that sucks.

I find very, very little (like maybe 2 millimeters long) dark brown bugs during the summer, and I was just thinking that bugs get into the house during the summer, and this is the price of summer. They don't drop from the ceiling, though -- that sounds very distressing!

[adrian_turtle]

I sort of expect bugs to get into a house with a door to the outside. When I go outside, I go through my apartment door, the door to the stairwell, the door from the stairwell on the first floor, the inner "airlock" door, and the outer airlock door. I don't expect a bug to navigate all that. Wishful thinking, maybe. And I'd expect to see holes in the window screens, if something ladybug-sized were coming in through my windows.

[naomikritzer]

There are definitely pests that would eat colloidal oatmeal. Check out bugspray.com for articles and pest-control products and look for pictures to see if they're red flour beetles, confused flour beetles, or sawtooth grain beetles, or something else. The reason why it matters is that one of the most effective tools in eradicating kitchen pests are pheremone traps, and you need to have the right pheremone trap for the beetle(s) you've got.

[naomikritzer]

Also, one of the interesting things about bugspray.com is that a LOT of the products they sell are actually far less toxic to humans than the bug-control products you'd buy at the supermarket. They have good customer service and will quickly answer questions; if you took a picture of one of your beetles they could probably tell you what it was.

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks for the pointer. I am starting to suspect the stripey ones are carpet beetles. I am distressed by the prospect of treating every month for 4-6 months, each time needing to get a vacuum cleaner in here. I only have a few little area rugs, which I can get rid of easily enough. And the couch cushions have covers that zip off and can be dry-cleaned. But vacuuming a closet full of clothes and then spraying it with insecticide seems creepy. Necessary, maybe. But still creepy.

[amaebi]

*useless empathy*