Sazmatazz and frank – The thing is the bugs aren’t attracted to the rodents hay beds. There’s a few types of bugs that are bugging me in particular: -
- The 2mm sawtoothed grain beetles or a breed which looks very similar to that breed. I find them coming out of my skirting board or within the newspaper of the pen (not near the rodents). They seem to be able to get themselves around, I even found one in my bathroom cupboard. There might even be two breeds of small black beetles and I’m mistaking them for each other as when I first got infested I swear none of them had the ability to jump but now I keep finding ones that jump as I’m trying to squidge them. I might find 3 or 4 one week, but a few days ago I found about 15 within the pen presumably because of that heatwave we had.
- There’s a type of beetle which looks very similar to the suspected sawtoothed grain beetles but they’re more of a browny grey colour, perhaps slightly smaller and they only go on my wood doors (rough wood, no varnish or wood stain). I haven’t seen them anywhere else. I inspect my wood doors daily at close range, I squidge all of the ones there but the next day another will appear from nowhere. They’re on the rodent rooms doors although I don’t tend to see them on the inside of my walk-in wardrobe, perhaps they don’t like the dark? I also found one on my bedroom door so I presume they can fly or it certainly had a long walk. On average I’m finding two a day.
- & now there’s the red tinsy winsy scurrying things which you wouldn’t even notice they were there unless I pointed them out cos they’re so small, they’re only on top of my wood paneling. I thought I had these in the bed areas of my hay about a month ago and they liked staying in the bed areas but since I got a new bale and mucked out I haven’t seen any of these red critters within the bed areas since but I know when I was cleaning the entire pen out I could see some making their way under my skirting board so I presume the ones on top of my wood paneling now are from the first infestation but as of yet they haven’t made their way back to the rodent bed areas. They do travel about though as I’ve found them on all four corners of the room. A few days ago I had an outbreak of about 50 on the wood paneling where I hadn’t seen them before and each night since I’ve found about 10 on there, before that I hadn’t seen any since my first clearout. They seem to emerge once it’s gotten dark, if I go in in the morning they’re not there but at 7 or 8pm when I go in and turn on the light I get squidging.
- & I do have tinsy winsy critters in my new hay bale, they’re not like the last ones which were red, these ones are greyish I think and hardly noticeable to the human eye. (The red ones are easier to see cos they’re red.) But I shake my hay rigorously so hardly any come into the house and I haven’t seen one for a while, there probably is one or two in the bed areas right now but so long as they’re not harmful to my rodents or spreading out around my home they’re not an issue.
I’m pretty sure all of the above are totally harmless. I keep checking my rodents fur to see if I can see anything and they’re not scratching more than usual. I’ve checked that no beetles are burrowing into my wood doors and there’s certainly no holes so I doubt any of the bugs can do any damage structurally to my house. Reading about sawtoothed grain beetles it says that they should be living in my food cupboards and feeding on food but they’re not, they have no obvious food supply, it’s a bit weird. & my dad says I’m nuts for even worrying and being obsessed with things that are so small.
& tonight I shall be using cleaner on top of my wood paneling as I haven’t cleaned on there with a cloth for a while (I dust regularly), there should be some debris on there considering I’ve squidged nearly a hundred of the red critters on top of there recently.
Perhaps a wipe down with Whizz or cream cleaner will put the red critters off that area although it poses the question of where they’ll go if they don’t want to scurry around on there, they’ll probably stay behind the wood paneling.
>>>) Infestations. And I cant see youve actually TRIED any of them... yet you still come back complaining the bugs havnt gone? mallethead
And the odd spider (I hate spiders and they seriously freaked me out) but I don't think I've ever really found bugs living in there as such.
