Found in drawers
Location: Western North Carolina
April 17, 2011 8:13 am
I found these in two separate drawers in my house. While they look like seeds, I can assure you they are not seeds. I’m certain that I did not put seeds in these drawers. They are grossing me out and I would like to know what is creeping around my house. Are they eggs or droppings? Who do they belong to?
Signature: Creeped out in NC
What are these things found in the Drawers???
Dear Creeped out in NC,
These do not look like anything of animal origin, meaning we do not believe they are either eggs or droppings. They really do resemble seeds like black oil seeds to feed birds or caraway seeds for baking. Please provide us with additional information. Where were the two drawers? Were they near one another or in widely separated areas of the house? Were they kitchen drawers or bedroom drawers or some other drawers? Were they built in drawers like those in cabinets, or free standing drawers like those in furniture? Were they empty drawers or were there other things in the drawers like stored food or clothing? How long did it take these mystery things to accumulate? When did you last open the drawers prior to the discovery? Our first inclination is that this is a food stash. Perhaps a mouse or other rodent is stockpiling seeds in anticipation of lean times in the future. We hope our readership will assist in this identification which we do not believe has anything to do with insects.
Seeds or Other???
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Hello!
It seems it looks like Black Seeds to me.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Vslle2dNRAc/SoTp-fhvMdI/AAAAAAAAALw/InK1SMcnnNk/s400/JINTAN_HITAM_2.jpg
or
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_enGFCB_5KIw/TLaBZEWf00I/AAAAAAAABiU/-LzvY69ZXms/s1600/black+seed.png
I’ve seen this one before, and I am sorry to report that I can confirm WTB’s analysis that you have a rodent. This looks exactly like nyger (thistle) seed, that a mouse might collect. We’ve had these climb into drawers before and store seed meant for finch feeders. Look up and down the street for bird feeders, this could have come from some distance away. You can get yourself a trap (a humane or live trap if that suits you better) to verify, and put see if you can catch the little bugger. Do it quickly, they can spread disease near your food and utensils. I would actually recommend an exterminator. You probably have many more that you don’t know about. After we started looking behind appliances and under heavy items, we found – well – a lot. And we just had no idea they were there. Sorry.
Thanks for the comment. Your first hand experience in the matter is greatly appreciated.
looks kind of like wild rice grains
Weird… I live in west palm beach, florida and found the same thing in my workshop & was pretty grossed out myself. At first I thought it was some kind of rice but then I wasn’t so sure. Needless to say still very grossed out about it & got rid of it as quickly as possilble. This was about a month ago & now I have this nasty black bug problem. Finding them everywhere especially in my dogs food. Not sure if they are connected but the only thing I could come up with. I’m going to get an air tight container for my dogs food since the last one I had cracked & I didn’t seem to have this problem when I had the food in the air tight container. If anyone finds out what these bugs are & how to get rid of them please let me know. Thanks atvmudman@yahoo.com
The beetles in your dog’s food may be any number of species that we collectively call Pantry Beetles.