Apartment with “charm” has charming bugs too!
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
September 19, 2010 5:22 pm
On a bathmat (rubber with short-hair pile) in my friend’s bathroom, we found this tiny little guy. The sink pipes are about a foot above the mat. The floor beneath is wood, and we could not find any ’friends’, but the creature is so small, and the floor wood so dark and of uneven colouring, we may have missed any lurkers.
The mat is very close to the toilet bowl. My friend lives in an older building ”with charm”, that has already had mice, chipping paint and a leak from the upstairs neighbour’s bathroom. Foot fungus, fruit flies and moth larvae have also made their appearance.
The little bugger moved relatively fast, so was hard to capture even with a higher quality camera and good macro lens. The bathroom’s light source is harsh and concentrated in one spot, so not diffuse at all – halogen, I believe. Sorry for the lack of visual detail, the rest of the shots were too blurry to tell even the vague shape of the insect. But you CAN still see the small spike at the tail end, and the darker head area, as well as the back stripes.
We are located in Montreal, Quebec (Canada), beginning to get cold temperatures before autumn has even hit, so this might be a factor in determining if the insect was perhaps brought out of hiding unseasonably early. To date the insect has not been spotted anywhere else in the apartment, and the bath mat has been bug free, at least to the casual naked eye.
Is my friend facing a menace or is this bug expected under the circumstances?
Signature: Montreal bugwatch
Dear Montreal bugwatch,
This is a Carpet Beetle Larva and it is not a welcome visitor. Carpet Beetles will feed on many varieties of organic substances, including wool, silk, feathers, pet fur and sometimes stored foods. Tell your friend it is nearly impossible to keep all insects from the home, despite the lack of “charm” it may possess. Regarding the Fruit Flies and Moth Larvae infestations, they were probably not left behind by the previous tenant unless rotting bananas and stale oatmeal were left in the cupboards somewhere, or if they were able to penetrate the walls from the neighbors’ apartments. Those pests may have been introduced with new food, or due to less than meticulous housekeeping habits.