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Hi Everyone!

I've seen a number of bug ID posts before and I'm always impressed with everyone's knowledge of bugs. I seem to have something living in my sofa that I've tried to google but everyone's infatuation with bed bugs is making an ID hard. They appear mostly harmless at least to people. I think they may be carpet beetles but I haven't found a picture online that really matches what I have. Do any of you forum goers recognize these buggers.

I've put a few pictures on a google album

Thanks for the help guys!

http://bugguide.net/node/view/60

Try here. Might take some digging, but they've got most bugs covered.

Does not look like a bedbug at all, its in the beetle family, i don't know what it is but its a beetle of some kind.
Do yourself a favor and throw that couch out and get a new one or a un-infested used one.

Here it is i believe http://bugguide.net/node/view/257941
looks pretty dang close to me

But with bugs like this there can be subspecies of the same beetle that is only slightly different in look but is considered the same species.

They are not interested in human blood or anything maybe your dandruff along with wool and such. But i would still get rid of the couch and bomb the room. I am a hunter and outdoorsman a little bit and i don't mind bugs in the woods at all but, having a little bug crawl on me while i am laying in my house on the couch is kinda skeevy. Our homes are here for us to get away from the bugs and pests.
Beetles almost always have mealworm like young then cocoon themselves then emerge as beetles. Most couches have a covering on the bottom, remove it and see how many empty cocoons you have in the bottom of the couch. This will give you a good idea on how bad your infestation is. Good luck

Yet another fine reason why fire was invented.

Thanks for the replies guys. Carpet beetles seem to make sense which it turns out is okay. As much as I would love to burn the thing to the ground I live on the 7th floor of an apartment and hauling a new sofa up would be a pain (and hauling one down to set fire to it...) . The good thing is that it appears my two sofa's are almost purely synthetic and I have no carpets so they're just living on the surface and the cover which is cotton. I washed the thing and checked for any sneaky ones hiding around but hopefully they'll just disappear because I don't really have the kinds of things they like.

On a hunch, I did a bit of quick Googling, and it appears DE (diatomaceous earth) can be used for carpet beetle mitigation. Cheap, effective, and non-toxic provided you don't spend too much time breathing it.

ApockofFork wrote:

I live on the 7th floor of an apartment and hauling a new sofa up would be a pain (and hauling one down to set fire to it...) .

Isn't that what windows are for? A seven-storey plummet should be just about enough distance to turn it into kindling, though you get bonus points if you set it on fire as it goes out the window (and the post the flaming descent on YouTube). Now, that doesn't help you get the new one up to your apartment... unless you rig up a pulley and rope the two together to use the flaming one going down to pull the new one up. Of course then the old one shatters on impact and/or burns through the rope, dropping the new one back on your head as you obliviously film the carnage. So... make sure you have a friend operating a separate second camera and upload that footage as well, for double-bonus YouTube imortality.

Wait, this was about beetles?

Do any of your surrounding neighbors have the same problem? If so , maybe it's time to get the management company involved.

rogue426 wrote:

Do any of your surrounding neighbors have the same problem? If so , maybe it's time to get the management company involved.

I haven't spoken to them but I don't think anyone has ever said anything... plus if someone brought these things in it was probably me so I'm not about to start pointing fingers. If I see any more I'll definitely try that DE stuff.

Now as to catapulting a flaming couch out the window while simultaneously using it to pull the new one up. I actually have the window size to pull this sort of crazy thing off. Unfortunately I have suspicions my neighbors won't approve so clearly I'll just have to invite everyone over and sit them down on the couch as I light it on fire and fling it out the window.