means that a female laid her eggs in your house on some food source, the eggs hatched, the hairy little larvae gobbled up the food, they pupated, and they emerged as adult beetles. Making sure your house is clean as a whistle is the best way to keep them away. That means cleaning under your refrigerator and stove, putting opened pet food in sealed containers, keeping boxes and bags of food in your cupboards and pantry shut tightly, cleaning up any kitchen, cupboard, or pantry spills right away, sweeping your kitchen floor daily. These little guys are not called Larder Beetles for nothing. Starve them!

is to do a thorough housecleaning, including under and behind refrigerator and stove where food crumbs could accumulate. Some dermestids will dine on wool. (Do you have wool rugs?) Tiny human skin flakes and human hairs are other favorite foods of dermestid beetles and these can accumulate in rugs and carpets. Vacuum and shampoo any carpets and have any rugs professionally cleaned.

They're harmless in the sense that they don't bite or sting, harbor diseases, or damage structures. But there is the yuck factor when they start appearing in large numbers. You might notice their skins in unsealed food like dry noodles or cereal. They are transparent husks that look a lot like the larvae (same size and segmentation lines). I bought a burlap bag of rice and shortly after noticed that the bag was just crawling with tiny larvae. I think that's where they came from, but they moved on to infest everything in the pantry that had ever been opened. I discarded everything, vacuumed the cupboards, and wiped them down with Lysol. Now everything has to go in sealed containers. Vigorous vacuuming and keeping all food hermetically sealed (cardboard boxes will not do) eliminates them, but if the kids leave crumbs somewhere and I don't notice right away, suddenly they're all over again, so I know they're hiding out somewhere. I just don't know where. I have a log home, so I know it's not in the walls.

is probably their worst enemy. Make sure there are no accumulations of bird food under baseboard heaters, etc.

I have yet to find D. lardarius on a carcass, although other dermestid beetles abound there. I most often find them in/around houses with pets.

btw, welcome to bugguide. I live two towns over from you in Nashua :-)

Thanks for the help guys!

Nashua, heh.. yep, you're pretty close!

Are there any pet-friendly traps made to "collect" these?

I once had an infestation of a certain type of moth, that came from a bag a parrot seeds. I guess they somehow bore a hole in sunflower seeds, and lay their egg(s)? in there, or the larva does it, not sure... Anyway, the manufacturer or the bird seeds knew exactly what they were and sent me these pheromone sticky traps you can hang from the wall or such. Those worked great!

Is there anything like that which will attract and trap these suckers? It's impossible to keep my parrots area free of food droppings. I'd need to do it 2-3 times a day, which isn't feasible. These thing are showing up all over the house, in rooms with 0 food, etc.

I found a few around a window we had opened. They were on the outside of the screen. Not sure if they were ones that were originally inside and got out, or where ones that were outside, trying to get in. ;)

Take care.

On a side note... I really hope the tree frogs come back this year. Have an inground pool, and they think it's their mating ground. I used to live down in Salem, and they came back every year. Loud little guys. I collect as many as I can find, then relocate them to a nearby pond. The have the most amazing orange colors on parts of their hide legs. Only seen them during one season here in Londonderry. Been here 3 years, I think.

I also raised around 50-100 of them in a small aquarium (at work!), from eggs collected in my pool, and let them go when they turned into froglets.

Short of fumigation, I guess you're stuck vacuuming three times daily ;-)

Here's an idea: get another pet -- a gekko that has free roam of the house.

but I wouldn't say D. lardarius is particularly fast.