You want to do your best to ensure that your car is taken care of properly. Your car is a big investment and you need to use it daily to get where you need to go in most cases.
This is why it’s so disheartening when you go out to your car and discover that there are beetles in the carpeting.
Carpet beetles can be a bit problematic, but they aren’t an issue that can’t be solved.
Keep reading to learn how to get rid of carpet beetles in your car effectively. You’ll know just what to do to get rid of the carpet beetles for good once you’ve read all of the information.
What Are Carpet Beetles?
Carpet beetles are nasty little insects that people often find hiding out in carpeting.
These beetles will feed on fabric as well as other types of organic materials. Sometimes people will wind up having carpet beetles enter their homes, and getting rid of them will wind up being a real pain.
Thankfully, it’s a lot easier to get rid of carpet beetles that have entered your car. Your car is a lot smaller than an entire house, and you’re going to be able to hone in on the issue without having to search around so much.
Keep reading to get the best advice for getting rid of carpet beetles that have entered your car.
1 – Vacuum Your Car Thoroughly
The first step that you need to take is to go ahead and vacuum out your car thoroughly. Get your shop-vac out and make sure that you vacuum every single part of your car interior.
Don’t forget to vacuum out your trunk area thoroughly since it’s possible that carpet beetles could be in there as well.
This might take a bit of time to get things right, but you’re going to be much better off once you’ve finished vacuuming.
If you have a good shop-vac that is powerful, then this process should be very easy, and it might even solve a large portion of your carpet beetle problem. Even if you don’t have a shop-vac, it’s still going to be possible to vacuum the car out, though.
A simple handheld vacuum can work well enough to do what you need to do. You can also try to use a traditional vacuum cleaner that has a hose attachment so that you can reach every nook and cranny of your car carpeting.
As long as you’re committed to thoroughly vacuuming out your car, it’ll be fine to move on to the next step when you’re done.
2 – Clean the Carpets
Next, you’re going to be taking the time to clean your car carpets very nicely. You should be using hot water and some type of carpet-cleaning solution that you can buy from the store.
If you need to find car carpet cleaning products, then be sure to do a bit of research ahead of time.
You shouldn’t have a hard time buying a carpet cleaning solution that is going to work well, but you want to ensure that whatever you’re using doesn’t damage your carpeting in any way.
That’s why it’s best to buy something that is recommended specifically for cars and that you know won’t do any harm. Once you have the right stuff, you’ll be able to start cleaning up the carpets.
Try to really give your car carpets a good scrub with the hot water and carpet cleaning solution. If you want to scrub more rigorously, then you could try to use some type of brush.
Just be careful about not damaging your carpeting if you’re worried about how it looks after you’re finished.
You might have better luck using a toothbrush of some sort, but some people just use rags and get good results. If you just want to wipe things with a rag as well as you can, then that might be good enough.
The main thing to remember is that you need to clean every part of your car interior well to try to keep your beetle problem from coming back.
3 – Buy Organic Insecticide
This is where things get real and you really start to prevent the carpet beetles from coming back. You can go so far as to buy organic insecticide that is going to kill off any carpet beetles that would dare enter your car.
Finding the right insecticide to use for carpet beetles won’t be difficult so long as you go to a retailer that specializes in insecticides.
Once you have the product that you need to get things done, it’s going to be necessary to pay close attention to the instructions. Take the time to read the instructions and do everything exactly as it is written.
This should make it so that you will be able to protect your car from future carpet beetle issues.
4 – Clean Your Car More Often
If you did all of the things that you were instructed to do above, then you shouldn’t have carpet beetles in your car any longer.
However, insecticides will wear off after a certain amount of time, and you can only prevent car beetles from wanting to enter your car by being more mindful of how you care for your car. It’s going to be best to try to clean your car more often from here on out.
Try to come up with a schedule for cleaning your car that will work for you. Some car owners might find it easiest to clean their cars out very thoroughly once or twice per month.
If you want to use an abundance of caution when it comes to cleanliness, then you might even wish to clean your car out each week, but that might not be entirely necessary unless your car is getting messy for some reason.
Instituting rules in your car might help you to keep it from getting quite so messy moving forward. For example, you could stop eating in your car so that food crumbs don’t wind up falling on the carpet.
If you avoid doing things that can make your car more appealing to car beetles, then you’ll have less of a likelihood of having to deal with car beetles again.
5 – Change Your Upholstery
Another step that you could take is to go ahead and change the upholstery in your car. This isn’t entirely necessary, but making some changes could make your car unappealing to carpet beetles in the future.
Carpet beetles like to eat organic material, and if your carpeting is made out of organic material, then it makes sense that these beetles would want to eat it.
However, not all types of carpeting are made using organic materials, and you can use this to your advantage. If you want to get rid of a carpet beetle problem, then switching your carpeting so that it is synthetic will make a huge difference.
This is not going to be something that carpet beetles can eat, and they’re going to shy away from your car because of this.
Granted, it’s going to cost quite a bit of cash to change out your upholstery in your car completely. Just know that this is an option if you seem to have lots of issues with carpet beetles in your area.
Be ready to take this step only if you feel that it is necessary.
I have a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When I’m not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies…I’m at home with my wife, two daughters and a dog. Outside of family, I love grilling and barbequing on my Big Green Egg and working on projects around the house.