Tiny Black Bugs In The Kitchen: Identification & Effective Elimination

As you walk into your kitchen during the day, you notice a small black bug moving in your peripheral vision. Scary, isn’t it? Several black bugs could invade your kitchen, which might cause havoc to your mental and physical health.

Getting rid of these bugs might be your initial response. But before that, identifying the bug that has infiltrated your kitchen is more important. It is crucial to understand the correct method for removing them.

Let’s identify the black bugs that are keeping you up at night. Then, we can explore various ways to eliminate them from your kitchen.

How to identify the black bugs in your kitchen

Nobody likes finding black bugs in their kitchen. Be it on the countertop, around your fruits, or inside the half-open packet of biscuits or chips. It’s unsanitary and disgusting at the same time to find bugs in a place where you store and prepare your food.

But there are different kinds of bugs, and it’s essential to know why they’re in your kitchen and how to get rid of them.

1. Pantry pests

Dry food kept in the pantry attracts a particular type of bug species. Moths, beetles, grain mites, and weevils can be found in dry food items stored in the cabinets.

There’re various ways you can spot bug activity in cabinets. One such thing is to find webbing and cocoons to help to spot some bug activity.

Finding insects in the cabinet is one of the most prominent issues people face and is quite a common household issue people have to deal with.

The foods that get contaminated by them include:

• Cereals
• Dried beans
• Popcorns
• Nuts
• Raisins and other dried fruits
• Tea
• Cured meats
• Spices
• Powdered milk
• Chocolate

Even if you don’t leave your packets and jars unopened, insects can infest your food if you don’t clean your pantry often enough.

Most of the time, throwing away contaminated food is the only way to deal with it. Cleaning the whole thing out is another way to ensure it doesn’t affect other food products as well.

Carpet beetles, known by their name, attack textiles such as clothes and carpets but can also feed on pantry food. They can genuinely become annoying.

You can identify them as oval-shaped insects. They usually leave behind irregularly shaped holes in carpets, rugs, clothing, or upholstery.

They also shed their skin or leave fecal residue behind in the pantries.

The only way to solve this issue is to clean regularly, vacuum your carpets, wash your clothes frequently, and clean out your cabinets and cupboard to eliminate their existing eggs and larvae.

2. Fruit flies

If you haven’t heard about fruit flies, have you seen small bugs flying around your fruits?

If you don’t cover your food, it will attract flies. The same goes for the fruits kept in the fruit basket.

Fruit flies are also seen around vegetables when kept outside for a long time. You can identify them as black or brown bugs and as small as 1/8 inch long.

They hover around the food left in the open without anyone consuming it.

If you don’t tend to eat fruits a lot but have a habit of buying them anyway, you might see them around the fruits once they are fully ripe. They accumulate in large numbers around something that’s decaying.

3. Black ants

You can find ants commonly in the kitchen. It’s almost too common to find them there; they’re so small they can enter through the tiniest gaps you don’t know about.

While a small number of ants aren’t harmful, a whole line of ants can cause some serious damage to your health.

If you don’t clean your kitchen often and there’re food crumbs around, or leave food containers open, there’s a huge chance of ants multiplying.

4. Roaches and drain flies

The garbage disposal area is another popular area that attracts flies and other black bugs.

Especially when you keep it inside the cabinet below the sink. This is also where the garbage can is likely to face more infestation.

The bugs are likely to have hairy wings that resemble tiny black moths and are black or brown. They enter through the drainage system and may enter your garbage disposal can if left open.

Smaller roaches are bound to enter through the drainage system, and so are cockroach nymphs which are wingless versions of adult cockroaches. They feed on organic matter that’s decomposing.

5. Silverfish

These bugs are different as they’re silver in color and have scales that cover their elongated bodies. Bathrooms and kitchens usually have dark and damp spaces with high humidity.

You won’t be able to spot them during the daytime because they’re nocturnal and turn up during the night only. They feed on cardboard and fabric.

If your place is humidity-free, you won’t see them hovering around. Keeping your kitchen’s dark areas clean is another factor that can help.

How can you prevent a tiny black bug infestation?

Bugs like these, which you see in your kitchen, aren’t that difficult to deal with, and proper measures can prevent them from entering your kitchen again.

There are a couple of things you absolutely need to take care of, which involves a constant effort on your part.

Keep the kitchen clean

Cleaning is essential; this is how you prevent most bugs from infesting your home, including your kitchen.

When you’re living alone, it’s still a bit easier to clean on weekdays, but as a couple, it can be challenging to find time, plus you have more things to clean.

Weekends are perfect to find time and ensure your home is thoroughly cleaned.

Maintaining proper cleanliness ensures a sanitary environment and reduces the risk of diseases.

Do the basic cleaning during the weekdays by keeping the countertop clean, closing lids of containers with food inside, taking out trash regularly, and keeping the floors clean.

During the weekend, you can tackle the pantry area and any other enclosed space in your kitchen. Keep things clean as possible, including areas behind appliances and the kitchen sink.

Be mindful of food storage

Find the right way to store your food items. If you open a packet, ensure that it’s closed off or kept in a container that is sealed off with the lid.

This way, insects or any black bugs won’t be attracted by the smell of food left out in the open. Cover up all your grains, cereals, and other food items.

Keeping things closed off isn’t the only solution, but you must check in with the food that hasn’t been used in a long time.

If the container is left untouched for a long time, the food might develop insects without you knowing. Also, throw away any expired food items.

Other things to keep in mind include:

• Fix any leaks in your kitchen.
• Keep the kitchen dry and clean.
• Make sure you ventilate your kitchen daily.

Home remedies to get rid of black bugs

You can use a few things from your home to prevent further entry of any bugs and get rid of them. These include:

• Borax mixed with sugar can be used to spread in the areas where you have spotted roaches.
• Baking soda can be sprinkled to ward off ants.
• Garlic can be potent in keeping bugs away.
• When sprayed on bugs, peppermint oil mixed with water can keep them away.
• Neem oil helps disrupt the feeding and reproductive cycle of bugs. Mix it with water and spray on the bugs.
• Diatomaceous is a natural insecticide that you can spread on the entry points of the kitchen or your home to kill small insects.
• Place bay leaves in your pantry or closet to let beetles and moths stray from the food items.

Vinegar solution is another non-poisonous way to deal with black bugs in your kitchen. Mix equal parts of vinegar with water with a few drops of dish soap. Keep this solution near the areas where you see bugs often. Keep them at entry points as well to catch these bugs.

You can pour boiling water occasionally to keep things coming from the drainage system. This is the easiest way to keep bugs away.

However, these DIY home solutions might not always work, and you might want a more permanent way or professional way to deal with the bugs in your kitchen.

When to call a professional

Dealing with bugs or insects can be time-consuming or disgusting to you on your own, primarily if they have grown in number. Sometimes you can’t let things go on by using DIY methods and want a more professional way of handling the termination of bugs.

Tabor Pest Control can help you with the bug infestation situation in your kitchen. You can reap various benefits with our services which include:

1. Identification of bugs

Identifying the bugs that have infested your kitchen will be our responsibility. You don’t need to do anything; our professionals will do an evaluation and let you know what bugs you are dealing with. This will help us further in knowing how to deal with it.

2. Minimizing property damage

A small species of bugs in your kitchen can hold the power to attract other kinds of bugs in your home and kitchen. Before you know it, they can cause significant harm to your property. Exterminating even the smallest of bugs from your kitchen will help reduce any such risks.

3. Health concerns

Bugs are known to spread diseases, and black bugs in your kitchen can spread diseases via food to you. Hiring professionals from Tabor Pest Control will help you keep your family safe from food contamination and maintain sanitary conditions moving forward.

4. Avoiding further infestation

DIY remedies can only take you so far and aren’t permanent. It can’t keep away future infestations away. With the help of our professionals, you can keep your worries away and let them help prevent any future infestations.

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