I Found the Source!!!

For the last few months, part of my kitchen counter and window area over the sink have been home to many little insects :( We have a clean home and regular pest control. We have NEVER, in the 10+ years we have been in this house, EVER had these little critters, and I mean little!! The pest control company initially thought, as we did, that it was roach/water bug/Palmetto bug droppings. So the treated the inside for such critters.....NOTHING!!!! The slightly bigger than a flea looking things were still there. Not there in huge droves, but always on the window seal. Well, on December 15th I had enough! The pest control company sent out their technician, yet again, to treat whatever the "things" were. This time however, instead of this little "things" on the window seal, they were now triple the amount and showing up on my drying mat and window seal!!! I decided to start wiping them off the areas and putting them in a snack size zip lock bag so they could be taken to the lab and looked at under a microscope so we could get to the bottom of what the heck these little critters were! I have noticed that they were not all dead as I have previously thought!!! Oh no, far from dead!! Some of them had wings, some were crawling and some a little bigger than others!! OKAY, now I am freaking the hell out and have collected about 50 of these little "things" in two days before the bug guy got here! When the technician arrived I showed him where the area was that these little critters were living/dying. He had NO CLUE!!! So, he took a picture of the ones in the baggie and sent it off to another tech. The other technician immediately identified them as "Cigarette/Cigar Beetles"! WTF is that!!! Well, me being to curious decide to Google it, and learned more about these little things than I cared to know. The worst part is that you can't immediately kill them off. You have to bait them and let them continue meandering around your kitchen (holidays be damned) until they take the bait (poison) back to the queen and she proceeds to die. Once the queen is dead, the remaining larvae continue to do their thing until the mature and become these little flea looking things with or without wings. Well, it has been over three weeks today and still they are here! The company said it would take 3 to 4 weeks to get rid of them.....GROSS!!!! In the meantime I had Christmas to host and foods to cook, all the while praying that these critters would disappear! Tonight I decided to clean out all of the cabinets and toss anything and everything that did not have an airtight seal. To my cheers and ultimate horror, I found the source of these damn beetles......a paper can of Italian Bread crumbs! Not just one can, but 2!! You see, i'm a great bargain shopper and I sorta plan my meals well in advance and when I find a great sale, I stock up!! One of these cans had been opened and closed back with plastic wrap and then the plastic lid that came with it. OMG OMG OMG!!! I picked up the opened can and immediately found the source of all these damn bugs all over the can, the plastic wrap and the lid, as well as the sealed can beside it (these cans are the paper type of cans like oats come in). These beetles, while in there larvae state can bore through these containers like they bore through cigars and cigarettes. Once the queen lays her eggs, its on from there! After my discovery, I through out EVERYTHING in that cabinet!! All of it! GONE!!! Thank God trash pick up is tomorrow, because that can is OVERFLOWING!! I pulled out the shelves and scrubbed them all with hot soapy water and left them to air dry. So, now that I have found the source, I am passing on this information to you!! These beetles can arrive in your home in many ways, first way being as larvae in a cigar box; and in your dog food bag; in boxes of pasta; in cereal boxes.....getting the picture here? I thought so! I will continue to purge my pantry as well tomorrow, even though there was no activity anywhere except the window seal and that one cabinet.....I AIN'T TAKING NO CHANCES!!!! I'm off to bed!