Bethylid wasps and carpet beetles terrorizing me in my bedroom.
I’ve had carpet beetles in my room for the past few years, usually only during the winter and maybe early spring and I wouldn’t see them again for quite a long time. And while they were around, I’d just grab them and squish and discard.
But suddenly this year, as of spring, I started seeing an “ant” appear every once in awhile. I thought maybe they were coming in sometimes on the dogs or on a takeout bag or something. But after being stung by them and identifying them, they’re definitely those bethylid wasps. They sting me under my blankets but otherwise I usually see them land in various places. Most of the ones I see have wings, though there are wingless ones that show up too. Usually it’s been maybe 0-1 showing up per day, but over the past couple of days there have been like 2 or more per day.
I really don’t know what to do. I have bad anxiety so I’m losing sleep because I’m so afraid of getting stung under my blanket. And it seems like they can just keep stinging over and over, they don’t even care. It even takes quite a bit to kill them when squishing them with a napkin or whatever I can grab.
I’ve vacuumed all over the room as best I can at least once per day with the hose attachment. I oddly haven’t even seen a carpet beetle in probably a week now. So logic tells me that these wasps have gotten to most or all of them and are laying more eggs. As it is, I assume the initial eggs were laid like 2 months ago. I’m not sure how they got in (I guess easiest would be when I’ve had my windows open, they’re small enough that they’d fit right through the screen). So what I’m seeing now must be the adults.
Is there any way to easily find out where they’re living during the hours that I don’t see them? Is there a trap I can set to get as many as I can to come to so that I can eliminate many at once? I’ve only really ever seen them on my bed. I may have seen one in my bathroom (attached to the room) one time, but I didn’t confirm. I’ve yet to ever see any on the floors or even on the walls. They just seem to terrorize me in bed. Anything I can look out for to lead me to where they’re living? My bedroom is the only one with carpet, and also the only one that ever has carpet beetles, so I don’t think they’re living anywhere else. But I’m not sure.
I can’t afford an exterminator or anything so I’m on my own with this. I’d really appreciate some advice and help!