We received a strange email from a reader recently concerning some small black insects that are currently all over his house. Here is his entire message: “I have small black tiny insects all over my house. These are usually found in a bag of rice but right now are all over the house.” The message is straightforward and casual in an unusual way, and you’ll also notice that no question is asked. Did this reader merely want to inform us of his situation, or is he perhaps wondering what he found? We’ll assume the later and try to make some sense of the tiny black insects in our reader’s house.

No picture was submitted along with the reader’s question, or rather statement, so all we have are the words provided by him, which aren’t terribly descriptive. All we know is that our reader is finding “small black tiny insects.” This description is problematic in a couple of ways because we have no idea how to make sense of these few crucial words. Evidently, the creature isn’t large because it is described in one phrase as both “small” and “tiny,” but this description could be applied to most insects. And this brings us to the word “insect.” There are literally millions and millions of insect species, and the fact that the insects in question are black doesn’t help much. That the reader describes what he found as “insects” also raises the question of why he would write to us in particular. People tend to write to us about worms or worm-like creatures (like various sorts of larvae), so are we to assume that what our reader found is some sort of insect larvae?

But if he did find larvae, it is strange that he found black larvae. There are a few common larvae that turn up in stored, dried goods, like Indian mealmoth larvae and mealworms (a type of darkling beetle larva), but the former are basically an off-white color and the latter are generally light brown. And even if we could miraculously identify whatever our reader found, there is still the massive unanswered question of how the insects that are “usually found in a bag of rice” ended up all over the reader’s house. Has the rice infestation been a longstanding problem, and now things have gotten totally out of control? Or is this insect problem unrelated to any particular rice, and the reader is merely remarking that the insects are the sort that tend to be found in bags of rice? If the insect problem started in the rice, the reader would at least have some information to work with to begin addressing the problem. At the very least, the rice (and other dried goods that are susceptible to infestation) should be thrown out, and perhaps this might at least eliminate ground zero of the infestation.

Overall, we really can’t provide any sort of definite information – indeed, we can’t really provide any information at all – to our reader because of how little we know about his situation. If insects have overrun his house, he should probably get professional help, and that’s about all we can say. We wish our reader the best of luck in dealing with his problem.

Summary

Article Name

Tiny Black Insects All Over the House

Description

We received a strange email from a reader recently concerning some small black insects that are currently all over his house.

Author

All About Worms