If you have so much food lying around your house, it will attract all kinds of tiny little pests. The most common of them are tiny black bugs in the kitchen. I’ll discuss what they are and how to eliminate them in this article.
The most common tiny black bugs that you’ll find in your kitchen are small beetles, gnats, fruit flies, different kinds of pantry weevils, Indian meal moths, tiny black ants, and small cockroaches. Primarily, they will gather under cabinets, sinks, kitchen appliances, and drains where moisture is present.
Some of these pesky little black bugs you unknowingly welcomed into your home. You could have carried them from the infested food products you bought from the grocery store. Others can enter your home through cracks and openings in the sealing. Once they get inside your home, they can invade your kitchen and your rugs, curtains, furniture, and more.
Read on to learn more about the tiny little bugs that infest your kitchen and how you can get rid of them.
Tiny Black Bugs in Kitchen
You are not the only one that can find little black bugs in the kitchen. Nearly all homeowners have this problem. Most of these bugs are:
- Tiny beetles
- Gnats
- Fruit flies
- Different kinds of pantry weevils
- Indian meal moths
- Odorous house ants
- Small cockroaches
Hiding Spots
Typically, you will find these pesky bugs under kitchen appliances, cabinets, kitchen sinks, and drains where moisture is always present.
The kitchen is where they usually infest because it is there where they can find flour, nuts, sugar, cereals, grains, veggies, and other foods that they can live on.
What Brought Them Inside Your Home?
One way they can enter your home is through the openings or cracks in your windows and door seals.
You can also unknowingly allow them entry. When you bring food products you bought from the grocery, such as cereals, sugar, grains, etc., you practically have welcomed them inside your home.
It is in your kitchen where their food is always available. So, you will find them there inhabiting their nooks and corners. The thing is: they carry with them different kinds of viruses and bacteria.
So, they are harbingers of illnesses in your home. If you eat food that they have contaminated with viruses or bacteria, you can get sick. You must deal with them once you know they have already entered your home.
But first, you must identify the tiny black bugs already crawling and infesting your kitchen.
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8 Most Common Tiny Black Bugs in the Kitchen
1. Roaches – the Small Ones
Not all cockroaches are big and recognizable. Many roaches are small, even tiny, and seem to fall into a different insect category. But they are the ones that invade the nooks and corners of kitchen cabinets. That’s where their food is readily available.
Roaches are dirty and smelly. That’s because they carry different kinds of bacteria and viruses. So, be wary if you see them crawling inside your kitchen cabinets. Get rid of them at once.
2. Ants
During warmer months, you will always see ants trailing in lines. This means they are foraging for food. The problem is when you see their lines inside your kitchen.
Size and Appearance
Many ant species have black color. Some are red, and some are brown. But what you will usually see inside your kitchen are the black ones.
Ants that invade home have sizes ranging from a small 1/4 inch to a big of 1/2 inch. The thing that makes them a nuisance is their numbers. You won’t find a single ant foraging for food. If you see an ant carrying some food, you can be sure that hundreds of other ants will follow.
Do Not Pose Any Danger to Health
Thankfully, they don’t pose any health danger to us. If their feet have bacteria and viruses that touch the food we eat, they become dangerous to us. Spraying the ants that you see lining up for their food will not solve your problem.
How to Eliminate
To eliminate ants from your kitchen, you need to know that they don’t live inside your home. They only enter your home to scrounge for food. But when they already have the food they need, they bring it home – out of your house.
So, to get rid of them, you must search and discover where they are coming from. And that’s when you do the work of eliminating their hive.
3. Weevils
One of the Most Common Pests in the Kitchen
Weevils are also one of the most common pests in kitchens. They can invade your whole house if you allow them to. Thankfully, they want to huddle inside the confines of your kitchen because it is where they can easily find the food they need to survive.
Appearance
Their body color is usually reddish brown which can also appear black when viewed at a certain distance. Many people assume that weevils are particularly fond of cereals. But they can also gobble up bread, flour, crackers, and the like.
Source
You can unwittingly welcome weevils into your home if you have bought infested cereals, flour, and other grains from the grocery shop.
4. Gnats
Hiding Spots
Did you see a black bug flying over your kitchen? That must be a gnat. A gnat is a flying bug that is usually black. You can generally find gnats inhabiting damp spots in your kitchen. Since they can fly, they can be a real nuisance as you do your kitchen work.
They can land on your food, your face, and everything they can get their feet on. Gnats are dirty little pests because they love to scrounge for food inside trash cans. Be careful when opening the lid of your trash. They may fly all over your face when they are startled.
How to Eliminate
To get rid of gnats, put some old banana skin in a bottle. Seal the bottle with plastic wrap and secure it with a rubber band. Then poke a few holes in the plastic wrap.
The old banana skins will ferment inside the bottle. This will attract the gnats, and they will go inside the bottle from which they will not be able to escape.
5. Beetles
Appearance
The tiny black bugs in kitchen cupboards can also be beetles. Many insects have wings, but not many of them have wing covers. This is how you can distinguish beetles from other flying insects. Beetles have the first pair of wings that is hard and thick. That first wing pair is the wing cover.
Hiding Spots
These tiny little black bugs can also be found in the kitchen because that’s one of the places they search for food. If you leave leftover food on the table or are careless in throwing food particles, you may find little black bugs in the kitchen at night feeding.
Again, what are the tiny black bugs in the kitchen? The most common tiny black bugs in your kitchen are cockroaches or ants. You’ll likely identify ants once you see them. But, if they don’t appear like ants, then they’re probably immature cockroaches.
6. Sawtoothed Grain Beetle
Appearance
Sawtoothed grain beetles are easy to identify. The saw-like teeth on their bodies give them away. They are also small bugs with body colors ranging from rusty brown to dark brown. These grain beetles also look for food where it is readily available – in the kitchen.
They are fond of breakfast foods, fried meats, dried cereals, and sugar.
Prevention
If you are not careful in clearing away spilled grains and flour from your pantry and kitchen cabinets, these beetles will feast on them. So, use sealed containers for your cereals, dried food products, and pasta so these beetles can’t eat them.
7. Spider Beetle
You can also quickly identify a spider beetle. These insects have six legs and two antennas. They also invade kitchens because that’s where they can find their foods which include grains and cereals. While searching for food, they will inevitably contaminate everything in your kitchen.
8. Indianmeal Moth
Another tiny black bug usually found in kitchens is the Indianmeal moth. These small bugs infest kitchens because that’s where they can find the food they need to survive. However, while scrounging for food, they will contaminate the food they see.
These bugs can also fly. They contaminate food in the kitchen with the eggs they lay in them. These bugs eat not only foodstuffs but also eggshells and cast skins. They also leave behind their feces, making them dangerous to our health.
How to Get Rid of Tiny Little Bugs in the Kitchen
Seeing tiny bugs on the kitchen counter or kitchen cabinets is very upsetting. Most of these pests are disease carriers, so you must get rid of them immediately. How do you do that? Here are some of the most effective ways to eradicate these dangerous bugs:
1. Keep Your Kitchen Clean
A clean kitchen is your first defense against any bug and invasive organism. Admittedly, the kitchen is the part of the house usually laden with leftover foods, moisture, and all kinds of food debris. Dampness is why there are tiny black bugs in the kitchen sink.
These are the things that attract all kinds of pests into your kitchen, including rodents. So your first order of the day is to keep your kitchen clean and all its nooks and corners. Not squeaky clean, but decently clean. It should be tidy so that pests won’t be attracted to it.
2. Use Baking Soda
If you already see tiny black bugs on the kitchen countertop, baking soda is the safest thing you can use to scare them away. You already have this in your cupboard. Just sprinkle some of it on where you have spotted these tiny pests. This should take care of your problem.
3. Use Peppermint Oil
The scent of peppermint oil is very pleasing and soothing to us. But it is a very irritating and bad odor to insects and rodents. They don’t like its smell. So, why not use peppermint oil to get rid of these pests?
You can buy peppermint essential oil in any healing store. Put 30 to 40 drops of the oil into a 500 ml spray bottle with water. Let the oil mix thoroughly with the water.
Spray this mixture in all the places where you have seen these pests. This powerful solution will discourage these tiny bugs from continuously inhabiting your kitchen.
4. Use Borax
Borax is a strong substance that can repel any insect. It is usually available in powder form. Just sprinkle this powder in the spots where these insects have invaded. This will discourage them from continuously gathering in these areas.
Be careful in sprinkling powder. Don’t let it go directly onto your foodstuffs. It has strong chemicals that can make you sick. Don’t let your children or pets near the spots where you have sprinkled this powder.
5. Neem Oil
Neem oil is also an essential oil that you can use to discourage tiny black bugs. The oil is produced by processing the Neem tree leaves to extract the essential oils. Like peppermint oil, the scent of neem oil is soothing and refreshing to us humans.
However, to these pesky little bugs, this oil is foul-smelling. They will do their best to get away from it. So if you spray it on the spot where you see tiny bugs congregating, you won’t see them there again.
6. Use Garlic
Garlic has a strong scent that can repel many insects and rodents. You indeed have some garlic cloves that you can use to deter tiny black bugs from invading and staying in your kitchen.
Remove the skin of the garlic so that its essence can freely escape into the air. Place some garlic over the places where you have spotted these pesky bugs. The pungent odor of garlic will irritate these bugs. They will evacuate the areas where they have previously inhabited.
7. Use Diatomaceous Earth
Another substance you can use to get rid of tiny little bugs is DE or diatomaceous earth. DE is a fine rock powder that has absorbent and abrasive properties. That means it can absorb liquid from where it is at.
Pour some of this powder into the places where the tiny bugs have gathered themselves. It will stick to their bodies when they crawl and walk over the powder. Once that happens, the liquid absorption of their bodies will start. Pretty soon, they will be dehydrated and die.
Many websites sell DE online. You can buy it in one of these online stores. Be careful in using DE because if it goes into your nose, you may experience irritation.
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Frequently Asked Questions
If you still have some questions about tiny black bugs in your kitchen, perhaps you will get the answer from the ones listed below:
What Are the Small Black Bugs That Crawl in My Kitchen?
Several kinds of small black bugs can invade and inhabit your kitchen. The most common are gnats, fruit flies, small beetles, tiny ants, small cockroaches, and various pantry weevils.
How Did the Tiny Black Bugs Enter My Kitchen?
These pesky little bugs can enter your kitchen and house through small openings and cracks in your window and door seals.
Once they get inside your home, they will search for food. And when they find food, they will form their hives or colonies. They will become a problem for you and your family because they carry diseases. And they are unsanitary.
How Can I Get Rid of These Small Black Bugs in My Kitchen?
Thankfully, there are many things that you can use to prevent and get rid of these tiny black bugs. Here are some of the things that you can use:
- Peppermint oil
- Neem oil
- Garlic
- Baking powder
- Borax
- Diatomaceous earth
- Insect traps
- Insecticides
- Pest control
How Can I Discourage These Small Black Bugs from Forming Colonies in My Home?
Here are some practical ways of discouraging these bugs from inhabiting your kitchen and home:
- Keep your kitchen and home clean always. Put leftover food in sealed containers. Don’t let them lay around for these bugs to devour.
- Always keep your trash bin sealed so flies and other bugs cannot enter it.
- Be sure that food like cereals, pasta, sugar, and flour you buy from the grocery store are free from insect larvae. These things can allow these pests to come and infest your kitchen.
In Closing: What Are Tiny Black Bugs in Kitchen?
There are different kinds of tiny little bugs that can infest your kitchen. The most common are gnats, small beetles, Indian meal moths, fruit flies, small cockroaches, tiny black ants, and various pantry weevils.
Usually, you will see them under cabinets, kitchen appliances, kitchen sinks, and drains where moisture is present. You may have unknowingly carried them to your home from the infested food products you bought from the grocery store.
Other small bugs may enter your home through the crack and open seals on your windows and doors. Once they invade your home, they can infest your rugs, bedding, furniture, curtains, and more. That’s why when you see them in your kitchen, get rid of them immediately.
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