Beetles leave residents fuming

A tiny home invader has left Northland householders itching to eradicate it.
Two people - in Kaitaia and Whangarei - told the Northern Advocate their houses became colonised by tiny beetles at the beginning of winter after firewood was brought inside.
The woman in Kaitaia said her house, furnishings and even her body have been infested by tiny mite-sized beetles and she has sprayed with insect killer so often she is "swimming in poison".
She said she has been bitten by the insects until she bled on her scalp, neck, shoulders and the back of her lower legs.
The woman finds dead insects in the house after spraying, indicating insecticide kills the hatchlings but not the eggs.
The beetles start out as tiny specks but grow quickly to the size of ladybirds, she said.
The woman said she was at her wit's end because no one seems to take her concerns about the infestation seriously.
Northland Regional Council entomologist Jenny Dymock, who visited the woman's house, said she took samples of insects she found in the ceiling insulation.
The insects proved to be the minute fungus beetle but there were no signs of heavy infestation, Dr Dymock said.
She had found none of the slightly larger cypress bark or other kinds of wood beetles in the house.
But a Whangarei woman has had her house fumigated three times to eradicate what appears to be the cypress bark beetle.
Some time after bringing in firewood from a new delivery, she started finding the tiny beetles, between 2 and 3 millimetres long.
"They ended up all through the carpet and now I have them in the ceiling insulation ... I got them in my hair, they bit me on the shoulders. Actually, it's been really embarrassing," she said.
The woman has spent over $600 in fumigation and cleaning costs since the beginning of winter, and been forced out of her home by the infestation for days at a time.
Dr Dymock said she was unwilling to comment on what the insects in the Whangarei house might be without having specimens to identify.
Numerous insects could come out of firewood, Dr Dymock said, but she doubted whether the bark beetles would bite people or settle in material other than wood.
Kevin Brightmore, from Northland Pest Management, said he had seen some beetles and eggs in the Whangarei house.
There were many different kinds of bark beetles in the region but he had never had to fumigate for house infestations before.
"I've been doing pest control for 18 years and I've never come across this before and might never get it again."
NRC biosecurity officer Don McKenzie said the species was not among 191 pests in the Regional Pest Management Strategy, as it had not been brought to the council's attention during the strategy development or at any other time.
A native of the United States, the cypress beetle had been in New Zealand for many years and was not a biosecurity threat, a MAF spokesperson said.
Usually, it reproduced by only one generation per year in dry wood material.