Bare with me, this is long. And please realize I'm being (presumably) humorous here because the horror known as carpet beetles is too much to take otherwise.
A few years ago, I had a carpet bug infestation. It seemed to be limited to my kitchen cabinet around an (probably by that time antique) box of mashed potatoes. I got rid of everything in my cabinets & that seemed to solve the problem. But what did I know? I was in my 20s & reading about carpet beetles had nothing to do with girls.
I noticed one, ONE of those little buggers on my couch a few months after I annihilated his entire extended family. I thought he was a hanger on, so I murderlated him & thought that was that. In the last year however, I noticed my couch pretty much disintegrating. I thought it because my couch was old, having seen my college days & the numerous horrors in-between. Now I know thoroughly suspect carpet beetles are eating it alive (figuratively).
Well, to make a long story short(er), I was laying on my uncouch a couple of days ago & I noticed what felt like little bugs on me. I also had little red bumps on my skin & I freaked out because I thought I had bed bugs. I started vacuuming, bagging up all my clothes, & invoking God's name in ways my mother told me not to. Lo & behold, the next I noticed a carpet beetle when (for a reason I can't remember) I was down very close on the carpet. I suspected they were on the couch & you know what? THEY WERE!
These little guys are hard to see; from up high, they look like little pieces of debris or fuzz. It's not hard to mistake them for this, as I am a bachelor & my carpet reflects that. But when I'm uncomfortably close, I can see they are the same potato eaters as before.
I started looking at other areas of my carpet, noticed a few more carpet beetles & hairy little larvae in the carpet (I wikipediaed this time! Huzzah!). Wikipedia informed me they like to chew on fiber, such as on furniture or carpet; I guess you could call them carpet munchers. I vacuumed & started washing all my shirts.
Now, yesterday at work I felt what seemed to be things crawling on me. I couldn't see anything in the mirror, but I felt tingles on my arms, face, ears, & hair. I was afraid it was psychosomatic, but I left work anyways because it's Friday & a good excuse to leave early. I went home, showered & the sensation went away.
Because I'm an idiot/man, I slept on the infested couch (which I now call Beetle Town) last night. This morning, I felt the occasional tingle of something crawling on me again. I assume that, if there IS something there, I can't feel it unless the hair is disturbed.
I have rubbed these areas, but not raw. I usually come away with either a very small speck on my finger; if I'm really careful, it instead is a minutely larger skinny little white or brown-white thing. I THINK these are newly-hatched carpet beetles (I done seen that on Google Images) & the specks are the little guys that assumed a fatal yoga position.
The worrisome part is that some of the tingles are sometimes nearly in my eye, fairly deep inside my ear, around or just inside my nostrils, or a lower intensely private area. There is very occasionally a little sharp sting where I felt a tingle. It's very rare though. I DO NOT feel them under my skin or anything & again, the feeling goes away for a time if I shower & scrub well with soap.
I feel it'd be a strange coincidence to feel like something was crawling on me, saw small red bumps on my skin, panicked because I thought they were bed bugs, discovered I had carpet beetles & larvae an hour later, then the next day felt more tingly things on my skin.
I believe this leads to a question, but I'm not sure what it is. Does anyone have the answer?