Yikes! Insect in Chinese-made sofa!

[RigidRaider]

Mrs RR thought she'd got a bargain when she bought two leather sofas very cheap from a pal who is in the furniture trade, very nice they are. Mrs RR also likes the lounge flippin' hot with the wood-burner blazing away. Last two nights we've heard a scratch-scratch noise coming from inside the arm of one of the sofas so last night I unpicked the staples underneath and looked inside to find, as I expected, lots of wood dust with little round pellets in it, some manky wood that looks as if it's been very wet at some time and some long insect tunnels about 5mm wide along one strut. I happened to have a can of woodworm treatment in the shed so I gave the lot a dousing, must have poured several CCs into it before it began dripping out so there must be quite a lot of tunnels inside.

Assuming the sofas were made in China like everything else and whatever was in the piece of wood woke up when it got nice and warm, does anybody know what it might have been? I'd like to dig it out but can't be bothered to dismantle half the arm to get to it.

 

[Burnerman]

Hmmm only my opinion mate for what its worth, but invite ye not a wood boring insect into thine home......
I've seen a few instances where people have stored 'a lovely antique' in their houses, and in a few seasons the surrounding woodwork is peppered.
If the sofa's were mine, they'd be out by now.
John

 

[merlin50]

take it outside and burn it

 

[RigidRaider]

Got the piece of wood out last night. Here's his lunch; note the teeth marks. One end was almost completely hollow:

Here he is, amazing that something so small could make so much noise. Unfortunately in extracting the piece of timber I sawed him in half:

Looks like the larva of the deathwatch beetle to me.

 

[Burnerman]

I hope he hasn't moved the wife and bairns in.....
John

 

[IJWS15]

He's not old enough to have kids . . . . . . . . . . .






worry about the brothers and sisters!

 

[Burnerman]

Ye gods I'd die if that thing came wriggling at me
John

 

[gregers]

i hope it aint this,
http://www.cyprustermites.com/woodworm.html

because if it is,the post where it says take it outside and burn it,suddenly aint very funny.

 

[RigidRaider]

It's an Asian Longhorn beetle larva. We have notified the plant health authority in Edinburgh because we don't want this in the UK, it has devastated trees in certain parts of the USA.

 

[gregers]

yiokes that aint good news shaggy.

 

[RigidRaider]

Sent the little varmint to them and they confirmed my identification as an Asian Longhorn beetle (good, eh?) but they don't seem too concerned about it. Apparently it's not yet a problem in the UK as in New York and Chicago, where it got into urban trees from imported pallets. If there's only one of them and not a breeding pair it is of little concern.

They are more bothered that I killed it before they were able to get a recording of the chewing sound for their archive!

 

[gregers]

how can you be sure there are no more lurking within the furniture?

 

[RigidRaider]

We dismantled both the sofas she bought and unpicked the staples off the bottoms of the arms then had a good look inside with a powerful light. There were no other signs of boring or wood dust. The entomologist who called said the larva would have been in the timber when it was cut up to make the sofa and they can take up to ten years to pupate into beetles. She said it would have grown to a couple of inches long before that happened, which gives you an idea of the voracious appetite they have since ours was only an inch long but it had already scoffed about a third of the volume of the timber strut, about 36" x 1" x 2". In the USA they have eaten so much out of trees in New York and Chicago that the trees have been weakened and had to be cut down.

 

[gregers]

good golly or in other words bloody hell.