Question

Insect in House  

Insect in House 2   Hello,
My husband and I recently moved into a new house and in the past couple of weeks have started noticing a new insect in the house. As you can see from the attached image, the bug appears to be brown, with six legs and two antennas. We have primarily found them in the kitchen and bathroom, on either the floor or the wall. They don't appear to move too fast, they are easy to catch when we see them. Sometimes the from antennas curl in towards the body. We are located in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States of American. Any suggestions as to what type of insect we may be dealing with? Being a newly built house we want to make sure that it isn't something that was overlooked in an inspection or anything. Thanks for any help you can provide!

Answer
Sarah,

This is a type of collembola, see http://www.livingwithbugs.com/springtails.html for more about these primitive insects. Collebola live in the soil and leaf litter and feed on fungi and bacteria. They are completely harmless. My guess is these entered the house as it was being built, this is very common that insects will be closed in as the new house is sealed up. They won't harm anything and can be swept up as found.

Jack DeAngelis