ground beetle

6012  Hello there,  Please help me identify the bugs shown on the attached pictures. They are about 5 mm in length.  My name is John and I live in North York (Toronto) in a townhouse complex where there are more than 300 units. To my knowledge only my next door neighbour and I got our homes infested by these bugs, first last year and then this year as well. This year the bugs appeared about 3 weeks ago and most of them concentrated at the window sill and adjacent areas on the floor.  These creatures fly occasionally but mostly crawl and some reach onto other areas of the house. Others are found dead at the end of day. Since they come from the outside, the condominium corporation brought in a pest control company who applied some kind of spray outside of the house but it was not effective since they keep coming into our places.  Please let me know what kind of bugs are these and how we can get rid of them.   Thank you and best regards,  John

This appears to be a ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae). Ones like this are general predators on other small arthropods, mainly other insects, and thus could be considered beneficial. If you don’t want them around, simply vacuum them up. Ed Saugstad, retired entomologist; Sinks Grove, WV.