Furniture beetle in floorboards - can I still polish them?

[Tony Arnold]

Hi all, my partner and I are currently in the process of buying our first house. It's a ~70 year old weatherboard house with floorboards that are currently concealed by (rather unsightly) carpet.

We're both quite keen to get the floorboards polished, but it turns out we have had furniture beetles in the floors. From what I understand, there's no structural damage, but I haven't pulled the carpets up to look at the surface of the boards and see the real damage (if any).

Has anyone had any experience with polishing floors that have had a furniture beetle infestation before? I'd love to see photos - we've had a couple of people say it "adds character", but I have no experience with any of this and figure they could just be being polite...

Any advice would be appreciated - thanks!

[oohsam]

What on earth is a furniture beetle??

[Tony Arnold]

What on earth is a furniture beetle??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anobium_punctatum

[Cliff Rogers]

What on earth is a furniture beetle??

And why would you want to polish it?

[Dusty]

Yep. polish away.

My tip is, don't fill the borer marks with filler as this only seems to highlight them and make them more unsightly. Just simply pour a fair bit of whatever coating your using over the affected areas. This toughens up the borer eaten section and because it stays the same general colour as the rest of the coated floor it's nowhere near as noticeable as you might first think.

You said, someone mentioned that it adds character, well, that's the biggest floor sanding cop out your ever going to hear. And... it's the one I use the most when I get asked about borer So character it is.