Wool Carpet That Has Been Down for Years
The adults fluttering by a lamp do no damage at all; it is the larvae, down in the pile, that eat the wool. They will not work anywhere bright or busy, so a carpet that is walked on daily in the middle of the room can look perfect while its quiet edges are being taken down to the backing. In a Kenton house that means three places above all: the bay recess where the curtains hang and nobody stands, the strip behind a sofa or under a wardrobe that has not moved since it was delivered, and the perimeter under the gripper along the skirting. This guide explains the preference for stillness.
Moving the Furniture Once a Year
The single most useful thing you can do is pull the heavy pieces out and look underneath, once a year, room by room. Damage found while it is a coin-sized thin patch is a different conversation from damage found when a wardrobe is emptied for a house move. Look at the back of fitted wardrobes too, where a floor is carpeted through and then boxed in.
Stair Carpet From the Hall to the Loft Conversion
A fitted stair carpet is often one continuous run - hall, stairs, landing, and in houses with a converted loft a second flight going up again - and it is treated as one piece of wool by the larvae. The treads themselves get too much traffic to suit them, but the risers, the angle at the back of each tread and the outer edges beyond where feet land are sheltered, and so is the landing carpet behind a bannister post or under a linen cupboard door. Run your fingers along those edges rather than trusting how the stairs look from the bottom.
This matters for the price as well as the search. Halls, stairs and landings are not counted as rooms, so where a continuous carpet is affected the booking is made up of the rooms that open off it - and if those same larvae have reached the bedrooms, treating one bedroom while the rest of the run is left alone is not worth doing. Say on the phone that the carpet is continuous.
Wardrobes, Blankets and Clothes Put Away
The same moths take keratin wherever they find it, so wool that has been put away is as much at risk as wool on the floor: winter coats at the back of a wardrobe, a suit that has not been worn since a wedding, blankets in a divan drawer, a jumper folded into a case in the loft. Holes tend to be irregular and to turn up at the folds. Empty a suspect wardrobe onto a hard floor rather than a carpeted one, shake everything out, bag anything with webbing or holes for a hot wash or the dry cleaner, and vacuum the base and corners before anything goes back. The guide on clothes and furniture covers upholstery and stored textiles, and this one deals with the naming, which matters less than people expect.
Making Sure It Is Moths
Wear, sun bleaching and old pet damage all get blamed on moths. The evidence to look for is more specific:
- Cream-coloured larvae a few millimetres long, sometimes in a silky tube of pile fibres
- Fine webbing binding the pile together where a patch is going thin
- Gritty debris and shed cases along the skirting when the carpet edge is lifted
- Small dull moths that scuttle into a corner instead of flying at the light
- Damage that is worst at edges and under furniture rather than where people walk
The larvae guide shows what to compare against, and the guide on holes in a carpet separates moth damage from the other causes. If small beetles are in the picture as well, carpet beetles in Kenton are the other possibility and the two are told apart by the larvae, not the damage.
Counting Rooms, Booking and Getting Ready
When you ring, list the rooms with damage, mention rugs, and say whether there is stored wool in a loft, an eaves cupboard or the garage, because that is often where a long-running problem is being fed from. Before the visit, vacuum slowly along every edge and under the furniture you can shift, empty the cylinder or bag outside into the bin, and move what you can move. Tell us about any old or valuable rug in advance - a pest treatment is not a cleaning or restoration job, and a fragile textile may be better dealt with separately. The preparation guide has the full list.
Protecting Wool in a Kenton House
Afterwards it comes down to disturbance and storage. Vacuum the edges and the under-furniture strips as a matter of routine rather than just the middle of the room. Do not store woollens in the loft or an eaves cupboard in bin bags and cardboard; wash or clean them first and use sealed boxes. Keep an eye on the stair run and the bay recess when the seasons change. Pheromone traps are worth having as a monitor, though they only catch males and will not clear anything on their own. The prevention guide goes further, Carpet Moth Control Brent covers the borough, and the Brent carpet moth advice guide pulls the whole subject together.
