Professional Carpet Moth Control in Greenwich

Signs You May Need Carpet Moth Treatment in Greenwich

• Bare or thinning patches in wool carpet. Typically at the edge of a room, under furniture, beneath a rug or behind a door - anywhere undisturbed.
• Damage that follows the quiet parts of the room. A hallway runner worn along its edges while the walked-on centre is untouched is a classic pattern.
• Small silken tubes or cases in the pile. The larvae build them from carpet fibre and debris, which is why they are the same colour as the carpet.
• Fine gritty debris at the carpet edge. Frass and shed cases, often mistaken for ordinary dust.
• Small moths that crawl or flutter rather than fly properly. Carpet moths are weak fliers and tend to be seen low down, near skirtings.
• Damage on wool and not on synthetics. A useful confirmation: a wool rug attacked while a nylon carpet beside it is untouched.

It Is Wool They Want, Not Carpet

Carpet moth larvae feed on keratin, the protein in animal fibre. That means wool, and it also means silk, felt, sheepskin, feather-filled items, wool underlay and the wool content of a mixed carpet. A pure synthetic carpet is not food, which is why an infestation will run along a wool runner and ignore the man-made flooring next to it, and why the wool underlay beneath a synthetic carpet is sometimes where the whole problem has been living.

It also explains where the damage appears. Larvae avoid light and disturbance, so they work under furniture, along skirting edges, beneath rugs, inside wardrobes and in the parts of a room that nobody walks on. Rooms that are used constantly often show almost nothing while the spare room next door is being eaten.

How Carpet Moth Treatment Works

The survey establishes the extent of the infestation and, importantly, its edges: which rooms are affected, whether the underlay is involved, whether stored wool items are also being eaten, and whether there is a source elsewhere in the property such as an old wool item in a loft or a cupboard.

Treatment is applied to the floor with the emphasis on the perimeter, beneath furniture, along skirting lines and under rugs - the undisturbed zones where the larvae actually are. Adults flying in the middle of the room are the least important part of the problem, which is why treating them alone achieves so little.

Preparation and aftercare

1. Vacuum thoroughly before the visit, concentrating on edges, under furniture and beneath rugs, then empty the vacuum into an outside bin.
2. Move furniture where you can, so the perimeter can be reached.
3. Bag up any badly damaged wool items rather than moving them to another room, which spreads the problem.
4. Leave the treated floor alone afterwards for the period we specify on the day - cleaning removes the treatment.
5. Keep vacuuming the edges regularly once the treatment period is over. It is the single most effective ongoing measure against carpet moth.

Wool Carpets in Period Property

A good deal of the housing around Blackheath, Greenwich and Eltham has original floors, wool carpet and long-standing rugs, and carpet moth likes all three. Boards with gaps give larvae somewhere to shelter that a vacuum will never reach, and a wool rug that has sat in the same spot for years is close to ideal conditions. If you have a rug that has not been lifted recently, lift it before you call - it is where the evidence usually is.