Carpet Moths Under Furniture in Caversham: Why Hidden Areas Matter

Why the Stairs Are Different From Every Other Floor

• Nothing stands on them, so nothing gets moved off them — which sounds like an advantage and is the opposite
• Nobody walks on the outer thirds. Traffic runs up the middle, and the outer few inches of every tread and riser are as undisturbed as the floor under a bed
• A vacuum head does not fit into the angle where the tread meets the riser, or into the corner against the string
• They are often the oldest carpet in the house, because a staircase is the hardest and most expensive part to recarpet
• They connect every floor, so a population there has access to everything

The Understairs Cupboard

A dark, unventilated triangle that everyone fills and nobody empties. It very often has carpet in it, or bare boards with fibre and hair in the gaps.

• Coats and boots that have not moved for a season
• Bags, suitcases and holdalls
• The vacuum cleaner itself, which is worth thinking about
• Boxed shoes, sports kit, old bedding
• Carpet offcuts kept after fitting
• The floor underneath all of it

The Landings

Half-landings and top landings are treated as corridors rather than rooms, so they get vacuumed quickly and left out of treatment scopes. They usually have a bookcase, a chest or a linen cupboard on them, and the carpet under those has been undisturbed for as long as they have been there.

The Rest of the House, Still Worth Doing

• Divan beds, especially with drawers
• Under and behind wardrobes and chests
• Under sofas and armchairs, including the hessian and webbing beneath
• The carpet edge against the skirting, all the way round
• Fitted cupboard bases and back corners
• Under rugs and on their undersides
• The airing cupboard, among stored bedding

Checking a Staircase Properly

1. Work from the bottom up, with a torch, sitting rather than stooping
2. Run a finger along the outer end of each tread where it meets the riser
3. Look for thinning at the outer thirds and a sandy debris in the angle
4. Check the corner against the string and around the spindles
5. Look under a stair rod or gripper if the carpet is loose-laid
6. Empty the understairs cupboard and look at its floor
7. Do the landings, including under whatever is standing on them

Fifteen minutes on a flight of stairs is one of the more productive quarter-hours available in this whole subject.

Treatment starts from £220. If you have stairs, say whether they are carpeted and how many flights — a three-storey house is a different scope from a two-storey one and it should be quoted that way.