Bald Patches in Carpets in Earley: Could Moth Larvae Be Responsible?

Four Things That Make a Bald Patch

• Traffic wear. Gradual, in a path, worst at doorways and on the landing. Fades out into sound carpet
• Furniture crush. A flat rectangle with sharp edges matching a bed or desk foot. The pile is compressed rather than missing, and it often recovers partly over a few days
• Spills and cleaning. A stiff patch, sometimes discoloured, with a defined edge
• Moth larvae. Irregular and patchy, pile grazed away, backing showing through in places, and it appears where nobody walks

In a shared house the second one matters more than usual, because beds and desks get moved at the start of every year and a compression mark that has been there ten months looks alarming for about a week.

The Test: Where Is It?

• Wear is in the doorway, the middle of the room, the landing and the stairs
• Moth damage is under the bed, behind the wardrobe, along the skirting, in the corner behind the door
• The single most likely spot in a student room is the carpet under a divan bed, particularly one with drawers

Why an Empty Summer Matters

A house standing empty from June to September is the ideal conditions: warm, undisturbed, unvacuumed, and nothing moved for three months. That is long enough for a generation to complete.

Dating It Roughly

• Faint thinning visible only in raking light — months, not weeks
• An obvious bald area under one bed — most of a year, typically a full letting cycle
• Several patches in one room — more than one cycle
• Patches in more than one bedroom — well over a year, and a whole-house problem rather than a room one

A larva feeds for months and eats very little on its own. Visible damage always means a population that has been building for a good while.

What To Do In Week One

1. Photograph it, with the date, before anything is moved or cleaned
2. Report it in writing to the landlord or agent immediately — the email is what protects you at the end of the year
3. Mark the boundary in pencil, or with a line of pins
4. Check under your own bed and wardrobe, and ask your housemates to check theirs
5. Look at the landing and stair carpet, which belongs to nobody in particular and is usually the oldest in the house
6. Do not clear it away. The webbing and debris are the evidence and the map

A dated email in September is worth a great deal in June. It costs nothing and it takes two minutes.

Treatment starts from £220. In a shared house, one person reporting it is a query and four is a house problem — worth comparing notes before anybody writes.