Carpet Moth Eggs and Larvae in Earley: What Should You Look For?

The Four Stages

• Egg. Under a millimetre, off-white, pushed into fibre or a crevice. You will not find these
• Larva. Cream to off-white, up to about a centimetre grown, darker head, slow moving. Usually inside a silk case the colour of what it is eating. This is the only stage that eats anything
• Pupa. Inside a case, tucked at a skirting or under an edge
• Adult. Small, buff to mottled, runs or flutters low, avoids light, does not feed

What the Empty Summer Produces

A warm house, undisturbed, unvacuumed, from June to September. Roughly three months, which is about one full larval stage in warm conditions.

• Adults on the wing in the first fortnight of term — a generation that completed over the summer. Very common, and it is the commonest reason a house reports moths in week one
• Fresh webbing and live larvae — feeding continued through the summer and is continuing now
• Empty cases and grey webbing with nothing live — activity that has moved on, possibly to another room
• Damage with nothing else — could be historic. Mark it and check in a month

Where To Look In a Shared House

1. Under the bed, especially a divan with drawers — the most likely single spot in a bedroom
2. Under and behind the wardrobe, and the base of a fitted one
3. The carpet edge against the skirting, all the way round
4. Behind the door, in the corner nothing reaches
5. The landing and stairs, at the outer ends of the treads
6. The airing cupboard, and any bedding stored over the summer
7. The living room sofa, underneath, at the hessian and webbing

Use a torch held low and almost parallel to the floor. Raking light shows the texture of a case and webbing that overhead light flattens completely.

The Bit That Needs Everybody

In a house let by the room, each bedroom is effectively a separate household and nobody has any reason to look in anyone else's. That is exactly why these houses get whole-house infestations that nobody spots.

• Agree that everybody checks under their own bed once at the start of the year
• Somebody checks the landing, the stairs and the living room
• Compare notes — one room is a room, three rooms is a house
• Report as a house rather than individually. It gets a different answer

What Each Finding Means

• Live larvae and fresh webbing: active. Report and treat now
• Adults only, no floor damage: the source is somewhere you have not looked — underlay, the landing carpet, a sofa, stored bedding
• Findings in three bedrooms: a whole-house job, and treating one room will not do anything useful
• Nothing anywhere but moths regularly: check the communal flooring and the stairs before assuming it is a bedroom

Treatment starts from £220. Tell us how many rooms found something, not just whether anyone did — it decides the scope.