Carpet Moths in Wool Rugs in Hungerford: Signs and Treatment Options

Check It Before It Comes In, Not After

This is the whole point. Once a rug is down on a carpeted floor in a warm room, whatever was in it has arrived. Checking it in the hall, the garage or the back of the car costs nothing and is the only moment the decision is easy.

The Three-Minute Check

1. Unroll it, or turn back a corner. Do not judge a rolled rug
2. Look at the UNDERSIDE first — that is where damage starts
3. Look for thinning rather than holes. On a hand-knotted rug the larvae take the pile and leave the foundation, so a bald area shows the grid of the weave
4. Run a hand across the back and look at what comes off — a sandy debris the colour of the wool is the sign
5. Check the fringe and selvedge if wool
6. Look in the folds and the rolled core, where anything living will have gone

• Fine silky webbing on the backing
• Small cream larvae in cases the colour of the wool
• Bald patches with ragged edges rather than a worn fade
• Damage concentrated where something stood on it

Buying It Anyway

Plenty of damaged rugs are still worth having, and a price can reflect it. If you go ahead:

1. Bag it sealed before it travels, and keep it bagged until it is dealt with
2. Do not put it down 'just for now' in a carpeted room
3. Do not store it in the loft or garage as a maybe — that just moves the problem somewhere you will forget about
4. Have it treated or professionally cleaned before it goes into use
5. If it has real value, a natural dye or silk, that means a specialist rug cleaner or textile restorer rather than any household product

Rugs Included In a Sale

Rugs left behind in a house purchase are worth treating with more suspicion than rugs you chose. They were left because somebody did not want them, and 'the rugs are included' is sometimes generosity and sometimes disposal.

• Check each one before it stays in the house
• Check the floor underneath it, which is often the more informative surface
• If a rug has been in the same spot for years, look at the covered section rather than the exposed one
• A rug you did not choose, with damage in it, is an easy thing to decline

What We Can and Cannot Do

We treat properties. We do not clean, restore or value textiles, and we will not put a household product on an antique or hand-knotted rug — natural dyes are unstable and the damage is not reversible.

For an ordinary wool rug, treatment in place along with the floor beneath it is the usual answer, and the two have to be done together or they reinfect each other.

Treatment starts from £220. If a rug has just arrived from an auction or a clearance, say so — it changes what we look at first.