Why Are Small Moths Flying Near the Floor in My Maidenhead Home?

First, Are They the Right Moths?

• Carpet and clothes moths avoid light, stay low, and run or flutter rather than fly properly. Disturbed, they scuttle across the floor with a short flutter at the end
• Pantry moths are found near kitchen cupboards, flour, cereal and dried pet food, and they will fly to a light. Treating the floor for those achieves nothing
• Outdoor species come to a lit window at night and are usually larger

The single most useful test is light. If it goes towards a lamp, it is very unlikely to be what this page is about.

Why Building Work Brings Them Out

Adults do not feed and do not damage anything. They exist to mate and lay, they live a few weeks, and they spend most of that time sitting still in the dark. You do not see them until something moves.

1. Furniture is moved — often for the first time in years, and the floor underneath is the single most likely site in any room
2. Carpet is lifted, exposing underlay, gripper rods and the perimeter
3. Skirting comes off, opening the gap behind it
4. Floorboards come up for wiring, pipework or insulation
5. The loft is opened and things are brought down
6. Warmth and vibration from the work itself gets things moving

Where They Are Coming From

• Under whatever was moved first — a wardrobe, a bed, a sofa
• The carpet edge against the skirting, especially behind furniture
• Old felt underlay, which is animal fibre and sits in permanent darkness
• A rug, top or underside
• The loft, among stored textiles or old bird nesting material
• A room the project has emptied and left standing

What To Do Now Rather Than Later

1. Do not vacuum away what you find before it has been seen — the webbing and debris are the map
2. Photograph anything you find, with the date, before more gets moved
3. Check the room the furniture came out of, and the room it went into
4. Keep the affected room's door shut and do not move textiles between rooms
5. Tell the builders, so they are not carrying it around the house
6. Get it looked at while the floor is already up — this is the cheapest and most thorough moment there will ever be

Treatment starts from £220. If work is in progress, say what stage it is at when you call — a floor that is already lifted changes what can be reached and it is worth using.