How to Tell Carpet Moths From Clothes Moths in Sandhurst

Why the Insect Is a Dead End

Both are small, buff to mottled, and both run or flutter low rather than flying to a light. Distinguishing them by sight needs a lens and knowing what you are looking at. Almost nobody manages it, and it does not matter, because the damage is diagnostic and much easier to look at.

Read the Item, Not the Moth

Fitted carpet

• Carpet moth. Irregular thinning and grazed patches rather than clean holes, under furniture and along skirting. Fine webbing with grains of debris in it
• Clothes moth. Uncommon on fitted carpet unless it is a long and severe case

A wool coat or jumper in a wardrobe

• Clothes moth. Small irregular holes, concentrated at the shoulders, under collars, in cuffs and in folds — the parts that are least disturbed and hold body oils. Often a few holes clustered in one area rather than spread
• Carpet moth. Possible, usually only once the flooring population has become large

A blanket or a stored duvet

• Either, and frequently both. Look at the folds and the underside against whatever it has been resting on

Uniform, mess dress and formal wear

• Almost always clothes moth. Wool serge, felt and worsted, hanging undisturbed in a garment bag for months at a time, is close to the ideal case. Check the shoulders, the inside of the collar, under the lapels, and anywhere a badge, a flash or a stripe is stitched — the layered fabric there is thick and never moves

A rug

• Carpet moth, usually, and the underside is where to look. Thinning that shows the foundation threads, and a line of damage following where the rug meets the floor

The Case for Getting It Right Here

• Clothes moth means the work is the wardrobes, the garment bags and the stored textiles. Treating the floor achieves little
• Carpet moth means the work is the flooring, the rugs and the underside of the upholstery
• Both means both, together — treating one and not the other means the untreated half reseeds the treated half within months

In a house where a good deal of the wool in the building is in storage rather than on the floor, getting this wrong is not a small mistake.

If You Are Still Not Sure

1. Photograph the damage rather than the moth
2. Note whether the damaged items were on the floor or in storage
3. Check one wool garment at the shoulders, and one patch of carpet under a heavy item
4. Whichever has the fresh webbing and the live larvae is the active one
5. If both do, treat it as both

Treatment starts from £220. Describe the damaged item and where it was kept — that answers the question, and a description of the insect usually does not.