Do Carpet Moth Traps Work in Slough Homes?

What a Pheromone Trap Actually Does

The sticky card is baited with a synthetic copy of the scent a female moth releases. Males follow it and stick to the card.

That is the whole mechanism, and three things follow from it.

• It catches males only. Females carry on laying
• It catches adults only. The larvae doing the damage are not attracted to anything and never go near it
• It tells you presence and rough intensity, which is genuinely useful information nobody otherwise has

The Job They Are Genuinely Good At

1. Confirming you have moths at all, before spending anything
2. Finding out roughly where they are concentrated
3. Watching a trend over weeks — rising, falling or steady
4. Checking a treatment held, three months later, without having to move furniture

Using Them to Map a Shared Building

This is the use that is worth the price of a pack, and almost nobody does it.

Put one trap in each room of your flat, one in the hallway just inside your front door, and — if the managing agent will allow it and it is not a fire door route or a trip hazard — one on the communal landing. Number them. Leave them a fortnight. Count.

• Highest count in one room, low elsewhere: the problem is in that room and probably yours alone
• Highest count in your hallway, lower deeper in: something is coming in from the common parts
• Communal trap higher than any of yours: that is a building problem and you now have a number to put in an email
• Even counts everywhere: it is established throughout, and a room-by-room approach will not be enough

Two weeks and a pack of traps turns 'I think it might be coming from the hall' into something a managing agent has to answer.

Using Them Properly

• Place them at floor level, not on a shelf — these moths stay low
• Away from draughts, doorways in constant use and direct sunlight
• One per room, numbered, with the date written on it
• Leave them at least two weeks before drawing any conclusion
• Replace them when the card is dusty or the bait is spent — check the pack, but expect roughly eight to twelve weeks
• Keep the counts written down. The trend matters more than any single number

What They Will Not Tell You

• How many larvae there are, or where
• Whether the damage is still spreading
• Whether it is carpet moth or clothes moth, in most cases
• Anything at all in the first fortnight after a treatment, when numbers are disturbed and rise before they fall

Treatment starts from £220. Bring your trap counts to the call if you have them — a fortnight of numbers from four rooms is more useful than any description of what you have seen.