Where Carpet Moth Larvae Hide in Woodley Properties

Under What Could Not Be Moved

The most common gap, and an entirely understandable one. On the day of a treatment, a wardrobe full of clothes, a divan bed or a large sofa often stays where it is.

That leaves the single most likely site in the room untreated: dark, still, undisturbed floor. If one thing gets emptied and moved before a second treatment, make it the heaviest item in the worst room.

The Rooms Nobody Mentioned

A treatment is usually scoped from where moths have been seen. Adults move; larvae stay. By the time anything is visible in one room, eggs have often been laid in several.

• The spare bedroom nobody goes in
• A box room or study used for storage
• The landing, which connects everything and gets treated as a corridor rather than a room
• The stairs, particularly the outer ends of the treads
• A dining room used a few times a year
• A room that was locked, occupied or being decorated on the day

Beneath the Carpet Rather Than In It

Older felt underlay is animal fibre. If that is where the larvae are, a treatment applied to the pile can be done perfectly and the population is untouched.

Lift a corner somewhere it will not show — a wardrobe base, under a bed — and look at the underlay and the floor beneath. If that is the source, the treatment has to reach through or the carpet has to come up.

The Things That Are Not Flooring

Frequently outside the scope of a treatment unless somebody asks for them to be in it.

• Rugs, top and underside, and the floor beneath them
• Sofas and armchairs — hessian, webbing and natural fillings
• Wardrobes, at the shoulders of wool coats and jumpers
• Stored bedding, wool blankets and feather items
• Curtains, especially wool or wool-lined ones, at the hem
• Cushions and throws

Outside the Living Space Entirely

• The loft, and anything textile stored in it
• The garage, and any old carpet or underlay kept there
• A shed or outbuilding with bedding, camping gear or upholstery in it
• An airing cupboard
• Under the stairs

Cold does not solve this. Development slows in an unheated space and resumes when it warms, which is why a garage tends to produce its population in spring.

The One Outside Your Control

An adjoining property with the same problem, sharing a void, a loft space or a floor. If a property has been treated thoroughly more than twice and still returns, this is worth raising with a neighbour, awkward as that conversation is.

Before a Second Treatment

1. Empty and move the heaviest item in the worst room
2. Lift a carpet corner and check the underlay
3. Walk every carpeted room, including the ones nobody mentioned
4. Open the loft, the garage and the airing cupboard and look
5. Decide whether rugs, upholstery and stored textiles are in scope
6. Write down what you find, room by room

Treatment starts from £220. That list, filled in, is what makes a second treatment the last one.