Can you help? Moths in my staircarpet 😭😭

[EdDaveysStuntDouble]

Nice wool carpet fitted about five or six years ago - and its suddenly developed a bald patch with tiny white eggs stuck to the stubble 🤢🤢.

I obviously need to treat the whole staircase, and presumably with something that soaks in rather than just treating the surface. Is there anything anyone has found effective that won't require us (and the cat) to wear hazmat suits till this time next year??? 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Spray shit loads of 'zero in' carpet moth and beetle killer. All over the carpet. And then vacuum vigorously a few hours later.
We had a terrible outbreak of them. The whole room had them underneath all the furniture, they would leave bald patches and lay billions of eggs! We did get rid of it just using that spray though. But we have to use it every year. It's an ongoing battle tbh.

Don't ever get woolen carpets or furniture. Synthetic only for me from now on.

They are absolute fuckers. We thought we'd got rid of them but it turns out they just lie dormant in the winter. We've cleaned the carpets and sprayed with killer/repellant but they've still come back. We're having some success with the pheromone traps at the moment, I'm definitely seeing less around (and squashing them). I get them from Amazon and place them in every room 3m apart. You can then have the satisfaction of seeing the horrible little bastards accumulating daily inside the trap 😬
I'm really wary of ever having a pure wool carpet again.

The moths only attack natural fibres, including paper. Put all susceptible possessions in a freezer for 48 hours ( that kills adults, larvae and eggs). Whilst that is cooking, remove all wool carpets far far away. The thoroughly hoover and carpet clean everywhere, especially under furniture and in nooks and crannies. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Rinse , repeat.
Good to have a hobby

Is it in a dark spot? Moths don't tend to go for open areas: it's when you move furniture you find the bald patches.

If it's open areas it's more likely carpet beetles?

They are horrific. We moved into a house with an infestation under a heavy piece of furniture left on a wool carpet. Stuff of nightmares.

We topped up that carpet in that rooms powdered and smoke bombed and got a synthetic replacement. They appeared the next year to a lesser extent in another bedroom with same carpet. Again removed it.

I do still see the very occasional carpet sized moth but not found any evidence of origin or damage. They are awful. I will never have another wool carpet.

One tip I read on here but haven't tried. Parasitic wasps. Might be worth a shot in your case. Sounds hideous but by all accounts works.

Thanks all. Its not a very dark spot, just in the corner of a step half way up the stairs. I had noticed a couple of clothes moths flying around last week so assume it's those. We don't have carpet in any furnished rooms its the staicase only that is carpeted. I will have a google as I did find eggs - tiny white ones - in the middle of the bald patch.

We generally freezeand bag our jumpers over summer but they're still out because its not all that summery, so they will all be put away now....

On going battle having fitted pure wool carpet on stairs and one bedroom. I didn't fancy chemicals in the house so we keep a handheld hoover on the stairs specifically for hoovering the moths up as soon as we see them hoping to stop them breeding. This year I've had some success with the pheromone sticky papers, lots of the little blighters have been caught on them. They apparently attract and trap the male moths only to break the breeding cycle but I won't know until next spring how successful that is.

We have wool carpets. We had an infestation 12 years ago and got an exterminator. That worked but cost hundreds of pounds and was major hassle (everything had to be in black bin bags for weeks while they came a few times to spray).

But they are in the building. So they crept back in.

This time round I DIY’d it.

1. First you need to work out where they’re coming from roughly which I guess you have. Moth traps will indicate where they’re concentrating.
2. Then I nuked them with Aviro moth killer (ordered on Amazon).
3. I moved the furniture, rolled the carpets back from the edge as far as I could (about 1.5 metres). For us, the moths were under the bed alongside one wall only. Other side of the room wasn’t affected
4. Stripped away the underlay carpet equally far.
5. hoover.
6. Scrape out the cracks between floorboards with a knife and hoover everything. That’s where ours had eggs but tbh I never found an obvious nest with eggs.
7. then spray the floorboards with Aviro. Let dry
8. Put the undercarpet back in and spray the top of that. Let dry
9. Then the wool carpet on top and spray the top of that
10. i did that twice or three times every 3 months, it took about 3 hours each time
11. they are GONE (not fully I’m sure, but I’ve only seen a handful of moths since November
12. good luck!

Wow @Dragontale that's commitment!

I think if I can't blitz them away with the carpet in situ its just going to have to be new carpet - not possible to lift and safely re-instate a staircarpet on a diy basis .

Oh and its definitely clothes-type moths- found one when I was re-hoovering this morning. At least I now know my enemy!

They can also transmute. I had carpet moth. Thought the fuckers had gone. Then DM bought me some cash and carry walnuts and they got infected with pantry moth. You have to do everything everywhere regularly.

We've been fighting the little buggers since 2020. Every carpet in our house but one is wool, we can't afford to replace them all or cope with the disruption (DS is autistic). Also while they're eating the all you can eat buffet of the carpets, they're not in the wardrobes/drawers.

We should spray every 3 months, but rarely manage that, though we got numbers down drastically last year they've exploded this year. Pretty much all woollen clothes are packed away in vacuum pack storage bags. After we found them we rearranged furniture with an eye to being able treat under them without pulling everything out (I have a LOT of books, I don't think I could move them all every three months). Can't pull up the carpets to spray underneath as they're all professionally laid and I'd never get them back.

I am going to get the landing/stairs/hall re-carpeted when I can afford it, while it doesn't have furniture, it's a hard area to spray and keep everyone out of (inc our cat).

A vote for parasitic wasps. We've used them and they work really well. They are borderline microscopic - smaller than a full stop - and can't fly or sting humans. They die off naturally once the moth infection has gone as there are no more moths to eat.

Clothes moths can't eat paper - they feed on keratin which only comes from animal-things: wool, silk, fur, feathers, sometimes skin on things like taxidermy. They can't eat cellulose (from plant-based things) so no cotton / linen / paper. If paper had been nibbled it's usually silverfish. Or sometimes booklice. Wood-boring insect pests like woodworm (aka furniture beetle) and deathwatch beetle have been known to bore through books.

They may well be hatching out from cocoons in your clothes, carpets or curtains

I say you take off and nuke it from outer space.
It's the only way to be sure.

I've got an outbreak at the moment- the seem to be coming from under the bed but I can't see where. Smoke bombs haven't worked. For the past 2 weeks I spray this every other day under the bed and there are less moths but I still see them every few days. Thanks for the ant powder tip - I will try this on the carpet edges!

www.amazon.co.uk/Carpet-Moth-Killer-Spray-1Ltr/dp/B011V6QRJY/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=34POAJFN3RZNH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.En1q9qUmRE5x1EJpsQgkKJRVlowAdiNbAerAYpmwkIYA1-M_66bS41SaQruc1qcSetTKffqybCCf6q_irHOFBJ8ZvC2F86HKOM5F-7huBVQRaN7FCHVP0aL-nk9eNOfOqDfGAN05qXZzuRnPvSn3zfuZ5ZsqADZZeeE1k7BIKx_kVXJJ9lHTTWwgcAbF0IckOYhRQBa7iog882jqvkB8Ig.4J28_vaYGzBdD1-LqTt3f0rFufrcue7OG0VKI15BIE8&dib_tag=se&keywords=pest+expert+moth+spray&qid=1720037298&sprefix=pest+expert+moth+spray%2Caps%2C188&sr=8-4

Urgh. Clothes moths!! Nightmare.

About 3yrs ago I was getting rid of 20 to 30 a day. I put moth traps about and they were effective and caught loads in addition to the ones I was manually destrying. This year, I'm down to about one a week. Only the males ones fly, so if you can destroy every one you see, you'll start to reduce the population.

I don't have carpets, but my DPs do and noticed an ever growing patch on their stair carpet. They got rid last year and replaced with a non-wool carpet.

Whilst reading up on how to nuke the bastards the first year, I read about a monastery where moths were eating all of the prayer mats. They called in a specialist, insisted not a single moth should be killed, and the specialist spent months there, catching moths and releasing them back in the wild.

And oh yes, I forgot! Year two, I got some parasitic wasps and let them get to work as I left for a holiday.

Parasitic wasps work pretty well, but you have to not use insecticide for a month before getting them and don’t hoover for a month while they hatch.

pherwmonw traps everywhere (on the ground too) to see where they are coming from. Every room, in wardrobes.