Carpet or wooden floor (moths)

[Marygoldsilver]

We seem to have a moth infestation, started spotting around 2 months ago, and now we see one or 2 everyday; mainly upstarts where there is carpet. We booked a treatment to get rid of them; The carpet is 12 years old and it is on the stairs and the bedrooms; we need to change it as well; but the person doing the treatment said it is better to do it when we get the moths controlled as they can hide in very small spaces.

I am keen on replacing the carpet with wooden floor because of the moths and the dust carpets accumulate. DH is not keen, he likes carpet. I guess we can have carpets and get moth treatment and control every 3 months which will be expensive; but I hate living with pests so pay whatever is needed to get rid of them.

What are people's opinion.

I don't have any carpet, all floors are laminate or tiled. Two years ago I had a horrific moth infestation, I was catching about 25 every day. I hung up sticky traps which caught loads too.

Last year, they started to appear again but in lesser numbers, so I bought some parasitic wasps. Moths vanished!

Touch wood, apart from one that appeared a couple of nights ago, I've not had any this year whereas 2yrs ago they were everywhere by now.

Long story short, I don't think it matters about flooring (but obviously they love natural fibres) but do get some wasps (I got mine from amazon), they work and apparently the National Trust use them to keep away moths.

I replaced a month munched wool carpet with a synthetic one. Moths aren't interested in that, and TBH it's near identical. I was always a bit snobbish about them before, but it's fine. And I live in an old, cold property so don't want wooden flooring.

Thank you so much for the advice. That is very helpful. We will look for the parasitic wasps and replace the carpet with synthetic one. It is not as bad just at the moment, we see one or two per day, but I know will get bad if we don't do anything.

From wiki

In 2021 the National Trust in England embarked on a trial of using Trichogramma evanescenss^, which parasitises clothes moth eggs, in conjunction with pheromones to control common clothes moths, which cause serious damage to carpets, furniture, clothing and other wool and silk objects in historic buildings.[25] The trial was abandoned in 2023; while the microwasps performed well at reducing moth populations in combination with pheromones, they were no better than pheromones alone.[26

Some people recommend diatomaceous earth as a remedy. You get the food grade stuff and dust it around where larvae or adult bugs might be.

We get occasional carpet beetle flying in and sometimes a couple will damage fabrics. I bought a tub of this DE and will try it this year. It's cheap and non-toxic, so might be worth a try?

I had a horrendous moth infestations in a previous home - source was an old feather filled cushions but had carpets eaten etc. It was expensive to treat and I’m kern to avoid a recurrence!

My main comment is if you are really serious about getting rid of them, would you consider taking up your carpets and having bare floorboards for a few months this summer while you REALLY get it under control (I did this in my latest house)

Flooring wise: I think ideal would be laminate/wood in the bedrooms and a synthetic carpet on the stairs.

I didn’t do this myself: you can buy treated wool carpets with a moth proof guarantee which I did: they are a premium vs normal carpets but I really like the feel. Synthetic/hard floor would be a more rational choice though

once you have everything under control, use moth ‘bombs’ a couple of times a year to prevent any further issues

@BlooberryBiskits can you please tell me what brand of guaranteed carpet you found?
My "moth-proofed" 2 year old carpet (Brinton and Ulster) has been eaten. Westex do not guarantee and in fact have told me their carpet is NOT mothproof (they say they will update their incorrect website).

The problem is the larvae can live for up to 3 three years! We moved into property infested by moths - we've used everything from the bombs (useless) the wasps, the diatomaceous earth, the phemone traps and the pesticides - lots of them. There's nothing in the rooms that are infested but they still appear. We keep on top of it. They start appearing in Feb and by June they are gone - that's the pattern so far. I tumble dry all the wool clothing regularly (it has to be dry to do this safely) for 20 minutes on high. We need a new stair carpet - the current on is synthetic...not sure what we are going to do.