Carpet moth

lizzywig

I was having a sort out in the bedroom today, moving some bits about and discovered carpet moth - I thought it was maggots at first it was so bad!! OH hoovered it up and we tried contacting the landlady for 3 hours before she got back to us. It's eaten away most of the carpet in about a quarter of the bedroom.

She said she would get some spray and asked if we would mind clearing it all up. I said that was ok but that we're not trained and have no idea what we're doing. My Dad works somewhere that has had it before, they had to get professionals in who said you shouldn't try and deal with it yourself as you need industrial cleaner, face masks and vacate for 5 hours. However I did find info online about how to deal with it yourself.

Apparently it will eventually turn into moths and will invest the place (well it's already infested) and can eat up all of your CLOTHES!!!! The landlady agreed that she would contact the appropriate company tomorrow and see about the carpet if necessary.

Without even thinking about how much I am dreading going to bed tonight I'm worried about our "rights". Can she say that we should deal with this ourselves? In the past when we've had cracks and problems etc she has sent cowboys and I'm just very worried that this won't be dealt with properly. I really don't want to be living in squaler but don't know if there is anyone that can help or offer advise.

themull1

Moths will only eat natural fibres.

WestonDave

I've done home based eradication - its not particularly nasty stuff although they obviously recommend using face masks and gloves as these are sensible precautions with any sprayable chemical.

Most carpet moths like the dark, and like undisturbed areas so keep as much stuff off the floor as possible in the affected areas, keep the door to that room shut as much as possible to stop them getting into other areas. To have eaten away that much carpet unnoticed seems a bit strange, unless it was under the bed. We were alerted to ours by keeping seeing them flying around particularly in the evenings - but even then the evidence of damage to carpets was pretty minimal, so I'm surprised you haven't seen them more.

Given that its not really the landladies fault and its really a cleaning issue, I'm not sure you have any reason for her to sort it. There isn't anything she could have done to stop them getting in to the house apart from fitting it all with nasty "plastic" carpets (as they only eat the wool). On that basis her providing the chemicals may be a reasonable compromise - I'd guess there are some landlords who'd try and claim against you for the damage to the carpet, particularly as it seems to have gone unnoticed for long enough for substantial damage to have occurred.

lizzywig

Well I would agree, however there is a lot of history to this. We live in houses converted into flats that were built in the 80's, they were built in a recession and at the time they used cheap materials and they're not insulated at all. She owns about 5 flats down here and it is my understanding that most of them all full of mould. A flat, two along from us, had to be mould deep cleaned because it was an inch thick and you could see the breeze blocks!! The mould has spread through and into our end wall in the bedroom, she told us to use some mould cleaner on it, which we have. It's the same place as where these carpet moths are.

The bedroom is small, we have a double bed and at the foot of the bed my dressing table (which takes up a full wall), to the right of it was my shoe rack (which takes up a quarter wall). Neither of these items touch the wall because of the mould and we didn't want them to get ruined. If the mould ever appears we clean it immediately with a dettol mould cleaner which works well. We noticed it appearing today which is why we pulled those two things out. We last pulled things out end of November for a hoover and everything was fine then.

I think the reason the carpet moth has come is because of the damp and the fact that the dressing table has created a dark space, as you say. But this is not our fault, if we should not be putting basic things as a dressing table there then I feel that 1) we should have been told and 2) she shouldn't be letting the property.

At the moment they're still grubs, so they haven't turned into moths yet, which is why nothing is flying around. We only noticed because we were pulling everything out. She's already said she was going to put insulation in because of the mould problem but decided against it because she needed access to all the flats which she can't get.

I'm not saying it's her fault, at all, I'm just saying that it's not ours but that I feel she should be sorting it out as it's caused by the damp area due to the lack of insulation. Her handman confirmed the reason for the mould is the damp so......

kitschkitty

My mum had carpet moths last year (discovered them under the sofa) the chemical needed to get rid of them were fine no worse than treating for fleas.

anotherbaldrick

We got carpet moth a few years back. Munched quite a few areas of carpet before we realised. We got rid of them using a steam carpet spray (Polti) which we have (useful for cleaning and all sorts.
To stop them coming back we bought one of these small electrostatic insectocutors , this zaps the moths which are attracted by it's UV light before they get settled in and lay their eggs.

trufflebuggy

Lizzywig, you have my sympathies.

We've had this problem too, and they did alot of damage without us realising they were there so you're not the only one. As you know they like dark places and thats were our damage was done.... under the heavy furniture you don't tend to move ever!!!

We used Protector C, treat the underside of the carpet too (whatever spray you use) we also put down Agrodust under where the heavy furniture was to kill them in their tracks should they want to venture back there and to kill any emerging moths you didn't kill off in larvae form with the spray.

Hope this helps

denis06

We have discovered a good deal of damage to our carpets due to moth larvae.

Is this something that we can claim for on the household insurance?

cyclonebri1

Having yesterday discovered we have a similar infestation and having checked out our home insurance I can categorically say that no it's not covered in Policy. I suspect this is the standrd norm.

Can I add to this thread?
We have a bedroom and closet that is infected by these critters. Small areas which were under the bed have been eaten thread bare. We have seen live grubs in this area and there are shed cases all over the bedroom and closet. I now fine that my wife 1st spotted a few of these shell about 6 months ago but mistook them for carpet filaments, they are almost identical.

The one question I have is why have we not seen a single live or dead moth in all this time??????

Anyway the carpets going, swmbo can't live with the thoughts of what's been in there.


Just to add after searching the whole top floor we have found 3 dead moths, nothing in the trap after 48 hrs.
Does anyone else have any thing to offer??

I'll try and smoke out the !!!!!!s within the next few days and do all the standard stuff I've seen recomended.

:eek::eek::eek::eek: sums it up.

lolly_896

My mum had a really bad infestion of carpet moths and she swears blind that it was from some rugs she bought from ikea woolen ones. The carpet had become thread bare in places. Also she is forever cleaning! She also tried to claim on the insurance with no success

cyclonebri1

lolly_896 wrote: »

My mum had a really bad infestion of carpet moths and she swears blind that it was from some rugs she bought from ikea woolen ones. The carpet had become thread bare in places. Also she is forever cleaning! She also tried to claim on the insurance with no success

Highly possible, we thought it came from some roof insulation we bought a few months ago but who knows;);)