Carpet Moth Control in Potters Bar

Carpet Moth Control in Potters Bar

Potters Bar has a lot of inter-war and immediately post-war housing, and one detail of that stock comes up again and again: built-in wardrobes and cupboards fitted against an outside wall, often in the chimney breast alcoves.

Those cupboards are dark, never moved, frequently a little cooler and damper than the room, and they are full of wool.

Inter-war stock

Look in the Alcove Cupboard

The alcove cupboard is worth treating as the first place to look in this kind of house, for four reasons at once. It is permanently dark. It is built in, so the floor of it has not been vacuumed since it was fitted. It backs onto an outside wall or a chimney breast, so it runs cooler and slightly damper than the room. And its entire contents are clothes.

What we find in them is consistent: damage on the shoulders of things hanging at the back, cases in the corners of the base, and often a layer of old carpet or felt under everything that predates the current occupants.

Three things worth doing, and the first is free:

• Empty it right out once a year and look at the base, the back corners and the shoulders of what hangs at the back.
• Take out any old carpet, felt or underlay lining the base. It is a food supply that serves no purpose.
• Store the wool you actually wear at the front where it moves, and anything going away for the season sealed rather than hanging.

What you are looking for in there is larvae and their cases rather than moths — the larva is the stage that eats, and it does it quietly at the bottom of the cupboard.

Damp is worth a mention on its own here. It does not cause moths, but a cupboard on a cold outside wall that is slightly damp is also a cupboard where clothes are not being worn or moved, and the two problems keep company.

Short answers

Potters Bar Questions

Going further

Carpet Moth Guides