Winter and Spring are the Danger Months!!

Have you recently gone into your wardrobe to put on your best suit or  favourite cashmere jumper and noticed some strange white fluff attached to it.  But when you brush the fluff off, you discover several holes are uncovered.   If this sounds all too familiar, then unfortunately, it could mean that you have a clothes moth infestation.

Winter and Spring are the main feeding months for moth larvae, which are responsible for all this damage.  So you need to be vigilant in inspecting your clothes regularly to check whether you have a problem.  But it is not just your most expensive clothes that they target, they also love your natural fibre carpets and rugs.  And just to make it more challenging for you to find them, these clever moths tend to hide away in dark undisturbed areas where you are least likely to see them.  So think of that carpet or rug under your bed that is difficult to clean, or clothes tucked away in a wardrobe that you don’t use very often, as this is where the moths and their larvae are likely to be hiding.

How to Recognise a Clothes Moth

In order to recognise a clothes moth (also known as Tineola Bisselliella), they are roughly 5mm in length and a buff or yellowish-brown in colour (see our pest page on Moths which shows a photo of the moths attached to a moth pheromone trap).  But it is not the adult moth that causes the damage, it is their hatched larvae which do all the eating.  Clothes moth larvae are fairly transparent, and so they tend to look the same colour as the fabric they are eating, which means they blend into the carpet or clothing that they are eating, making them even harder to see.

If you happen to notice the odd moth flying around your house during summer, do not fall into the trap of thinking that it is just a regular moth and that it will find its way outside eventually. Have a look in your wardrobes and around the back of your sofas and if a moth flies out, then it is highly likely to be a clothes moth, that has been laying eggs.  If you do find any indication that they are indeed clothes moths, you need to do something both before the larvae hatch out, and also after they hatch out, as you need to destroy their life cycle, before they  destroy your clothes!

A difficult problem to solve

Clothes moths can be extremely difficult to eradicate completely, especially for a long established infestation.

If you wait too long, you will be facing the terrible problem of dealing with an established infestation, which can be more timely and more costly to solve.

From when the moth lays the eggs until the eggs hatch into larvae can take anywhere from four days (in summer) to three weeks (in winter), and so your treatments need to reflect these seasonable timing differences.

What solutions are available?

A multi-targeting approach is usually best to control a moth infestation and the range of options available to you is listed below:

1) Trapping moths on moth pheromone traps, is effective to only a limited degree as unfortunately this method only tends to trap the male moths.  However, these traps do provide an excellent means of monitoring the level of your current infestation, as lots of trapped moths in a few days means that you have a serious problem.  The other benefit of the pheromone traps is that, as the male moths will be drawn to them, and trapped, then at least they are prevented from mating with female moths once they have been captured.  But beware that most clothes moths rarely fly, especially the females who tend to run or hop in order to travel to their destinations. If you happen to see a clothes moth in the air, it is likely that this will be a male flying about in search of a mate. It is this act of mating that is used to lure the clothes moths into the pheromone trap.

2) You may attempt to physically catch the moths and kill them but unfortunately, even this may not entirely solve your problem. Clothes moths lay eggs which, once hatched, produce
larvae and unless these are also destroyed, they will then grow into clothes moths and the infestation will re-occur.

3) Invest in a spray that is used specifically to kill clothes moths. This can be an effective solution for killing adult moths, but as the spray is not able to kill the eggs, this will not prevent the eggs hatching out and recommencing their life cycle of eating your clothes.

4) A final method is to bring in professional exterminators; who will visit your house and undertake a number of treatments to greatly reduce (or if the infestation is small, eradicate) your current infestation. The first treatment is to kill off the clothes moths that already exist.  The second treatment is absolutely essential as it is this treatment which kills off any remaining larvae that may have hatched from the eggs since the first treatment.

Terminex Limited is one of the few pest control companies that specialises in moths, as we have a highly trained entomologist (who specialised in insects at Imperial College London) who is able to analyse your problem very accurately and offer a tailored solution that will help eradicate your moths as quickly as possible.  It often works out cheaper to use our top specialist at Terminex, as he is very successful at finding the most efficient solution, which is also likely to be the quickest and cheapest solution.  Just so you are aware, the minimum number of treatments for moth treatments is two  treatments, as it is essential to treat the moth’s life cycle both before and after the eggs hatch out.

So do telephone or email us to come and take a look at your problem, as we offer free on-site surveys for moths, which in themselves will provide you a great deal of advice on the various options that are available to you.  Terminex is a company that really cares that all its customers receive the highest level of service possible, and it is for this reason that many of our customers return to use us again for any new or different problems they experience.  We are also delighted to offer discounts to returning customers, even if you only used our services several years ago.

Just call us on 020 7503 8234, oe email us at enquiries@terminex.co.uk and we will be delighted to assist you.

Love from your Terminex team

Rat and Mice Problems in London

In early November, London sees a large increase in mice and rats problems, as the cooler weather drives these furry bundles into your home or business premises.  These unwelcome guests are certainly not welcome additions to most peoples’ lives, and apart from causing serious distress and major risk of food contamination, their constant gnawing can result to serious damage to the wiring and other fixtures and fittings.  It is not uncommon for a whole house to require rewiring as a result of rat damage, which is a very expensive undertaking, especially when you phone your insurers to discover that these furry bundles are classified as “Acts of God” and are excluded under most insurance policies.  I assume that insurers believe that vermin are a maintenance issue and so lack of maintenance (i.e. pest control)  is the cause of your woes, rather than some unfortunate and unusual event.  It would appear that in the world of “insurance exclusions” rats are just causing normal wear and tear.   It’s all in the small print darling!

So whilst we cannot rewrite your insurance policy, we can provide some professional advice and treatments to severely reduce your mice or rat problem.  We cannot stop these ubiquitious critters living in your area of London (if we could do that, then we really would be rich – not to mention famous),  but we can help stop them entering your home, by taking a close look at any proofing issues that your home may have.  i.e. that tiny hole behind your kitchen skirting boards is just the spot that we will plug up to stop future access.  But of course, for those beasties who have already taken up residence inside your home, a more intensive programme of proprietary baiting (i.e. we make fresh moist baits – so much more appealing that those dusty old grains) is usually required to eradicate them.

To make the whole process of booking appointments hassle free, we will even provide you with a timed appointment that suits your lifestyle (i.e. our technician will liase directly with you) So no “all day” or “morning/afternoon” appointments here!  We like to treat our customers the way we like to be treated – with a genuine smile and a good dose of professional service.

We also love hearing from you about any unusual pest problems that you may be experiencing, as this is where we get to play detective (assuming our very own in-house specialist entomologist does not have an immediate answer).  So please just send us your insects, in a protective sealed container, and we will even identify them for free!

We wish you a very happy “pest free” autumn.

If you would like some advice to discuss some problem you have, please contact us straight away or phone 0800 9752736

Love from your Terminex Team

1st November 2011

Terminex recently performed work at a multiple flat property, which due to severe rat damage (wiring damaged and pipework) , required the entire ground floor to be taken up, causing the kitchen and bathroom to be removed to gain access. This was an extremely expensive problem as “acts of god” (i.e. those hungry rats) are not covered by most home insurance policies. So with a £50,000 plus bill to repair the wiring, pipework and replace the kitchen and bathroom, there are now a lot of very upset flat owners -  as each flat owner has to contribute towards the repairs, even though only the ground floor flat has suffered damage.

The cause of this problem was rats entering the property via an uncapped open drain, which was underground under the main house, and which rats had entered from the main outside sewer. Once inside the open drain, they only had to burrow to the surface and find themselves under the ground floor of these poor people’s house.  If you have seen the “Incredible Mr Fox” and think that he was clever, then think again; your urban rat is just as cunning and equally clever at finding its way into your home, especially if someone has failed to cap old drain pipes.

So be warned, if you are doing any renovations that involve drains, please make sure you check with your builder to ensure that they have capped all old drains.  This is particularly a problem if your new kitchen extension is built over former external land, which formerly contained main drains.  Often your council’s building control department will require you to rebuild new drains outside the boundary of your property, but when doing this, be certain that all old drains (that are under your new extension) are capped to prevent rats gaining access.

Please contact us if you would like us to provide any advice on risks from rats when planning your new extension, as we can save you thousands of pounds in possible future damage if you take some simple precautions before you start building.  Builders do not often build properties to reduce the risk of rat and mice infestation, but it is important to consider these risks in the planning stage, not after your beautiful new kitchen is built and you discover a major problem.

Best Wishes with your home renovations.

Love from your Terminex Team x