Fabric pets can cause major damage in the home, to clothes, carpets, curtains and any other textiles in soft furnishings. Preventing moths and beetles from damaging fabrics such as wool, silk, and fur is simple once you learn how to recognize them and the steps you can take to protect your home.
Carpet Beetle Larvae
While adult carpet beetles feed on flower pollen and nectar rather than fabric, carpet beetle larvae feed on natural textiles that contain a protein called keratin. This includes textiles such as wool, fur, silk, and leather, and these larvae will also feed on human hair, feathers, book bindings, bone, and other dead insects. Plant-based fabrics such as linen and cotton are typically safe from carpet beetle larvae, as long as they are clean.
Carpet beetle larvae typically chew holes through textiles and fabric. Their preferred habitat is dark, undisturbed areas; however they will often travel slowly between different rooms in a house, causing major damage to fabrics in different rooms over several years if they are not detected.
Clothes Moth Larvae
Clothes moth larvae feed on hair, fur, wool and feathers. Occasionally they will also feed on leather, mohair, silk and similar textiles. As with carpet beetle larvae, these pests feed on the keratin protein that these fabrics contain. Unlike carpet beetle larvae, moth larvae do not relocate to new areas; instead they feed in the area where eggs hatch until they spin cocoons for incubation to the adult stage.
Clothes moth larvae prefer to feed in areas where they are left undisturbed for long periods of time, such as in sections of carpet located under furniture, or in containers that are used to store clothing. Adult clothes moths do not feed on textiles; however they will lay between 100 and 300 eggs in locations where the larvae that hatch will have access to plenty of food.
Other Fabric Pests
More rarely, insects such as silverfish, crickets, cockroaches and termites may feed on fabrics.
- Silverfish feed on materials containing starches, and may feed on starched fabric.
- Crickets feed on vegetable material, and may damage fabrics if they are stained with perspiration or food.
- Cockroaches eat an enormous variety of foods, and may feed on wool and hair, particularly if they are stained with food.
- Termites feed on materials containing cellulose, and may feed on fabrics such as cotton and linen that are of plant origin.
Treating and Preventing Infestations
The most difficult aspect of treating fabric pest infestations is locating the infested area. Often, the first signs of infestation are noticed only when adult carpet beetles or clothes moths emerge from their larval nests. Adult carpet beetles are very small-around one sixteenth of an inch long-and are typically black or mottled with red, white or gray. Adult clothes moths are around half an inch long, and buff-colored with four wings. They are very weak flyers, and avoid light.
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