Moths in Holiday Homes: Why Devon's Empty Properties Are Most at Risk

Devon has more holiday lets than almost any other county in England. From Exmouth seafront apartments to cob cottages on the edge of Dartmoor, thousands of properties within an hour of Exeter earn their keep by standing empty for part of the year.

That rhythm of occupied one week, quiet the next, works beautifully for owners. It also happens to suit one of Britain's most expensive household pests.

Clothes moths and carpet moths have risen sharply across the UK over the past decade, and part-time properties are among their favourite targets. Holiday lets, second homes, annexes and rarely used spare rooms all offer the same thing: natural fibres left undisturbed in the dark for weeks at a time.

Here's why empty properties are so vulnerable, what the damage can cost, and how owners can get ahead of the problem before next season.

Why do moths target empty properties?

The first thing to understand is that adult moths do no damage at all. The culprits are their larvae, tiny cream-coloured grubs that hatch from eggs and spend two months or more eating wool, cashmere, silk, feathers and fur.

Larvae have three requirements: natural fibres to eat, warmth, and darkness with minimal disturbance. A well-run family home denies them the third one. Carpets get vacuumed, wardrobes get opened, furniture gets shifted. Every disturbance interrupts the life cycle.

A holiday cottage between bookings denies them nothing. Consider what the average Devon holiday let offers:

Character furnishings. Wool carpets, wool throws, feather cushions and sheepskin rugs are exactly what guests book a cottage for, and exactly what larvae eat.
Background warmth. Heating left on low through winter to keep damp at bay also keeps moths breeding when cold would normally stop them.
Long quiet spells. A property shut from late October to Easter gives larvae five months of uninterrupted feeding.
Nobody watching. Damage that a resident would spot in week one can run for an entire winter unseen.

Second homes and little-used spare rooms follow the same pattern. The blanket box that gets opened twice a year is a larder. So is the carpet under the guest bed.

The changeover day blind spot

Owners often assume a weekly clean protects them. In practice, changeover cleans are the reason infestations go unnoticed.

Turnaround teams work fast and focus on what guests see: surfaces, bathrooms, linens, floors in the middle of rooms. Almost nobody moves the wardrobe, pulls out the sofa bed or vacuums the carpet edge behind the headboard on a changeover day. Those undisturbed margins are precisely where carpet moth larvae feed.

The result is a property that looks immaculate every Friday while being quietly eaten at the edges.

Signs of moths in a holiday home

Whether you manage the property yourself or use an agency, build these checks into at least one visit per season:

Threadbare or bald patches on carpets, especially along skirting boards, in corners and under furniture
Small irregular holes in stored blankets, throws, spare bedding or wool garments
Fine silky webbing in wardrobe corners, drawers or the airing cupboard
Tiny tube-shaped cases, about the size of a grain of rice, on carpets or textiles
Gritty, sand-like debris in drawers and blanket boxes
Small golden-brown moths making weak, fluttering flights at dusk

One moth on a summer evening may mean nothing. Two or three of the signs above together almost always mean an active infestation.

What can moth damage cost a holiday let?

This is where part-time properties get punished twice.

The first cost is the damage itself. Re-carpeting a two-bedroom cottage in wool runs well into four figures, and that's before replacing throws, cushions and any furniture with damaged upholstery. Insurance rarely helps, since most policies treat moth damage as a maintenance issue rather than an insurable event.

The second cost is unique to holiday lets: the booking calendar. Guests notice holes in blankets and bald carpets, and they mention them in reviews. Worse, a serious infestation discovered in July can force treatment, airing and refurbishment right through peak season, when every lost week is money that can't be recovered.

An Exeter homeowner who catches moths early loses a jumper. A holiday let owner who catches them late can lose a chunk of the season's income.

How to protect an empty property from moths

The good news is that prevention is cheap and mostly about routine:

Deep vacuum on rotation. Once a month in season, and before any shutdown, vacuum carpet edges, under beds and behind furniture, not just the open floor. Empty the vacuum outside afterwards.
Hot wash between seasons. Launder throws, blankets and spare bedding at 55°C or above, or dry clean them, before storing.
Store textiles sealed. Anything wool, silk or feather that sits unused over winter belongs in sealed bags or lidded boxes, not loose in a blanket box.
Run pheromone traps. A few pounds buys sticky traps that catch adult males and act as an early warning system. Check them at changeovers.
Inspect at shutdown and reopening. The October close-down and the spring reopening are the two moments most likely to catch a problem while it's still small.

When to call in professional help

DIY measures work on light, early problems. Established infestations are a different job, because eggs and larvae will be distributed through carpets, underlay, wardrobes and upholstery across multiple rooms, and every missed pocket restarts the cycle.

That's doubly true for owners who live in Exeter but let a property on the coast, or vice versa. A proper DIY campaign means repeated vacuuming, washing and re-treating over six to eight weeks, which simply isn't realistic when you visit fortnightly. In those cases it makes far more sense to bring in a dedicated moth treatment company that can survey the whole property, treat every affected room in one coordinated visit and confirm the infestation is fully cleared before your next guests arrive.

Timing matters too. Shoulder season is the ideal window for treatment, when the property can be accessed easily and aired properly without cancelling bookings.

The bottom line

Devon's holiday homes will always be attractive to moths for the same reasons they're attractive to guests: warm, comfortable and full of natural fibres. The difference between a non-event and a four-figure bill is almost always how early the problem is spotted.

Build edge-to-edge checks into your seasonal routine, keep stored textiles sealed, and treat the first real signs as a deadline rather than a curiosity. Your carpets, your reviews and next summer's booking calendar will all be better for it.