First beat and vacuum the rug to get all of the active moth life out.

1. If the rug is small enough wrap it in plastic and shove it into a freezer for at least 24 hours. Kills eggs and pupae.

2. Pyrethium based insect powder (available through garden departments) can be brushed into the carpet (both sides) and allowed to sit for at least 24 hours. Wrap the rug in plastic so the little stinkers don't get out. Pyrethium is derived from chrysanthemum flowers and is all natural, so a double bonus! Some cleaning places will buy an old chest freezer and keep it just for rugs, we also have a place here that has a fumigation tank where they can de-pest whole rooms full of furniture but it smells awful afterward.

3. Thouroughly beat and/or vacuum the rug to remove all the remaining debris: eggs, wool bits and remaining pupae.

4. We still uses the old flood floor to wash, so almost everything is flooded with weater, shampooed with mild detergent, wringered or extracted to remove the water and dried in the dry room.

Repeat 3 and 4 until nothing further comes out.

When it appears that all of the solid moth debris is gone, at the end of #4 and before drying THOUROUGHLY SATURATE the rug with mothproofing. we like magnesium fluorosilicate (laundry soap) that we get from a local laundry supply, but Carey's or something similar will work as well. The key thing is to soak it down and not rinse it off. Remove the excess through the wringer or an extractor and then thoroughly dry the rug.

**Don't use anything like malathion or bug spray. You can permanently discolor the wool.

Hope this helps.

Thea Sand
Emmanuel's Rug & Upholstery
Seattle, WA