NYE Private Client · By appointment only
Clothes Moth Treatment on the Gold Coast: Locust Valley, Mill Neck, Lattingtown, Oyster Bay Cove and Centre Island
Houses with a century of wool in themneed a program, not a visit.
Mill Neck is the highest-income ZIP in New York State by tax return, and some of its houses have had the same family rugs since the 1920s. Private Client assesses the whole property, processes everything on site and leaves a record.
Gold Coast houses: heirloom textiles and hundred-year-old closets
Mill Neck (11765) ranks first among all New York ZIP codes by average adjusted gross income on tax returns, and Locust Valley (11560) ranks twelfth. The houses behind those numbers are not new. Many are the surviving mansions and carriage houses of the original Gold Coast estates, with plaster walls, wide-plank floors, deep eaves and attics that have held the same trunks for decades.
That history is the moth problem. Heirloom rugs, hunt coats, a grandmother’s cashmere, a felt-lined silver chest, horsehair-stuffed antique upholstery and wool carpet pad under a 1920s runner are all keratin, and all of them have been sitting undisturbed for exactly as long as a moth population needs. A webbing clothes moth does not need a wardrobe; a forgotten wool blanket in a cedar chest on the third floor is enough, and from there the dressing rooms are a flight of stairs away.
Old houses also have more voids: behind radiators, under built-in window seats, inside the dead space where a closet was added to a bedroom in 1950. Our assessment on the Gold Coast is longer than anywhere else we work because the building is as much a suspect as the clothes. Treatment goes into those voids; the garments and rugs go through heat or cold on site.
Nothing leaves your home.
Assessment, processing, treatment and a report, in one visit.
The full program is described hour by hour on the Private Client page. In Locust Valley it runs like this.
Private assessment, $750
Jorge Bedoya, ACE, inspects every closet, storage room and rug and photographs each garment as clear, at risk or infested. You receive the inventory and a fixed program price. The fee is credited to a program booked within 30 days.
Processed on site
Heat-safe garments go through our chamber in your home with a probe in the core of the load. Cashmere, silk and anything delicate is frozen in our portable freezers. Closets are emptied, HEPA-vacuumed and treated in the structure; rugs are done on both sides.
Report and monitoring
Everything goes back in its original order. You receive the Private Client Report with findings, inventory, probe and freezer logs. Monitors are read at 30, 60 and 90 days; those visits verify, they do not re-treat.
About an hour from Midwood via the LIE and Route 106/107. Gold Coast programs are nearly always the two-day Plus program because of house size and the number of rooms to inspect.
What we rate most often on the Gold Coast:
| Garment | Why moths want it | Rating | How we handle it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Heirloom and antique rugs, wool carpet pad | Decades of undisturbed wool; the usual source | Heat, probed | Both sides inspected; pad lifted; antiques to your restorer with our findings, runners treated in place. |
| Hunt coats, riding wool, tweed shooting jackets | Dense wool stored between seasons in trunks and cedar chests | Heat, probed | Chamber with a core probe; trunks and chests emptied, vacuumed and treated. |
| Inherited cashmere, camel hair and vicuña | Fine fibre, often decades old and fragile | Freeze | Freeze on site; refolded in acid-free tissue; condition documented in the report. |
| Horsehair-stuffed antique upholstery | Keratin inside the furniture, invisible until adults emerge | Specialist | Inspected and documented; your upholsterer or conservator, with our findings. |
Brand names describe fibre, construction and care only. New York Exterminating is not affiliated with any maker named. The full index is on the Private Client program page and in the Complete Guide.
Three ways to engage us.
Prices are fixed at the assessment.
Wardrobe Assessment
Estate Wardrobe Program
Estate Wardrobe Program Plus
Any repeat service within six months of a program is 50% of the original price. Payment plans are available. Apartments in the city are covered by our standard clothes moth service. We also handle mice and rats, bed bugs, carpet beetles, ants and recurring protection for Locust Valley homes under the same contact and the same standards of discretion.
Request a private assessment in Locust Valley.
Tell us the town, the size of the wardrobe and what you have seen. We reply the same business day with the next available dates.
New York Exterminating, Inc. · 1115 E 13th St, Brooklyn, NY 11230 · NYSDEC #15140 · 4.9 stars from 82 Google reviews · English and Spanish
The same program,
across the North Shore and Westchester.
Old Westbury, Roslyn, Roslyn Harbor & East HillsTwo-acre houses, cedar rooms, horse country
Scarsdale, Edgemont & HartsdaleTudor cedar closets and the attic nobody opens
Rye, Purchase, Harrison & Rye BrookSound-side humidity and estate-scale storage
All areas and the full programPackages, the day hour by hour, the report
The Complete Guide to Treating Clothes Moths ProperlyMethod, chamber, brand index and service day
Clothes moth larvae: identificationCasings, webbing and grazing on wool and silk
Why clothes moths keep coming backCashmere, rugs and the storage habit that feeds them
Clothes moths in Locust Valley: FAQ
Our rugs are antiques. Will you treat them?
We inspect both sides, lift the pad and document what we find. Runners and sturdy rugs are treated in place; fragile antique and silk rugs go to your restorer with our written findings, so they are not treated twice.
The house has been in the family for generations. Where do moths usually start in a house like that?
In stored textiles nobody has touched in years: a cedar chest on the third floor, a trunk of riding wool, a felt-lined cabinet. The dressing rooms are usually the second generation, which is why we assess the whole property.
Do you treat the voids in an old house?
Yes. Residual treatment goes into cracks, crevices and voids in the structure of empty closets and storage rooms, never onto garments or furnishings.
Is Centre Island or Bayville included?
Yes. Centre Island, Bayville, Lattingtown and Matinecock are covered under the same program as Locust Valley and Mill Neck.
How is a Gold Coast program priced?
Most are the Estate Wardrobe Program Plus at $4,500: two days, two technicians, every closet, cedar room and attic, up to six rugs. The assessment is $750 and is credited to the program.
