NYE Private Client · By appointment only
Clothes Moth Treatment in the Somerset Hills: Far Hills, Bedminster, Peapack-Gladstone, Bernardsville, Mendham and Harding, New Jersey
Horse country has a tack room,and the tack room is where the moths live.
Somerset Hills and Morris County estates are assessed by an Associate Certified Entomologist and processed on site with heat, freezing, steam and HEPA vacuuming, from the dressing room to the barn. Nothing leaves the property. Programs from $3,000, ninety minutes from our Brooklyn office.
Jorge Bedoya, ACEUpdated November 1, 20268 min readThe Somerset Hills: the hunt, the barn, the trophy room and the house in between
Far Hills, Peapack-Gladstone, Bedminster, Bernardsville, Mendham and Harding are the estate belt of New Jersey: ten-acre zoning, eighteenth-century farmhouses rebuilt around the hunt, and the country’s equestrian capital at Gladstone, home of the United States Equestrian Team. Peapack-Gladstone ranks in the top hundred ZIPs nationally by per-capita income, Far Hills ranked twelfth in the country by average adjusted gross income in a 2020 Bloomberg analysis, and Harding’s New Vernon and Green Village are the same households on the Morris side of the line. The ZIP sale-price lists miss all of them, because a dozen houses change hands in a year.
The house holds more keratin than any other type we treat. A tack room with wool coolers, saddle pads, fleece-lined boots and the horse’s own hair on everything; a mudroom of hunt coats, breeches, wool stock ties and the dog beds; a trophy room with mounted heads, fox masks and feather; a guest cottage and a converted barn used three weekends a year; and a dressing room of cashmere and tweed that commutes to the city. In a house like this, treating the wardrobe and leaving the barn means the moths are back in a season, because the barn is the source. The assessment walks it first.
Many of these households keep an apartment in Manhattan and a second house in Florida or the Hamptons, and wool travels between them. When the assessment finds activity we treat the city residence under the same report within two weeks, and in New York the whole program, including any structural work, is performed by New York Exterminating under its own license. Estate managers and barn managers can book and brief us directly; many of our clients never meet us, and that is the point.
Nothing leaves your home.
Assessment, processing, monitoring and a report, in one visit.
The full program is described hour by hour on the Private Client page, and the way it runs in New Jersey on the New Jersey page. Here it runs like this.
Private assessment, $750
Jorge Bedoya, ACE, inspects every closet, storage room, barn and rug and photographs each garment as clear, at risk or infested, rated against our Fabric and Brand Care Index. 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, steamed and HEPA-vacuumed; rugs are done on both sides. Everything goes back in its photographed order.
Report and monitoring
You receive the Private Client Report with findings, inventory, probe and freezer logs, and the New Jersey partner’s documentation where a product was applied to the structure. Monitors are read at 30, 60 and 90 days; those visits verify, they do not re-treat.
Ninety minutes to an hour and three quarters from Midwood via I-78 to Far Hills, Bedminster and Peapack-Gladstone, and via I-287 to Bernardsville, Mendham and Harding. Most Somerset Hills estates are the two-day Plus program, because the barn, tack room, guest cottage and trophy room are part of the job; a house without horses is a one-day program. Booked Tuesday to Thursday, or as an overnight paired with a neighboring booking.
What we expect to rate most often in the Somerset Hills:
| Garment | Why moths want it | Rating | How we handle it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hunt coats, breeches, stock ties and wool riding kit | Horsehair, sweat and wool, stored in a mudroom or tack room | Heat, probed | Chamber with a core probe; the mudroom and tack room steamed and vacuumed. |
| Coolers, saddle pads, fleece-lined boots and blankets | Barn-stored, never cleaned, the richest larval food on the property | Heat, probed | Chamber in open mesh with a probe in the fold; the barn is walked as a source. |
| Mounted heads, fox masks, feather and hair-on hides | Hair and feathers on a form, in a room closed all week | Specialist | Documented and referred to a taxidermist or conservator; a single mount can seed a whole floor. |
| Cashmere and tweed that commutes to the city | Worn daily, hung in two closets | Freeze | Frozen on site; the city closet is checked under the same report. |
| Antique rugs and needlepoint in the principal rooms | Wool pile and wool on canvas, under furniture that never moves | Case by case | Both sides inspected; steamed and vacuumed in place, or frozen by size. Antique rugs and needlepoint to your restorer or conservator. |
Brand names describe fibre, construction and care only. New York Exterminating is not affiliated with any maker named. The full Luxury Fabric and Brand Care Index, sixty entries from vicuña to piano felt, is the reference behind every rating on this page.
Three ways to engage us.
Prices are fixed at the assessment.
Wardrobe Assessment
Estate Wardrobe Program
Estate Wardrobe Program Plus
In New Jersey, New York Exterminating performs the assessment, the on-site heat, freezing, steam and HEPA processing, the monitoring and the report. Any pesticide application to the structure, when the assessment finds one is warranted, is performed by a New Jersey-licensed company under its own license, scheduled by us and shown as a separate line. How New Jersey is different. Any repeat service within six months of a program is 50% of the original price. Payment plans are available.
The same program,
on every side of the city.
“I do the assessment myself because the assessment is the job. Anyone can run a heat chamber. Knowing which jacket has horsehair canvas inside it, which coat will delaminate at 120 degrees and which rug is the actual source is what you are paying for. If I would not put a garment of my own through a step, it does not go through that step.”
Environmental scientist by training. NYSDEC #15140. What an ACE is · About Jorge
Request a private assessment in the Somerset Hills.
Tell us the town, the size of the house, whether there is a barn and a tack room, and what you have seen. We reply the same business day.
New York Exterminating, Inc. · 1115 E 13th St, Brooklyn, NY 11230 · NYSDEC #15140 · 4.9 stars from 82 Google reviews · English and Spanish
Luxury Fabric and Brand Care IndexSixty entries: cashmere, vicuña, tailoring, fur, rugs, and how each is treated
The Complete Guide to Treating Clothes Moths ProperlyMethod, chamber, screening rules and service day
Clothes moth larvae: identificationCasings, webbing and grazing on wool and silk
Carpet beetles in New Jersey estate homesShed skins, bare patches on rugs and a colony outside the wardrobe: the other program, same day, same report
Clothes moths in Somerset Hills: FAQ
Why is a horse property different?
Because the barn is usually the source. Wool coolers, saddle pads and horse hair in a tack room are the richest larval food on the property, and larvae move from the barn to the mudroom to the dressing room on the clothes people wear between them. A wardrobe treatment on its own buys a season. The assessment walks the barn first, and the Plus program treats it.
Is New York Exterminating licensed in New Jersey?
Our pesticide business registration and applicator certification are in New York State. Here we perform the assessment, on-site heat, freezing, steam and HEPA processing, monitoring and the report, none of which is a pesticide application. If the structure needs a product applied, a New Jersey-licensed company performs it under its own license, scheduled by us and documented in your report. See our New Jersey page.
How is a Somerset Hills estate priced?
Most are the two-day Estate Wardrobe Program Plus at $4,500: every closet, the tack room, the barn, the trophy room and the guest cottage, up to six rugs. A house without horses is the one-day $3,000 program. The price is fixed at the $750 assessment and does not change on the day.
Can the estate manager or barn manager handle it?
Yes. They book, brief us on access, open the house and the barn, and receive the report first. We work in an unmarked vehicle and reset every closet to its photographed order.
What if a piece is beyond what you can process on site?
It goes to the right specialist, and we make the call: a taxidermist or conservator for mounts and masks, a furrier’s cold vault for furs, a textile conservator for needlepoint and couture, a rug restorer for antique rugs. Each hand-off is recorded in the report.
