diff --git a/lib/renderer.ts b/lib/renderer.ts
index e6cbe8f..02e2ff1 100644
--- a/lib/renderer.ts
+++ b/lib/renderer.ts
@@ -324,13 +324,20 @@ export class CanvasRenderer {
           this.renderLine(line, cursor.y, dims.cols);
         }
       }
-      if (cursorMoved && this.lastCursorPosition.y !== cursor.y) {
-        // Also redraw old cursor line if cursor moved to different line
-        if (!forceAll && !buffer.isRowDirty(this.lastCursorPosition.y)) {
-          const line = buffer.getLine(this.lastCursorPosition.y);
-          if (line) {
-            this.renderLine(line, this.lastCursorPosition.y, dims.cols);
-          }
+      if (cursorMoved && !forceAll) {
+        // Always redraw the OLD cursor row to erase the previous cursor
+        // glyph, whether or not the row is dirty and whether or not it
+        // differs from the new cursor row (issue #122: ghost cursor
+        // persisted at the initial (0,0) position because the prior
+        // logic skipped the redraw when the row was already dirty —
+        // assuming the regular dirty pass would handle it — but the
+        // regular dirty pass only runs when buffer cells changed, not
+        // when the cursor moved across unchanged cells. A double redraw
+        // when the row is both dirty AND cursor-moved is a trivial perf
+        // cost compared to the visual correctness gain.).
+        const line = buffer.getLine(this.lastCursorPosition.y);
+        if (line) {
+          this.renderLine(line, this.lastCursorPosition.y, dims.cols);
         }
       }
     }
diff --git a/lib/terminal.test.ts b/lib/terminal.test.ts
index 1ed8440..106c648 100644
--- a/lib/terminal.test.ts
+++ b/lib/terminal.test.ts
@@ -3090,3 +3090,101 @@ describe('preserveScrollOnWrite option', () => {
     term.dispose();
   });
 });
+
+describe('ESC k title sequence (issue #153)', () => {
+  let container: HTMLElement | null = null;
+
+  beforeEach(() => {
+    if (typeof document !== 'undefined') {
+      container = document.createElement('div');
+      document.body.appendChild(container);
+    }
+  });
+
+  afterEach(() => {
+    if (container && container.parentNode) {
+      container.parentNode.removeChild(container);
+      container = null;
+    }
+  });
+
+  test('ESC k <text> ESC \\ does not leak the title payload onto the grid', async () => {
+    if (!container) return;
+
+    const term = await createIsolatedTerminal({ cols: 80, rows: 24 });
+    term.open(container);
+
+    // GNU screen / tmux title-set: ESC k /tmp ESC \ then ESC k ls ESC \
+    // then the actual visible content. Before the strip pass landed,
+    // /tmp leaked onto row 0 and "ls" merged with the next line.
+    term.write('\x1bk/tmp\x1b\\\x1bkls\x1b\\demo.txt\r\n');
+
+    const line0 = term.wasmTerm!.getLine(0);
+    const text0 = line0
+      .map((c) => (c.codepoint ? String.fromCodePoint(c.codepoint) : ''))
+      .join('')
+      .trimEnd();
+    expect(text0).toBe('demo.txt');
+    expect(text0).not.toContain('/tmp');
+    expect(text0).not.toContain('ls');
+
+    term.dispose();
+  });
+
+  test('ESC k variant terminated by BEL is also stripped', async () => {
+    if (!container) return;
+
+    const term = await createIsolatedTerminal({ cols: 80, rows: 24 });
+    term.open(container);
+
+    term.write('\x1bktitle\x07after\r\n');
+
+    const line0 = term.wasmTerm!.getLine(0);
+    const text0 = line0
+      .map((c) => (c.codepoint ? String.fromCodePoint(c.codepoint) : ''))
+      .join('')
+      .trimEnd();
+    expect(text0).toBe('after');
+
+    term.dispose();
+  });
+
+  test('OSC 0 title-set continues to be consumed by the WASM parser', async () => {
+    if (!container) return;
+
+    const term = await createIsolatedTerminal({ cols: 80, rows: 24 });
+    term.open(container);
+
+    // OSC 0 ; <title> BEL — handled by WASM. The strip pass should not
+    // touch this sequence.
+    term.write('\x1b]0;mywindow\x07visible\r\n');
+
+    const line0 = term.wasmTerm!.getLine(0);
+    const text0 = line0
+      .map((c) => (c.codepoint ? String.fromCodePoint(c.codepoint) : ''))
+      .join('')
+      .trimEnd();
+    expect(text0).toBe('visible');
+
+    term.dispose();
+  });
+
+  test('Uint8Array input is stripped equivalently to string input', async () => {
+    if (!container) return;
+
+    const term = await createIsolatedTerminal({ cols: 80, rows: 24 });
+    term.open(container);
+
+    const bytes = new TextEncoder().encode('\x1bktitle\x1b\\done\r\n');
+    term.write(bytes);
+
+    const line0 = term.wasmTerm!.getLine(0);
+    const text0 = line0
+      .map((c) => (c.codepoint ? String.fromCodePoint(c.codepoint) : ''))
+      .join('')
+      .trimEnd();
+    expect(text0).toBe('done');
+
+    term.dispose();
+  });
+});
diff --git a/lib/terminal.ts b/lib/terminal.ts
index 902ea94..c4145e0 100644
--- a/lib/terminal.ts
+++ b/lib/terminal.ts
@@ -553,6 +553,61 @@ export class Terminal implements ITerminalCore {
     this.writeInternal(data, callback);
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Strip unimplemented escape sequences that Ghostty WASM does not consume
+   * cleanly. The current parser (5714ed07) prints the inner text of
+   * `ESC k <text> ESC \` (screen/tmux title set) onto the grid instead of
+   * silently consuming it — the same is true for any 7-bit terminator
+   * (`BEL`). We pre-filter the input so those titles don't leak as visible
+   * text. Issue: coder/ghostty-web#153.
+   *
+   * Only `ESC k …` is stripped. OSC sequences (`ESC ] …`) already work in
+   * the WASM parser and are untouched.
+   */
+  private stripUnimplementedTitleSequences(data: string | Uint8Array): string | Uint8Array {
+    if (typeof data === 'string') {
+      // ESC = \x1b, ST = \x1b\x5c (ESC followed by backslash), BEL = \x07
+      return data.replace(/\x1bk[^\x1b\x07]*(?:\x1b\\|\x07)/g, '');
+    }
+    // Byte-level scan for Uint8Array. We only allocate a copy when we
+    // actually find a sequence to strip.
+    let i = 0;
+    let writeIdx = -1;
+    let out: Uint8Array | null = null;
+    while (i < data.length) {
+      if (data[i] === 0x1b && i + 1 < data.length && data[i + 1] === 0x6b) {
+        // Found ESC k — scan forward to ESC \ or BEL
+        let j = i + 2;
+        while (j < data.length) {
+          if (data[j] === 0x07) {
+            j++;
+            break;
+          }
+          if (data[j] === 0x1b && j + 1 < data.length && data[j + 1] === 0x5c) {
+            j += 2;
+            break;
+          }
+          // No terminator yet — keep scanning (handles split writes if WASM
+          // ever assembles them; defensively bail if we hit another ESC k).
+          j++;
+        }
+        if (out === null) {
+          out = new Uint8Array(data.length);
+          out.set(data.subarray(0, i));
+          writeIdx = i;
+        }
+        i = j;
+        continue;
+      }
+      if (out !== null) {
+        out[writeIdx++] = data[i];
+      }
+      i++;
+    }
+    if (out === null) return data;
+    return out.subarray(0, writeIdx);
+  }
+
   /**
    * Internal write implementation (extracted from write())
    */
@@ -561,6 +616,10 @@ export class Terminal implements ITerminalCore {
     // preserve selection when new data arrives. Selection is cleared by user actions
     // like clicking or typing, not by incoming data.
 
+    // Strip unimplemented escape sequences (e.g. ESC k …) that would
+    // otherwise leak their payload onto the grid. See issue #153.
+    const sanitized = this.stripUnimplementedTitleSequences(data);
+
     // Save scroll state before writing, ONLY when preserveScrollOnWrite is
     // active. viewportY is relative to the bottom, so if new lines push
     // content into scrollback we need to bump viewportY by the same amount
@@ -571,7 +630,7 @@ export class Terminal implements ITerminalCore {
       preserveScroll && savedViewportY > 0 ? this.wasmTerm!.getScrollbackLength() : 0;
 
     // Write directly to WASM terminal (handles VT parsing internally)
-    this.wasmTerm!.write(data);
+    this.wasmTerm!.write(sanitized);
 
     // Process any responses generated by the terminal (e.g., DSR cursor position)
     // These need to be sent back to the PTY via onData