Clothes moths

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Permalink Reply by Maddy on May 28, 2012 at 10:07

I've had a big problem - little buggers have eaten everything, including holes in my new wool carpet.

I have sticky pheromone traps in every room, which catch quite a few but don't eradicate the problem.

Fumigating is no good apparently, as it only kills moths that are flying around and doesn't deal with eggs and larvae.

Cedar wood and lavender are useless as deterrents, and everything else is toxic. Keep valuable wool jumpers in airtight bags, or buy synthetic.

Lakeland do a spray for carpets which I've tried - can't tell yet how effective it is.

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on May 28, 2012 at 10:23

Yes its anything woollen they go after, including wool carpets.  I understand they lay eggs in woollen clothing because its the closest available substitute for the dead animal carcass they would otherwise use. Cotton, they're not interested in.

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Permalink Reply by Julia on May 28, 2012 at 13:48

Sadly they seem to eat my cotton stuff e.g t-shirt type cotton.

We've used the blitz approach; pheromone traps (a couple in every room), sprays for when it's really bad, lavender, paper strips infused with something nasty to hang in wardrobes and old fashioned moth balls. The smell is absolutely atrocious but we seem to have more or less got rid; though I have squished a couple that I saw flying around dozily in the last couple of weeks as it's got warmer.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Middleton on May 28, 2012 at 10:17

Moth balls and sprays seem to keep the numbers down, but nothing I have done has got rid of them!

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Permalink Reply by Alix on May 28, 2012 at 10:17

 I use Zensect (from Wilco) which keeps them down but I haven't managed to totally eradicate them yet...

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by UmPixie on May 28, 2012 at 16:15

i have managed to free our part of the family from my husbands family's infestation through a merciless freezing strategy.

Basically to kill moths and the larva you need to freeze for 72 hours--this is how Musuem's deal with the problem in historic fabrics too

obviously if you have wall to wall carpets you can't put them in the freezer but everything else goes in and do what you can with the rest--preferably remove any badly affected carpets and furnishings and replace once you've frozen everything else

Then never allow any potentially moth infested fabric into your home again without a 72 hour freezer quarantine 

Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Betty Careless on May 28, 2012 at 16:58

Yup - I work in a museum, where we're super paranoid about moths, freezing is the most efficiant way to kill them off.  If you know anyone with a big chest freezer who will let you bung your stuff in there for a couple of days then that's the best way.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on August 23, 2012 at 10:09

More on this issue here.

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