So if you’re wondering where I’ve been for the past week or so, don’t worry, I’m about to fill you in. My wife and I were dealing with something that I hope you never have too. We discovered an invasion of clothes-eating moths in our closet. Sure, there are plenty of worse problems in this world, but I assure you this is still not something you want to deal with. So my plan with this post is to break it down into three sections: what happened, what we did, and what we’re doing to prevent it again. I’d love to see any feedback or suggestions for my readers below in the comments.
What Happened
Last week my wife called me into our (ok, her) closet holding a small, squashed bug in her hands and told me we had a serious problem. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about these little demons, including what damage they could wreak on a wardrobe before all of this. For those of you unfamiliar like me, these little moths (about a centimeter long) will lay eggs from which larvae (tiny caterpillars) will hatch. These larvae needs food, and nothing is more tasty to them than natural fibers like wool and fur. While they are maturing they will chew through and destroy any clothes made from and blended with these materials.
What We Did
The unfortunate thing about these moths and their larvae is that you can’t kill them, you have to starve them and break the reproduction cycle. So we took every piece of clothing out of the closet and cleaned the entire area. Every shelf, every nook, every…single…hanger. Then we took every piece of natural fiber clothing to the dry cleaner while we washed every other piece of clothing here. I’m not even sure how many loads of laundry we did. While all the clothes were out of the closet, we placed these pheromone moth traps in the closet, and we’re keeping them in there for at least the next week without introducing any new clothes (food) to the environment. The one silver lining to this is that we were able to go through and donate and repurpose a ton of old clothes.
What We’re Doing
We’re now into the final stage of dealing with this situation, and that’s prevention. We’ve got everything cleaned, the traps are set, and we just need to make sure this never happens again. Cedar seems to be the only real preventive measure you can take without sealing every piece of clothing in a storage bag. Bed, Bath and Beyond had a HUGE selection of cedar pieces, and we were able to get the right amount to protect our clothes going forward. I’ve linked below three different sets sold at BB&B to fit any size closet or bureau. If you aren’t using some cedar blocks or sachets to protect your clothes, I highly recommend checking these out and getting some immediately. We thought this wouldn’t happen either…until it did.
Regards,