Clothes moths - what to do?

[CroccyWoccy]

I’ve noticed a few clothes moths in the house and in sorting some old clothes I’ve found a jumper that has been destroyed.

I know I need to tackle them but my immediate priority is I am just about to pack away winter clothing including a number of wool and cashmere jumpers and I don’t want to pack them up now and then find a bag full of moth eaten rags in 6 months time!

What’s the best thing to do now to protect the knitwear for storage? We have no freezer space for the freezing solution.

I keep all my stuff in protective bags. For some reason the moths always chew on the expensive stuff.

Probably best to wash/dry clean them first, which will make sure there are no eggs on there that might hatch into eating things. Then seal them up in a protective bag, maybe with some sort of moth killer inside, although that might make them smell a bit when you take them out.

Bag clothes and freeze them for a week (google it). Washing isn't enough I think I read.

I had moths and worked/froze my way through my entire wardrobe. It seemed to get rid of the pests.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/conservation/clothes-moth-research/understanding-clothes-moths/

Might be useful

Arcana spray will sort you. It’s the only one that kills everything mothy inc eggs. Squirt on jerseys before you bag up. It’s never failed me.

In a similar situation we bought a new freezer and kept it in the spare bedroom.

The freezer just became a new chest of drawers in effect. Temperature plus airtight seal.

Anything silk, wool or cashmere got kept there in an appropriately sized zip seal bag. Even DH’s rolled up kilt.

They are such an utter pain. I've spent so much of my life fighting moths. I think you need to create room in the freezer somehow, OP. That English Heritage article linked to above says it needs two weeks to kill everything, not just one. You need to clean everywhere - they hang out in dark, undisturbed places, such as the edges of carpets, especially behind beds and furniture. I once found some in the tight folds at the tops of a pair of curtains. Read up about it, and get to know what to look for. Get some sticky moth traps; they catch only the males, but it's a good way of monitoring the situation. God, I bloody hate moths ... I'm actually just about to pull a pair of beds out, vacuum yet again, and replace the bed valances that I've had in the freezer for a fortnight ... such a lot of tedious work!

Throw everything at it.
Get rid of any thing that's hard to clean and could harbour them. - wicker baskets for example. Look for any items in your house made of natural materials - we kept getting reinfested and found a skin drum from a holiday that.we'd overlooked that was crawling with moth maggots.
Clean, vacuum, fog rooms by spraying with killer and shutting them off for a few hours.
Freeze precious clothing to kill eggs and then store in vacuum bags or tightly sealed bags with additional sheets of moth repellent interweaved.
We used to have a real problem and it's taken a long time - we still get the odd one but not very many.
Look behind picture frames and vacuum the underside of rugs. If you have wooden floors, vacuum any gaps.

Read the OP post!

After dealing with the initial problem, apparently storing items in ceder chests can prevent future infestation

I thought I’d got rid of them and then found them living in the bottom of a rattan basket. Didn’t know they could eat that too. Bloody awful things. We’ve got fish and amphibians in the house so I’m wary of the sprays but the sticky traps, squishing and cleaning help. I do use the stinky stuff in drawers and wardrobes, it reeks but it works.

I was going to post a question about moths, then realised that everyone else seems to be in the same boat.
I have ordered (more) fabric spray and intend to spray flannels and pack them between winter clothes in vacuum bags. Every year I clean and vacuum and spray, but they resurface in the spring.
I am going to have to bite the bullet and replace the stair carpet with a synthetic one, but I can't afford it yet. They have eaten holes in a few places in the carpet.
It is a night mare, they are so difficult to get rid of.

I had an outbreak 2 weeks ago, all of a sudden 20 in one evening appeared from all corners of my bedroom.

I bought this moth bomb and placed 3x around the room and repeated again 10 days later. Haven't seen any since the second bomb:

Pest Expert Clothes Moth Killer Smoke Bombs 8 x 3.5g - Formula 'P' Fumer Moth Fumigator (HSE approved and tested – professional strength product) : Amazon.co.uk: Garden

Thanks for the tips! Despite not having freezer space the idea of getting hold of a cheap second hand freezer to use as a ‘chest of drawers” isn’t entirely insane - it would at least let me protect all the valuable woollens while we try to tackle the problem round the house.

I would just buy some nasty chemical moth balls. Something like rentokill works fine and will be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a chest freezer. Store in a sealed bag or box and make sure you do the right numbers of balls for the volume.