Help identifying moths appearing in home

[HavingACrackingTime]

Hello mumsnetters!

We recently bought a house and have been settling in over the last couple of weeks. We've noticed that there are quite a few little moths in basically every room in the house. We’ve tried putting them outside and killing them (sorry), but more keep appearing. I think they're all the same species as they have the same markings on their wings so it seems like they must be breeding somewhere.

We've been trying to determine the source but haven't had any luck yet. We had no issues with moths in our previous place so I don't think it's something we've brought with us.

Apologies for the rubbish photo, it's been hard getting a good quality one!

Does anybody recognise this kind of moth or have any experience with them and can help us work out what the source might be or how we can manage them? We're trying to work out how concerned we should be and if there's anything we can do to get rid of them.

Any help would be massively appreciated!

They're carpet or clothes moths. You need to vacuum all carpets frequently, move furniture to get under everything. You can buy sprays and treatments too.

Check wardrobes and drawers of clothes you don't use frequently and look for their eggs/casings. Vacuum pack away any infrequently worn clothing and bedding. Cotton and wool in particular.

No idea on what moth it is but i see them occasionally in my house, no clue of they came in through the window or if there are egg's somewhere so i set out as many things as i can to deal with them.
To deal with it i have:
Acana Hanging Moth Killer & Freshener, 4 Pack - Lavender Fragrance, Natural Oils - For Wardrobes - Protects Clothing & Bedding - Each Lasts 6 Months : Amazon.co.uk: Garden

LONDON MOTH KILLER. 10 Premium Pheromone Moth killers | 8 x Wardrobe Clothes & Carpet Moth Traps and 2 x Indian Meal Pantry Traps | Complete Anti Moth Treatment for the Home | Inc. eBook. : Amazon.co.uk: Garden

Acana Sachet Moth Killer 20 Pack- For Drawers & Storage- Protects Clothing & Bedding- Lasts 3 Months : Amazon.co.uk: Home & Kitchen

They hatch in fibres and eat their way to what you see. Id be eyeballing any wool carpets and hanging repellent blocks in your wardrobes to stop getting holes in clothes.

It's a bit of a nightmare and a lot of work but you will get it under control. Get rid of any wool even wool mix carpets. Any natural fabrics. Once you start seeing them you will recognide the signs. Move clothes around in wardrobe and drawers, hoover corners.

That doesn't look like a clothes moth. Clothes moths are smaller and have no wing markings - they look more like the outer husk of a grain of wheat.

Which isn't much help in identifying that moth, but at least its larvae probably aren't eating your woollen items.

We get tiny little moths like this here and there in our house and we have no carpets. I've never seen holes in any clothing. It's bizarre. One or two will appear occasionally 🤷🏻‍♀️

The creep me out but as long as they're not eating clothes I'm not really sure what to do about them.

That is a Case Forming Moth. It will lay it's eggs on clothes and the babies eat the fibres when they hatch out.

I would get up to date advice about exterminating the buggers.

Gahhhh this makes me feel a little sick! Thanks so much everyone. I'll take a look into the traps etc and make sure to inspect all carpets thoroughly when I get home 🙏

You can now get parasitic control which is supposed to be much better for you and the environment than chemicals - lthey are what Rentokil now use. Basically teeny tiny parasitic wasps that lay their eggs in the clothes moth eggs. Sounds weird but they're harmless (to you!)

We had them in our wool carpets - they ate them!
They like to hide under things such as beds, tv cabinets, rugs etc. We first found ours under the tv cabinet - bit of a giveaway of carpet fluff and when I hoovered it up half the carpet came away too.
We had to replace all our carpets and have the whole house moth treated.

I'd consider getting rid of all wool carpet
Immediately and replacing with synthetic. If you've got any stained, prioritise those. We didn't and the moth problem worsened every year...

Yep we had them in our wool carpets! Got the whole house sprayed and ripped up the biggest wool carpet that had been munched on. Couldn't afford to replace rest of house but like I say we had a full spray didn't cost much maybe £250?

Hold they be pantry moths? Are they laying eggs in dried foods?
We had them at the beginning of Covid and had to dispose of a lot of food just as there were shortages.

That particular photo doesn't look to me like a clothes moth either, as a pp said. Clothes moths look more tubular, very small. Not such a typical 'triangular' moth look about them. I'm not an expert though. But that one looks nothing like the clothes moths we've had in our house.

We have these sometimes, moths like you describe.

But nothing is eating clothes so what are they and should we be concerned? It's just occasionally. Yesterday I tipped out a toy box of my son's to clean out and there were two at the bottom. The toy box was only full of magnatiles and cars so no fabrics.

If it's only the odd one you see here and there, I wouldn't be too concerned. I think it's hard to avoid them. I had an infestation once and they ruined a lot of my clothes. These days I do still see them, but not so many, and I'm not noticing any further problems with clothes etc.

@Somethingsnapped

Thank you. We never had them on our old house so I've been worried there would end up being more but there never has. So far! 🤞🏻

We had these little blighters in our house. Used to see them regularly at dusk and in the evening We found a bald patch in the carpet in our study and some empty pupa cases. We had to change the carpet and cleaned the house within an inch of its life including all the cupboards and wardrobes. We also found a bunch of pupa cases in the frame of our leather sofa. Also used the sticky moth traps for a while.

It took a few months but we did manage to get rid of them. They are a bloody nuisance.