Aaagh, Moths!

[BikeRunSki]

Last winter I threw away 1 jumper and darned another because they'd been eaten by moths.

I cleaned my wardrobe, filled it with cedarwood and then
didn't wear my jumpers for a while due to pg. Still pg, but cleared out my wardrobe of summer and work mat clothes today and have thrown away
5 more jumpers!!!! Far too thin and holey to mend.

I now have I jumper, I darned jumper and a maternity cardy left,

What can I do to save these! Asked in Lakeland about mothballs and was told they don't sell them or make them any more as too poisonous.

John Lewis sell lots of Anti-moth products. We've just moved house and we are currently tumbling all our dry clothes for 20 mins to kill the little blighters and for the fragile garments it a 3 day stay in the freezer. Fingers crossed we leave them behind but dh thinks everyone in London has them!

I've heard that lavender is good against moths so maybe get some lavender bags?

we used moth traps from amazon

Can i tumble dry wool ?

I have tumbled everything but dh's suits (sent to the dry cleaners) and ties (in the freezer). Nothing has shrank as long as was dry going in. Lavender may discourage them from entering your wardrobe but they will just seek out food elsewhere in your house!

Lakeland do have a few modern alternatives to mothballs aniti-moth products as do tesco, homebase etc.

not sure how effective they are, we have lots of similar products around, have cleaned, steam cleaned carpets etc but still have some moths around, much better than it was though

It was blooming Lakeland that sold me the clearly ineffective cedlparwood stuff.

cedar, lavender, pah! I don't want to perfume them, I want to kill the little blighters!

There are some very effective chemicals that will do the trick. I use the IBA-Bouchard ones from Robert Dyas. You can get some on impregnated cardboard that look like flowers, or a hanging plastic thing that you put on the rail in a wardrobe. They last about three months and have a faint lavender scent. Read the instructions carefully to see how many you need - the plastic things will treat half a cubic metre of wardrobe space. Smaller ones you need one per drawer.

You do need to clean and vac inside, behind and under all your wardrobes and drawers first, as there may be eggs or larvae hiding there, or living under the carpet especially round the edges where it is not vacuumed so thoroughy.

Once you have had an attack, you need to put a lot of work into eradicating it, then you just need to use the wardrobe hangers in future.

My old mum had a bad attack in a cupboard, I had to put everything through the tumble drier to kill the eggs, vaccuum out, remove the carpet, and put all the clean stuff in plastic bags or boxes with a moth killer inside until I was sure they were gone. You only need one moth to come and lay eggs in your clean clothes and it will start again...

p.s. looking at the Lakeland link, the Zensect Hanging Moth Proofer is equivalent to the plastic hanging thing I recommended. It might even be the same product with a different brand name.

I'd go for that unless you have a convenient high-street supplier that would be quicker.