Moths HELP needed, please

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i have lived in my flat for 3 years every single year around march april time my house gets invaded with moths then come october/november time they just dissapear

i am terrified of flys spiders etc so you can imagine how much like hell this is when i have to live with these horrid things for months every year :(

any ideas where they can be coming from? and do they hybernate or something because they do keep coming back i just want rid of them once and for all

anybody?

I work in a museum and I've done a bit of pest training. I'm obsessed with getting rid of and preventing moths.

Firstly, what is your flooring like? do you have any wool carpets? Moths love wool carpets - it's like a floor of roast dinner to them! You'll know if they are wool because you are bound to have munched patches where they've had a bi of a feast.

Where do you spot them mostly? They tend to 'nest' in warm places, so behind radiators etc. do you think they are coming in or are you finding small ones ie the larvae are growing in your house and then getting bigger and flying?

Get carpets cleaned, spray raid along skirting board edges, put moth shields in wardrobes, they just emit citrus odour and gave really worked.

I really had a hard time getting rid of them but monthly dash of raid and annual carpet cleaning kills the eggs has wirked for me :)

the moth treatments that actually work are slow-release containing the insecticide Transfluthrin. They emit tiny quantities of vapour, usually over a period of a few months. It kills adults, grubs and eggs. You usually put one per half-cubic-metre of space, so two or more in a large wardrobe, one in a drawer. The chemical is inactivated by sunlight, moisture or fresh air, so does not persist in the room, only in the cupboard or container. Put all your clothes through the tumbledrier to kill existing grubs or eggs, clean out all wardrobes and vacuum thoroughly and repeatedly especially under and behind furniture, and the edges or carpets next to the skirting. You may need to spray round the carpet edges or rugs. If you have a serious infestation, put all clothes, blankets etc in those plastic crates with sealed lids after you have tumbled them, or taped-up plastic bags, with a moth-killer in each crate. Do it immediately after tumbling, don't leave the clothes lying around to be reinfested.

Ther are various brands, but look for the chemical transfluthrin. Lemon and Cedar scented products are also available, they don't kill moths but will make your holey clothes smell nice when you throw them in the bin.

Once you have had hundreds of pounds worth of your best clothes ruined, you will become ruthless about killing the things.

here's an example of an effective product

Hi
thank you for all the reply, yes i do have woolen carpets in every room in the house, so I've went and bought a decent vax carpet cleaner and vax cleaning solution so spending my weekend cleaning the carpets, i don't have a tumble dryer so that's out, im going to pull out every single piece of furniture over weekend n clean under it as well.

last few years I've been convinced they must be coming in because they always appeared after windows being opened but with this weather last few days my windows haven't been open and the moths are always on the walls high up sometimes on the roof, the one i found the other night was on my pillow :(

i do have a few small holes on my ceilings that leads into the loft, so maybe they r coming from here? Do they hibernate? Or do there eggs take a while to hatch hence the short period of having none before they reappear again

Should say that obviously i have no tumble dryer so i always have clothes hanging on dryers etc. But I've never had any holes in any clothes its only me n ds and we dnt have much woolen stuff at all really is this maybe the problem out clothes, aww i just want to cry lols i have spent a fortune on carpet cleaner n solution so hoping this works :(
had a look at raid spray as well will get a few bottles for when I've cleaned all carpets n spray it round skirting boards

It is worth taking your woolen clothes to the big drier in the laundrette to kill the eggs. Look in the loft for any old carpets or felt pipe insulation.

Now you have an infestation you need a real blitz to get rid of them.

I've heard you can also freeze clothes to get rid of infestation once they are clean.

mirpuppet is right, freezing is a really good way of detroying any lingering eggs/larvae in wool or natural fibres (felt, silk etc). Clean the item first, let them dry and then pop individual items in a freezer bag - make sure you expel all the air before you seal the bag. I'd recommend double bagging just to protect the garment further.

It will most probably be your lovely wool carpets they are living in. You might need to get in a specialist cleaning company to fumigate. It might sound a bit much but we had them (and other beasties) in a carpet at work and once they set up home (probably behind your radiator as they love warm places) they are quite hard to get rid of. I doubt they are coming down from the roof tbh - it's probably too cool and there isn't any food up there (unless there is wool or another natural fibre up there?). You might find the moths are laying underneath the carpet...in which case you might need a bit more help/ advice...

Rentokil have some good guidelines, including how to tell what kind of moths you have:

www.rentokil.co.uk/residential-customers/home-pest-control/flying-insects/moths/index.html

the freezer might kill the eggs, but the tumble-drier will do it far faster, and you can do lots more at a time, especially if you go to the laundrette. If the clothes are already clean they do not need to be washed again before tumbling. I have done woolens, silks and furs in this way.