talk to me about moths...particularly how to dissuade them from living in my stuff

[jeangenie]

small silvery winged critters have taken up residence in my wool trunk and have ruined countless balls of wool. I have also spied them flitting around my (open ie no doors) "wardrobe" (hanging space with shelves on top)

PLEASE tell me how to persaude them to F (flit, obviously) OFF

(I have NO sense of good housekeeping so am depending on you!)

moth balls or cedar wood. Look in a supermarket.

thanks - will that get rid of them? what about (yuck) larvae? (there seem to be lots of little dusty things that I am guessing are eggs in the wool)

there will be a nest somewhere, or two nests possibly sorry
you need to get it all out and chuck it, then make sure you don't give them a chance to come back again

Has anyone else heard of bay leaves being a deterrent? I think Anthea said it. Now have laundry tab bags stuffed with bay leaves hanging in the wardrobe. DH Thinks I've gone crackers.

Has anyone else heard of bay leaves being a deterrent? I think Anthea said it. Now have laundry tab bags stuffed with bay leaves hanging in the wardrobe. DH Thinks I've gone crackers.

Has anyone else heard of bay leaves being a deterrent? I think Anthea said it. Now have laundry tab bags stuffed with bay leaves hanging in the wardrobe. DH Thinks I've gone crackers.

gah

just read about moth balls - urgh - apparantly they have something called Naphthalene in them which may be carcinogenic to humans and certainly does something nasty if ingested.

This site suggests freezing as a way to kill the larvae...would need to empty my freezer but it needs defrosting anyway...

never heard of bay leaves, but lavender...anyone know if thta might work to keep them away after I freeze their babies?

I have meuths too. I am planning on leaving my carpets behind when we move. Then having floorboards at the next place. It makes it far easier to control the little buggers.

You can get a spray for carpets etc, have you checked under furniture as they often eat away at the flooring when something is on top - moved a bookcase last year to find massive chunks of carpet missing!!

My mum had them in her carpet and successfully got rid using spray and a new carpet

aha - I was at a friends early in the week and he was very nonplussed to find little holes in his carpet with small mouns of carpet fluff next to them...we thought they were tiny invisible carpet moles...sounds like they might be moths though...
luckily I have no carpets...just lots of ruined wool

Those little silvery moths are a nightmare to get rid of i'm afraid. The only way to be really sure is to chuck out all the wool and thoroughly fumigate the trunk. Unfortunately they are very adept at moving to a different host item, so keep a close eye on woolly jumpers, cushion pads, throws etc. If they do get into anything like that you can steam clean them and the heat will kill them. (maybe freezing will work inthe same way - got to be worth a try)

We had them in our carpet at our old place and spent many years battling the little critters. The only thing that was really effecttive was moving house

Oh dear...perhaps my carpetless environment is not such a great plan then! They might just resort to eating everything else!

I have some anti moth strips made by rentokil I think, which I keep in with my antique dolls - also lots of cedar balls.

I'm not sure if it works yet. You need to replace these things every few months I think. Or sand the balls so it releases more of the scent.

Mothballs are hideous - I'm not surprised they're poisonous, they smell appalling.

No flllight your carpetless plan will be fine as long as you leave the moths in at your old house, ie just hot wash everything that is a likely candidate just before you pack it and then run away quickly!!! Seriously it is much easier to get rid of the few you might bring with you than a large colony living in the carpet.

We have the same problem, although (touch wood) the worst seems to have passed. Bayleaves work for the food moths (I presume they're the same as the wool moths?) we had an infestation last year but after putting a bunch of bayleaves in my kitchen cupboard we haven't so far had a reappearance.

Lavender works too, plus it makes your clothes smell nice. We sprinkled lavender oil on bits of paper/balls of wood, plus I put lavender oil in the final rinse when washing my clothes, and I must say the moth population seems to have diminished. Either that or they've run out of wool things to eat - I've had to chuck away most of the pure wool stuff and what's left is wool or cotton mixed with something synthetic, which probably doesn't appeal.

We'd also tried everything from clove studded oranges to nasty toxic mothballs (these almost killed us, I'm sure) and it wasn't until we hit the lavender that things improved. Of course, it may just be coincidence and they were planning to move on in any case.... who knows

oooh, well I have sewn some pretty lavendar sachets so will use those, after freezing the blighters first

(if anyone wants some pretty lavender sachets made let me know!)