Moths

[Cholcis]

Anyone know what type of moth this is and whether it is harmful? Been finding 1/2 every day.

Clothes moth. You must have some breeding in your house. They like wool clothes/carpets that have been left undisturbed. They leave tiny silk tubes (about 1mm diameter and around 1 cm long) which can have a maggot in it. They eat holes in the wool. Destroy them!

Looks like a carpet moth.
Not harmful other than to clothes and carpets. Where are they. You need coordinated plan of attack to get rid iof them.

I’ve found a couple of these when folding clean clothes recently from our drying rack. How do I find where their nest is? We have wool carpets all over the house so don’t want an infestation!

Yes clothes moth. Somewhere in your home is a wool or silk fabric they are breeding in. Could be curtains, carpets or clothes. You need to find and remove the source. They tend to love wool carpets, jumpers and curtains.

The best way to treat them is with the little sachets of parasitic wasps that eat their eggs.

We have these…it‘s awful.

This is what I do:

• hoover everywhere including under and behind all furniture, regularly
• get the pheromone traps and put one in every room you’ve seen a moth in. Replace regularly
• get a few parasitic wasp sachets (tbh not sure these have helped in our case)
• vacuum pack precious clothes (they love cashmere, silk, wool, cotton probably in that order) and then freeze - this kills any eggs/larvae.

This is the third year we’ve had them and I’m seeing a reduction but haven’t eliminated, probably because haven’t kept on top of the hoovering.

I agree. Common clothes moth.

Throw in some moth balls onto the wardrobes (better yet, wash all the natural-fibre clothes), steam the carpets and any areas with natural fibres and you're set.

Yikes! And then how do you deal with the parasitic wasps??

The parasitic wasps are tiny. You can't see them. They apparently die out when there are no more moths.

I didn't know there were parasitic wasps, i might need to try that.

We also have them, and i blitz the whole house a few times a year... move furniture, dust corners and edges of carpets, plus under furniture etc with a carpet powder which kills the larvae, then let off a fogger in each room to kill the moths. Close all doors and leave for a couple of hours, then open doors and windows to ventilate for a couple of hours before vacuuming thoroughly and putting everything back. This has reduced numbers a lot, but we have wool carpets and i doubt we will ever get rid of them completely until the carpets are replaced. We also use the pheromone traps which helps you see how many the are in each area of the house. Also try to get light in...eg remove anything under beds, boxes on carpets etc. They tend to like the dark and undisturbed parts.

I tried everything and the thing which finally worked was spraying indorex flea spray around edges of all carpets. Wish I had known about this initially as got rid of the blimmin things in one application.
The traps and moth sprays etc did nothing at all.

Amazing! Or sci-fi.

The parasitic wasps work, but you need a lot of sachets to cover a house. We have reduced the moths in our house by using the wasps, but haven't eliminated them.

You can only just see the wasps on the sachet - like tiny dots - but they effectively disappear once they fly off. Once the moths die out, they die too.

I had them. Had a few in the house then googled and realised what they were. Found some holes in a couple of carpets.

This is what I did:
Emptied and Pulled out every single piece of furniture and cleaned behind and underneath them.
Checked everywhere with a torch.
Cleaned all the carpets
Cleaned all the curtains
Checked every morning and every night with a torch around the edges of the carpet and behind all the furniture, under windowsills - everywhere.

Removed and squished every larva I found (look like soft rice).

Sprayed everywhere with this:

amzn.eu/d/dG8c5mn

Took about four weeks of obsessing but I got rid.

I’m going to try this!

We are finding them mainly in our front porch, where there is no carpet at all! Only carpet we have is on the stairs and upstairs and we’ve not had anything up there yet.

We had our flat sprayed before we moved in as we noticed some moth traps left by the previous owners. It didn't make any difference as we found out the moths were coming from under the floorboards and behind the wall cavities.
We just lived with it, and it was a reminder of the seasons - in summer there's loads, in winter none.
Also - sticky traps are good at catching them.
And if you don't want holes in your clothes just wear them often or keep them somewhere with sunlight. Anything stored / not touched in a while gets eaten.

I think the pheromone traps are what bring them into the house!
I had just moved so all my woolens had been stored prior to the move. I decided to install a few in my wardrobes instead of the chemical smelling lavender ones. I started getting moths from nowhere.
I finally figured they were coming from outside and put all the pheromone traps outside on the terrace. The next day they were literally covered in moths. I think it is an industry trick to keep us buying the damn things.

We’re about to have our floorboards ripped out and replaced with carpet…. I hope they don’t find them under there! As I say, it’s just in the front porch where we have no carpet or curtains at all. Going to try and get some spray or something

I spent 2 years getting rid of clothes moths and they drove me mad!

They ate some of my wool sweaters, wool carpets and were everywhere. I had to use the chemical spray every evening and had the traps dotted about. I moved furniture, hoovered regularly and ripped up the carpets to replace them with non wool ones. The second year they were back but not so bad. And by the third year they were gone.

Nothing would possess me to have wool carpets again and I still have traps dotted around just in case.

Only place we’ve found them is in the porch with no curtains only shoes!

Are there coats hanging in the porch? Is there wool insulation above the ceiling in the loft space?

Edit - we’ve only found them in the porch where there is no curtains or carpet.

No to coats, they are on the other side of the door and we’ve not had any in that area. Don’t believe it’s wool insulation