Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Moths moths bloody moths, how can I get rid of them?

[LittleBellatrixLeBoot]

I had this horrid old moth-eaten rug which I've thrown away.

Now there appears to be a plague of moths in the room where the rug was, flying about desperately looking for a new home.

What can I do to get rid of them? Have just bought a new wool rug and suspect they will rush to colonise it unless I somehow do a pre-emptive strike. Any tips?

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you will have to do an anthea on your whole house. you think it is just a few wee moths in your old rug but i expect all your drawers to be infested. it is a bloody huge pain. the flying ones are male, the ones that sit around on the walls are female, the wriggly ones that eat your socks are larvae.

Oh no I thought so

What do I do?

Do I have to get a man with protective clothing and spray in?

Or soemthing else?

Yes, I think so, my mum and dad have just had this in their spare room. The room had to be treated and they have had to buy a new bed! I think they did it themselves though but getting someone in may be more effective.

There is an epidemic of thesein southern france and they are vile. Any dry foods have to be frozen and you need to stick moth balls every where and those sticker repellent things. There aere effective sprays here, should imagine there is the same thing in te uk

We usually use moth balls but to be honest, I have never seen a bunch in a house before.

the only thing that really works is good housekeeping, you have to turn out your cupboards etc regularly - not quite as bad as it sounds, i am quite lazy but do manage to do this twice a year.

i suppose you could get entire house and contents fumigated but i would not fancy living in poisoned home. our house was really badly infested when we moved in, 5 years later there are a lot fewer of them and they aren't managing to eat any clothes. i don't think you can get rid of them totally, too many places to hide. oh you can freeze things like cushions or toys, that kills them.

i'd rather have motheaten clothes than smell of mothballs. lavender, citrus and cedar wood for me.

i have an infestation aswell, tbh I am glad it isnt just me as I feel disgusting........

i have heard it is central heating fio, it never gets cold enough to kill them so they just go on breeding and soon they will be bloody everywhere. they are spooky, the way they just go into dust....

Message withdrawn

be vigilant pruners, squish on sight and don't let them get the upper hand (wing? antennae?) you won't regret it.

Moth balls smell disgusting, don't they?

But all that natural stuff doesn't work. I've tried it in the past.

I might look for a moth spray, have never seen one. What I want is one that you spray on the curtains/ carpets to repel them, rather than on the actual moths

In my kitchen last night there was a great big slug as well.

So moths and slugs. I am domestically challenged.

eu regulations mean a lot of stuff is now banned. your curtains should be ok so long as you draw them occasionally, any sort of movement disturbs nasty moths and they don't lay, its the larvae whcih do the eating. hoover more!

The good housekeeping thing is crap (sorry!) - we went through everything wxith a fine tooth comb, chucked, hoovered, bleached, the works. The only means of killing the larvae in food is by freezing - I freeze rice, flour, herbs and spices, you name it now on a regular basis and we stkill have the little bastards (as do many of our Bordelais friends). I am a quasi expert on these now(!) and know that they often arrive in dry goods and can eat through plastic and wriggle through tupperware (apparently). They sell food-friendly anti-mite sheets here that attract the little sods and they they stick fast and I have those up in the panty and cereal cupboard, and stick on repellents in the clothes cupboards and moth balls in the trunks of stored clothes and lavender moth balls in the airing cupboard.....

You can hoover them off the ceiling!

I think some of you are talking about pantry moths, and some of you are talking about clothes moths

Oh gawd

I think I'm talking about clothes moths

Presumably pantry moths are more in kitchen areas (I have never come across those)?

I never had moths in the UK but with global warming, watch out....

They are highly prevelant here i SW France but my sil in Paris also has them.

I don't know whether I have both pantry and clothes moths (know about them under the generic french term 'les putain mites') but def started with them in the pantry and then the bastards migrated upstairs.

I found this site useful.

yes / no mine aer clothes only. i would be very unhappy indeed to get pantry ones. i've seen weevils in grape nuts once (not at my house though luckily)

mine are tiny thin moths I havent got a pantry and havent seen any in the kitchen

We've got little triangular shaped moths. They come out of the bird seed. DH went on a grand killing spree last week but we've got a load more today. I take it these are pantry moths?