Is Your Closet Hosting a Clothes Moth Smorgasbord?

It's chilly outside so you reach for a snuggly sweater from your closet, pull it on and discover...holes. Small (or maybe not so small) little nibbly holes from your resident clothes moths.

Webbing clothes moths make their way into your home and set up housekeeping in your closet. They're small, and good at hiding. Female mothes love dark, warm areas where they lay their eggs, and the larvae that hatch busily eat what's at hand, namely the fabric or natural fibers of their environment.

How to get rid of them

Old style: Toxic-chemical based mothballs

There's nothing to like about mothballs. Here's what Wiki says:

Older mothballs consisted primarily of naphthalene, but due to naphthalene's flammability, many modern mothball formulations instead use 1,4-dichlorobenzene, which may be somewhat less flammable. The latter chemical is also variously labeled as para-dichlorobenzene, p-dichlorobenzene, pDCB, or PDB, making it harder to identify unless all these synonyms are known to a potential purchaser. Both of these ingredients have that distinctive strong, pungent, sickly-sweet odor, and undergo sublimation, meaning that they evaporate from a solid state directly into a gas; this gas is toxic to moths and moth larvae.

1,4-dichlorobenzene has been deemed a carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the State of California. 1,4-dichlorobenzene and naphthalene have been banned in the European Union (the EU) since 2008.

New style: Toxin-free alternatives

Toxin-free alternatives to control clothes moths include freezing, dry cleaning, washing in hot water, or thorough vacuum cleaning. Camphor is no longer recommended as a moth repellent, due to its toxicity.

BioCare Clothes Moth Traps - Non-toxic, chemical-free moth traps

Per SpringStar, their BioCare Clothes Moth Trap attracts and captures adult mail webbing clothes moths. Clothes moths occasionally occur in homes, where the larval stage damages clothing and other personal objects made of wool, hair, fur, feathers or other natural fibers.

The trap signals when a damaging infestation is present: it does not control the larvae which feed on clothing. If moths are found in the trap, take immediate measures to control the larvae causing the damage.

Female moths are especially attracted to oily or soiled fabrics, where they are likely to lay their eggs. The small moths avoid light and are difficult to find and identify. The BioCare Clothes Moth Trap uses the same pheromone attractant that female moths use to attract males. Moths are drawn during their mating season by the scent and are killed by the glue in the trap.

No toxic materials are used to kill the moths. Replace trap every 3 months or sooner if full. Use at least 2 traps and not more than 4 traps at a time. Do not touch the lure as you could attract moths.

Save for use in food-handling and food storage areas.

To control larvae (without chemical pesticides)

If moths are found in the trap, take immediate measures to control the larvae. Search out damaged fabric and discard, dry clean or freeze (in a deep freeze for at least 14 days).

Good luck!

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