It’s been a rough few days. I came back from my little holiday break totally ready to get down to business – take down the Christmas decorations, start painting my kitchen cabinets, take care of some blog maintenance that’s been on my to-do list for awhile, etc. And then on Friday morning I discovered I have moths in my closet. Like the kind whose larva eat your clothes. And I have to get rid of them or they will eat holes in all of my wool clothing and possibly then move on to the silk. I’ve already deduced that they are apparently fancy moth larva who think cashmere is especially delicious so I’m worried about the silk. I’ve been doing A LOT of research on them the past several days and while I sincerely hope you don’t need this post any time soon, I’m going to tell you how to get rid of closet moths. I can’t save you the work ahead, but I can at least save you all the research on what to do. Here it is in one place.
What I wanted to do was throw a toxic smoke bomb into my closet, shut the door, and come back a week later.
But seeing as I actually have to live in this house, with my two little girls, and I also don’t want to destroy every item of clothing in my closet, the smoke bomb solution wasn’t actually going to work.
Then I just wanted to yell and cry and storm around the house for a little while breaking stuff in anger, but luckily I determined that was another unproductive idea.
In the grand scheme this is not a big deal. It is not lice. It is not cancer. They are just clothes. It’s just a week of my life. But it is not a fun job and it’s annoying to deal with and I’m still a little pissy about it even though I know that things could be much, much worse than closet moths. So I decided to channel my frustration and newfound knowledge on moth extermination into this post that will at least, I hope, help you avoid this situation yourself.
You feel lucky, don’t you?
So what does one do when one discovers there are moths eating one’s clothes? I am going to tell you. You won’t like it, but these are the necessary steps to get rid of the nasty little buggers.
FIRST
Empty your closet. The whole. darn. thing. It sucks, but it’s necessary.
You can see here that my shoes have made it back in (left side) but the closet is otherwise pretty stark.
SECOND
Wash every single thing that is machine washable in hot water. This will leave you with unfortunate MOUNTAINS of laundry to fold but it can’t really be avoided. I still want cry just a little at all the ironing and folding still ahead of me, and you can see that the taking down of the Christmas decorations has been put on the back burner while I deal with this nonsense.
It’s practically impossible to tell where the moths have laid their eggs, and if those eggs hatch into larva (jerks) it’s snack time again in your closet. So hours of folding pales (a little) in comparison to going through this again.
THIRD
You also have to deal with everything that is not machine washable. You can take all of it to be dry cleaned but that would have been wicked expensive for me. The other option is to freeze everything for a week. I never thought I would feel lucky to be having outside temperatures in the teens but this means that instead of shoving a bunch of my clothes in the freezer I could hang them on a garment rack and put them in trash bags on my screened porch, where the temperature is currently hovering right around 10º.
FOURTH
Back to the closet. Ugh. Vacuum every inch. Every corner. Every nook and cranny and surface of the floor and ceiling and shelving where eggs could be hiding. Then wipe it all down with either a vinegar and water or a bleach and water solution. I put my shoes back in after completing this step.
FIFTH
After all this work you are definitely going to want to try to keep any future moths and their babies from opening a buffet in your closet. There are lots of moth repellent solutions out there. Cedar is a well known natural moth repellant but isn’t always strongly scented enough to keep them away. Mothballs definitely work, but let’s face it, they smell horrible, are toxic, and possibly carcinogenic. I definitely don’t want that in my house. The overwhelmingly most effective repellent in every article I read was lavender.
Pretty win-win, actually. Keeps the moths away and smells lovely.
I ordered a one-pound bag of lavender from Amazon (HERE) and a pack of muslin bags (HERE) and am going to scatter them all over my closet. I will probably do this, honestly, forever from now on. This whole thing has been such a colossal pain in the neck I will happily toss lavender all over my closet for the rest of my life to avoid having to deal with this again.
The other item I bought was a moth trap (HERE).
These don’t repel moths like the lavender will, but they’ll let me know if moths get in here again and will hopefully trap them before they can leave their cashmere-eating spawn behind. The amount of lavender I’m about to put in here should keep any moths from wanting to come in and hang out awhile, but I mostly want to be sure I’ve gotten any that are hiding. Do they even do that? I think this whole experience has curdled my brain a bit. I haven’t slept well the last few nights because of apocalyptic visions of household moth takeovers running through my head.
There you have it. I hope to resurface from underneath my laundry Everest soon.
Ugh- I’m so sorry you had to deal with this, and thanks for the tips. I actually had a pantry moth invasion last month and it was disgusting. It’s a similar process, but you can actually see the larva under shelves and in packages of food. I gagged- a lot. Those traps are great though, and I think we’re finally rid of them. On the good side, my pantry has never been cleaner :)
I seem to be an unfortunate magnet for pest problems. I had pantry moths a few years ago and it was SO GROSS. Glad you’re in the clear now, they are so nasty!
Oh my gosh those little jerks!!!!! That is so much work, sorry you have to deal with this.
SUCH jerks. And so not a fun “project” to be working on, you know?
What a bummer — sorry this happened! Thanks for the tips, and I hope you get a chance to relax a little bit soon. You deserve it!
I hope you don’t need the tips! Well, except for the lavender. I now think everyone should put lavender in their closets just to be safe!
That is the worst! We had pantry moths over the Summer and I freaked out! I hope that they are gone now and that the laundry is not too overwhelming.
Ugh, I had the pantry moths too like 7 years ago now. Disgusting.
OH MAN!!!!!!! UGH!!!!! i am so so sorry!!!!!!!
Definitely wins for “least fun project in the new house!”
well at least it wins something! if it makes you feel any better, i was going to wear my j crew maxi skirt i got last spring- it’s just gray jersey with white stripes, to a christmas brunch with a fox sweater- kind of winterize the skirt. it has a small hole in it and no idea where it came from. :( i don’t think we have moths because i haven’t seen any other holes, really. and it’s TEENY, but enough to ruin the skirt for me. UGH.
Subject: Re: comment on The Chronicles of Home: What To Do When You Find Out You Have Closet Moths (other than have a temper tantrum)
I hate when favorite clothes get holes! Doesn’t sound like moths for you, luckily. They only eat wool, silk, and real fur In my case, just wool, at least that I know of so far!
UGH!!!! We had bed bugs when we were in the city and I had the same visions of horror… my husband was seemingly unphased, and I was like DUDE… we have to wash EVERY article of clothing in the apartment… like NOW. It’s the worst. Getting lavender NOW. And what an awful thing to come back to after the holidays when all you want to do is organize the new stuff… not deal with the old already organized stuff. :(
I am so totally repelled by any kind of pest infestation. A friend just told me it could be mice chewing the sweaters and so now I am trying really hard not to vomit.
Ha! We also had mice in the city… and you’d know. They’re not clean creatures!
That’s what I thought but she said there were no droppings in her closet when it happened. We had a major mouse issue at our last house and the droppings were everywhere.
Equally as bad is when you discover that you have pantry moths. Those buggers can get into tightly sealed plastic containers, and into unopened stuff (i.e., spaghetti, etc.). They are almost impossible to eradicate. Luckily, we underwent a total kitchen remodel, so the moths (hopefully) exited with with the old cabinets, and all of the infested food we had to throw away!
After that experience, and after reading your blog, I am placing my order for lavender immediately! Thanks for the heads-up!
Vicki
Mtnhomeblog.com
Haha – it is my lavender public service announcement :) I accidentally brought pantry moths with me from my last city apartment to our first house 7 years ago. I almost threw up when I picked up a closed jar of sesame seeds and it looked positively alive with worms. I couldn’t believe how much they could get into. We hired experts for that and threw away a ton of food but it worked.
I’m so sorry this happened…but truly, thank you for writing this post! I’ve never had to deal with closet or pantry moths, thankfully, ( knocking on wood 3 times), and hopefully never will. Just to be safe…I think I’ll order some lavender! ;)
Yes! I am ALL about the lavender now!
Boo! This sounds terrible! But way to turn it into a positively informative blog post. :)
When life hands you lemons…or moths… ;)
Ahhhhhh! i would have a temper tantrum. So glad there is way to get rid of it. At least you can inform others how to take care of it! xoxo
I mean, I kind of did have a temper tantrum at first ;) The stinky thing about being an adult sometimes though is that no one else is going to take care of it for you so you just have to buck up and deal with it!
Oh no! This makes me want to go get all the lavender, right now! All of it! What a bummer. Thanks for turning your negative experience into a helpful one for others.
Seriously – buy all the lavender. Except I already did. Sorry ;)
This is scary! I appreciate a post like this bc now I have gone and ordered the lavender and the baggies and I cannot wait to “proof” my closet. Thank you!!
The silver lining is hoping I can help other people avoid it! It STINKS!
This post is exactly what I’m going through right now! I’m worrying I’m not doing enough, although I’m doing everything you did. Were you successful in eradicating the clothes moths?
Oh goodness, I am SO sorry you’re going through this! I was so upset. But I haven’t seen a sign of them since about this time last year so I *think* it worked.
UGH about to start this wonderful journey myself :'(
Although I am a neat freak and love organizing things, I did have a temper tantrum myself.. Thank you for the tips!
It is the worst. So sorry you are going through it too!
UGH about to start this wonderful journey myself :'(
Although I am a neat freak and love organizing things, I did have a temper tantrum myself.. Thank you for the tips!