Moths..

You might line the closet with cedar slats. Or get Inspecteur Clouseau to change them into mooths.

That would be Red Cedar Slats.

Or, use an insect bim.

A moth walks into a bar....

James Stewart #35 "....A moth walks into a bar...."

....and was blown off his feet...it was 14.5 psi..!.

LOL!!

Must have been a soda bar.

Clean the whole cupboard, wash and clean all wardrobe, give the cupboard a fumigation. Repeat with all in the house. Do it at the same time.

Check your ventialtion. Is it bug proof?

Last but not least if nothing helps, move to a different climate and change your wardrobe over.

Lavender is said to help agains moth.

Good luck.

I don't know about moths, but it is very likely that it will help even if its not a complete answer, I would try it myself. Thanks for the tip.

Good quality (there is some cheap useless stuff around!) Lavender oil will keep mosquito's away when a few drops are massaged into exposed skin areas. I have used it for years. Last year I found a new oil supplier on German ebay that has a strength to be marvelled at, at the same price as everyone else.....

Old English gardens often had a lavender plant at each corner of the house, so that it did not matter from what direction the wind blew, the smell went always via open windows through the house and it drove off any nasties.

One of the few insects that goes onto Lavender are Bees, almost (as far as my experience has been) all others do not like going near it.

This website appears to agree with that:-

six-insect-repellent-plants-to-grow

It will certainly do no harm and everything will smell great as well.....but it did not mention moths.

But Martha Stewart does:-

Martha Stewart the-basics-of-mothproofing

To the OP:-

Best of luck with getting rid of them, not easy once they are "installed"!! As ever, revention being better than a cure!

Do let us know how you get on......I am hoping to learn more useful stuff......

Andy.. I will let you know how I progress, lot of good tips and sites from everyone, many thanks all.....

Watch this space!!

Nice!

Is it only man made material, or is it a possible that its a future grand meal for Moths!!

Old Joke:-

"What have you got when you have a Mothball in the left hand, a yard away from a Mothball in the right hand?"

You are holding the nuts of a MAMMOTH Moth!! PUT HIM DOWN!!! Look where his Dick is!!!

What happens when you hold mothballs up to a grinding wheel?

--A really high-pitched scream!!!

Me too!

What great oppurtunities there is . . .

Maybe brich should count his blessings and start up a business!

An ounce of prevention is worth a lb of cure I think somebody once said...

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7435.html

many thanks.. very interesting.... this site never came up in my google searches!!

Many thanks all for the quick replies, gonna try them all except the moving bit...

get a pail put a quarter of water on it, get a ladder and put the pail nearest the light.

I can't add much to other posts, but out of curiosity, do you mean a problem with moths themselves or the larvae eating holes in your clothes? If the latter, no doubt they'll go for wool and cotton, but maybe less keen on manmades. Mothballs used to contain naphthalene, but replaced by something less smelly (to humans). Perhaps the traditional type would work better.

its the latter... lots of NEW holes in my shirts....

Not sure what type of mothballs I bought.. now I'm going to read the label/ingredients

I've tried using "Old Fashioned" mothballs for mouse control; they don't do well at that though. But they do smell better to me than the ones they have now that smell like toilet bowl stinkum. I haven't noticed any moths though, but still get mouse damage.

C M itty bitty feets? M R mice.

Mice like peanut butter. They do not like polyurethane foam with steel wool in it. Neither do I, but it will plug a hole.

Unless your seeing the moths or their larva there are other insects that could be doing this like silverfish.

I use these with great success:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DSA1ZE/ref=sr_ph?ie=UTF8&qid=1420511579&sr=1&keywords=moth+traps

I looked in the back of my wardrobe and there was one mothball near the left of the shirt rack and another near the middle of the rack.

Wow - I'm just not messing with a moth that size.

LOL!!

Read the book:
ADVICE TO YOUNG MOTHERS

I've had a similar problem. Try using a spray of 50%water and 50%vinager. Check your closets and where you see what looks like eggs, spray the devil out of them. Just keep a towel handy.

that just wards off devils.

LOL!!!

I thought that too, or they taste good (assuming you like vinegar!!)

Make bags of unbleached calico, add a drawstring so you can close the mouth of the bag. Drop in camphor or naphthalene. Add clothes. Hang the bag with a clothes hanger.

Also try sandalwood instead of red cedar.

You could soak the timber of your cupboard with turpentine or throw in chips of timber from a turpentine mango tree.

Carpet moths, sprinkle Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) generously on carpet. When the crystals turns to powder, vacuum and apply fresh salts.

The US government has a free program that will certainly solve your problem.

First, burn all your clothes and the wardrobe and the house. Then telephone the local US Embassy and quote the the keyword "Al Quida". Tell them that you just burned down your house (this is a freebee, lots of people apply, so you may have to exaggerate a bit to be sure you get on the program, but based your current and previous locations you should have no trouble), say you were trying to burn down the neighborhood.

The US government then immediately swings into action. They send a team to pick you up. They fly you (Air Rendition) to your 'free of any charges' new home. They provide you with free new moth proof clothes in the form of nylon coveralls. (The colors are a bit limited, I hope you like bright orange). The feed you for free. You can stay for as long as you like, or longer.

(Tip re. the extra sports activities provided. The surf boarding (they call it water boarding) should be avoided if possible.

if only I was a US citizen.... thank God for small mercies eh?

somehow I don't see the British embassy here in Oman even opening the door to me!!

"...I seem to have a moth problem...I have tried mothballs...."

And me, but even with a mini-catapult I had trouble hitting them!

The problem with moths is that once they lay their eggs, the repellants like lavender and moth balls do no good. The only thing is dry cleaning with a facility that knows you want the moth eggs out and has the capability. At one time when wool was common, the cleaners all knew how to do this. Not so true today. The moth repellants like lavender, moth balls or crystals, and red cedar only work to keep the moths away from the clothes or other items. Screens, doors, and windows work better. So the prevention must be 2 layered, clean all the items to particularly remove the eggs and then block out or repell the moths and hope they don't lay new ones.

If only you could see moth eggs!

Isn't that steaming, which a lot of top end clothes washers have.

Most moth eggs are very resistant to steaming and that has very little effect. This is used by many commercial cleaners today, which is why we have much more problems with wool than in the past. Those terrible, flammable in some cases, chemicals that were used in the past are now banned and since that is not a high profit area no good replacements are available. But those chemicals did kill the moth eggs and everything else (human or other) that was exposed too heavily to them.

I am sure that is right, steaming does not kill for example bed bugs, as one German magazine put it, to get the necessary amount of heat in steam to kill all bed bugs, the bed would be sopping wet at the end and need a week to dry out.

The German magazine, Stiftung Waren Test is the magazine that tests EVERYTHING for the German market place. Steam is a great big con according to them!!!

It is similar to the Which magazine in the UK.Very reliable....if they say steam is rubbish for cleaning your house, I believe them.....

If you can read German, go here:-

https://www.test.de/suche/?q=Dampfreiniger

20.04.2007Test

Dampfreiniger: Keiner ist gut

None are good!!!!

Ich lieb der Deutchenvolk! A word for every thought.

I still like the dry ice and freezing cold temperature, two kills in one! The only problem is when you seal up the closet, and the pressure blows out the wall into the next apartment!

In other words, try this at home, but not in home! Or at least provide a small vent for the CO2 pressure that would have formed, and vent the gas outdoors with a small tube. This is sort of like reverse auto exhaust. Hey! there is another idea! Put your clothes in your car with a water hose from the exhaust in through a window, start up the car, and come back in a while. If it does not kill all vermin, then run for your life!

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7435.html

The above is a useful link: You can heat wool that is dry, if heated to slightly over 120 °F (49 °C) the larvae and eggs will be dead. If you are worried, check with woolen garment manufacturers best care instructions, but you also have the option of placing items on a hanging line in bright sunlight (plenty of that around Oman), and brushing the clothing vigorously, especially seams. I admit I trust this more for cotton than for wool or anything Mohair.

If heat is not your best option, then use a chest-type freezer, or place all clothing items in an insulated box with dry ice. That way you get double the effect. CO2 in high concentration will kill any aerobic organism, but freezing moth larvae, eggs, and adults is generally and totally effective as well. No "harsh" chemicals need to be involved. I really I should score big for thinking of dry ice.

Note: "Don't try this at home!" Make sure this is done in an outdoor location so proper venting of the CO2 takes place, after all, you don't want to harm yourself or your neighbor.

Not sure about moths, but the dryer sheets that prevent wrinkles keep wasps and hornets away. It's worth a try to pin a few up on the closet walls.

When I was on an aircraft carrier in Singapore, we got a lot of insect life on board and after a year, the whole ship had to be disinfected, twice, with Cyanide gas.

The gas would only kill the insects, not the eggs, which was why it had to be done a second time.

After the eggs had hatched, but BEFORE they could lay new eggs.

I would guess that is also the problem here.....lack of correct timing.

Where I live is swimming with moths (I mean Alfred Hitchcock levels of moths at times).. but I only had a clothes moth problem once. I had some rabbit skins I intended to make into something... before I did so, they were infested with the moths that eat them. I got rid of them and never had another clothes moth problem...

There's probably better advice here, but I'll ask, do you have a light in your closet? Maybe think about leaving that on a couple weeks, after you've purged/sprayed etc.? A light with a glass enclosure traps moths like crazy here. I have a glass trap for wasps, you're supposed to put honey in the bottom but for clothes wasps I'd try a bit of rabbit skin and something sticky and venemous. And a light in it.

For mothballs and other methods that are based on evaporating substances, to work in the long run, the space in question must be nearly air-tight. Transparent bags combined with really small doses will do. S.M.