Members of the order Lepidoptera, moths are more nocturnal and less colorful than their close cousins, butterflies. The other thing that sets these insects apart is that many consider them pests because they feed on fabrics, like your clothing, and pantry products.
If you suspect that you have a moth infestation, you need to act fast to preserve the contents of your closets and your larder. Learning as much as you can about the pest, and getting to the right service provider as quickly as you can are two key steps to a pest-free home.
Becoming informed about the type of pest from which you are suffering is something you can accomplish on your own, starting with this article. Here are some facts about moths so you can spot them, identify them, and keep them at bay.
What Are Moths?
There are more than 100,000 different types of moths; some are very helpful to humans, like the silkworm, and some can be highly detrimental, like the Gypsy moth. There are two types of moths you can find in your home – pantry moths and fabric moths – with two types of the latter kind.
Here are some details to identify the particular types of moths. In the pantry, you mostly find one type of moth in U.S. cupboards: the Indian meal moth. These moths:
- are ½” long
- have a wingspan of ¾”
- have wings that are copper, red, and bronze
- have brown or gray head markings
- have brown or gray thoraxes and abdomens
- display a copper band across their wings
The Indian meal moths prefer dark, undisturbed corners and like to infest dry goods like cereal, dog food, flour, rice, pasta, some spices, and dried fruit or nuts. You can also find them in outside food sources, like bird seed or grass seed, so thorough inspection is integral to keeping the Indian meal moth at bay.
The two types of clothing moths are the webbing clothes moth and the casemaking clothes moth. Webbing clothes moths are uniformly tan or buff-colored with a small tuft of red hair at the top of their heads; often mistaken for moths that infest grains, these moths are harder to spot as they are very light-avoidant. Casemaking moths are a similar length – ½” – and have darker speckles across their wings.
Clothing moths feed on animal products like wool, leather, feathers, and fur, which means anything in your closet or bureaus may be fair game. They especially like cashmere and wool, and these closet moths, as they’re sometimes called, don’t fly long distances but prefer to hop around close to their food sources.
For clothing moths, these winged insects flutter around their food source – your wardrobe – to attract mates. These moths lay eggs on fur, cashmere, or wool fabric, and will lay 40 to 50 eggs in a clutch over a period of weeks. The females use a special adhesive to adhere the eggs to the fabric, and the eggs are so small that they are difficult to see without a magnifying glass.
A Moth’s Life Cycle
A moth’s life cycle is incredibly important to understand if you’re attempting to eliminate some. Adult moths don’t feast on clothes or dry goods, but their larva does. Each moth goes through four different life stages – egg, pupa, larva, and adult. Adult moths have no working mouthparts, and exist only to mate or produce eggs. But the larva can wreak particular havoc on your environment.
Depending on the temperature and other hatching conditions, moth eggs can take anywhere from four to 10 days to hatch, with the warmer temps inclining eggs to hatch more quickly, and cooler temps delaying the hatch. Once they hatch they turn into pupa, which present as small cream-colored caterpillars and are the most destructive of the moth’s stages.
Once again, the length of time that a moth remains in its larval stage largely depends on the temperature and proximity of food sources, and this stage can last anywhere from a month to two years.
- Webbing clothes moth – These larva spin tubes or webs and move about on the chosen patch of material beneath their creation, leaving threadbare patches as they munch.
- Casemaking clothes moth – These types of moths spin a tubular encasement in which they travel around their chosen feeding ground.
Old furs, woolen coats, and cashmere sweaters are all on the list of these two moths’ favorite foods, and along with eating threadbare patches into the material, they also leave behind tiny fecal pellets.
Once they’ve finished feeding, they pupate, which means they tuck themselves away to become the winged, adult version of themselves. This final mutation is the least damaging to your home goods, and also the most noticeable.
What To Look For in a Moth Infestation
It’s hardest to spot casemaking clothes moth infestation, with webbing clothes moths next, and then pantry moths coming last. A casemaking clothes moth often uses some of the fabric or material on which it’s feeding to make its tubular encasement, making it the same hue as the fabric and thus very difficult to spot. You have to look for the tubular shape among the folds or in crevices. Webbing clothes moths don’t use materials from their feeding grounds to spin their webs, so it’s slightly easier to spot the white splotch of webbing on the fabric.
The easiest way to spot the evidence of a clothing moth infestation is by examining your wardrobe and looking for the telltale signs of moth larva feeding – tiny holes stippling the fabric. Cuffs, collars, and hems are favorite places where these larvae like to feed, and you may see several areas where the fabric has been chewed straight through.
You will notice pantry moths fluttering around any place you store dry goods. They won’t stick close to their feeding grounds either, but will travel throughout your house looking for food. Before a moth infestation becomes too serious, there are some tactics you can take to decrease moths’ damage.
What You Can Do About Moths
You need to take different approaches to your attack on the moth population, and the approach you take will largely depend on what kind of moth you have. Careful checking and consistent cleaning are two key steps you can take to keep your home free of moths.
Every six months, check clothing and vacuum cupboards and shelves to get rid of any eggs or moths. Moths are attracted to sweat, urine, body odors, and leftover food smells, so make sure to thoroughly clean your clothing before storing it for the season.
Mothballs, although relied on heavily in the past, are now out of fashion as this remedy is mainly composed of poison. Cedar balls and storing your woolens and cashmeres in cedar chests can help, but won’t work entirely on their own. Another home remedy that only takes a little elbow grease is to take rugs, curtains, coats, clothing, and bed linens into bright sunlight and beat the dust out of them. You can also freeze any fabric or garments for 72 hours to kill off eggs.
To get rid of pantry moths, you have to clean everything thoroughly, and throw away any contaminated foods. There’s nothing quite as unnerving as opening a box of cereal and spotting pantry moth larva squirming amongst the corn flakes.
If your moth problem is too persistent and you are looking at exorbitant damage, you may need to call in a professional. A professional will also take an integrated approach when it comes to tackling your moth pest problem. Pheromone traps and thermal disinfestation are two of the tools pest control specialists use to rid your home of these pesky fliers.
Since each type of moth emits a different type of pheromone, it’s crucial to get a correct identification on the pest before you start treating them with pheromones. Insecticide sprays aren’t typically useful to combat moths as you don’t want to heavily spray fabrics or food.
What To Do To Keep Moths Away
There are a few steps you can take to make sure that moths won’t move into your wardrobe or pantry in the first place.
- Avoid bulk foods – Factory seals are the best against invading moth larvae; if you prefer bulk food, keep it in sealed plastic containers.
- Use heat or extreme cold – Either extreme of temperature will kill off any moth eggs in your food or clothing. Freezing items like clothing or meltable food items like chocolate will get rid of eggs, and heating (even with the microwave) noncombustible items results in the same end.
- Refrigeration – To keep pantry moths out of your grains, refrigerate them if you don’t use them often.
At Home Pros makes your journey a swift one. Our digital platform provides you with a list of available service providers with only a few keystrokes. If you’ve seen holes in your clothes or moths fluttering around your pantry or cupboards, you need a professional on your side.
At Home Pros aids you in finding pest control service providers who will decrease the damage moths can wreak on your pantry or closet. If you have seen these flying pests on your premises more than once, and have decided that it’s finally time to do something about them, contact At Home Pros today.
Learn how much you should be paying for pest control near you.