Winter Pest: How to Prevent Moths from Eating your Clothes

Clothes aren’t eaten by moths yet? That’s luck. Preventing Moths from eating your clothes is better than doing nothing at all though.

Your clothes are something you wear every single day, if one of your favorite pieces got destroyed than it wouldn’t be great at all. Especially if it’s that woolen top you got from Christmas. Adult Moths with Narrow Wings and are buff colored do not eat the fabric of your clothes, but adult moths only means one thing, they’ll be having larvae that’ll eat up your clothes.

The larvae are creamy-white colored, has a brown head, and are quite shiny. Clothes moth larvae can damage fabrics by creating holes onto them, leaving out a line of silken thread. Moths during the Larvae Stage are of those which damage the clothes, adult moth on the other hand are harmless.

To prevent your clothes from having a random hole in them, you’ll have to do something than just hope for the best that your clothes don’t have any larvae in them.

Clean the closet. Where do you store your clothes? Obviously in a closet or a cabinet. Moth eggs can end up just about anywhere and it might definitely be in your closet. By doing a thorough cleaning on the closet such as dusting and even vacuuming the insides if possible, it’ll help get rid of those pesky moth eggs.

Clean owned clothes. Your clothes are made of fabric and some may be made of wool from animals. Clothing with such materials should be cleaned in the dry cleaners with of course specifications that you’d like to get rid of possible moth eggs. Other clothes can be personally cleaned by you, by using hot water that is at least 49°c to destroy any larvae.

Ironing owned clothes. Besides washing clothes with hot water, one can also iron it unless a tag on the cloth says “do not iron” otherwise, it would be fine. The steam heat from the iron will kill both moth eggs and larvae that are stuck on your clothes.

Use cedar wood hangers. Most moths do not like cedar wood, by using cedar wood in hanging your clothes, its natural oils kill moth larvae but the effect is dependent of the scent on the cedar wood. Try not to use plastic hanging bags, plastic can accumulate dusts which will in turn attract moths.

By preventing moths and its larvae from staying onto your clothes, you’ll have a better chance in keeping your clothes hole free.