The moths are driving me crazy! I fight a constant battle trying to protect my oriental rugs, and today I found that they have eaten some bald spots into the trim on my Afghani leather coat! Kill!!! It wouldn't be so bad if they'd eat the wool from the end of the strand in. They don't. They eat only at the roots. So the rug pile or coat collar looks fine until you run your hand over it, and then chunks of perfectly good wool tuft fall out. Some of this wool stuff lasted uneaten a hundred years in the middle east, and may not make it six months in my house. I don't understand.
They must have come into the house ON something. I can't imagine they just flew in, like ordinary moths, 'cause I can't imagine them "in the wild". They've probably been 'domesticated' for thousands of years. Somebody should do a study on the development of the clothes moth, like where did they come from, how did they develop such a specific diet, and how have they affected mankind. Not to mention the popularity of cedar trees.
What do they eat in the wild? Sheep?? It can't be skiers - it's too cold when they're in season.
I've tried those ridiculously expensive hormone-baited cardboard box moth traps, and they don't work at all. I've seen moths flutter right past the box, without a glance, three months and not a single moth in the box. I found a water-based moth spray that I'm not too afraid to use on the rugs, but I can't spray much or often because of the cat, and I'm not at all comfortable using it on clothing. Bombing didn't seem to have any effect, either.
(I suspect they came back from a trip to Rochester, on my orange/brown coat. That was the first item I found covered in moth cocoons, but nothing else in the same closet was affected --- yet. That coat had spent two days and nights in a Rochester motel closet. And they tell us to beware the bedspread....!)
I'm beginning to dream of moths.
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