I don’t want to call the exterminator, is there any way to get rid of them?
When I got back after 1 week of being gone a lot of moths have been in my house. There are more and more every week, its been 6 months, they are really making me mad.
How can I get them out?
I find spiders do an excellant job of it.
Are you by any chance storing birdseed in the house?
That stuff is full of moth seeds(?), or larvae, or whatever the hell moths come from.
Try moth balls. Then, try putting screens on the open doors, windows and roof vents. Then, thy 20 gallons of gasoline and a match. In addition to the mothe, this will get risd of all the nasty roomers you have been hearing.
I HATE MOTHS.
Hate them. I would really like moths to become extinct. Its their big sharp teeth that i hate the most, and sometimes they are armed with weapons too!
I’m sorry to say it, but the minute a moth flies in my room, i get a deoderant spray and a lighter and blowtorch the little bastard. I am not a vicious killer who dislikes nature, far from it, but goddam how i hate moths.
You must be careful sometimes they lay traps for you and try to snare you so they can flap down and bite you to death, i swear it!
I HATE MOTHS. ESPECIALLY ONES WITH BIG BODIES!!! Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
Where the hell do you live anyway, Piig?!
A trick to get a couple moths out: This only works if you have an outdoor light near a door. Wait until it’s dark outside. Open the door, turn the outside light on, and turn all the indoor lights off. The moths will be attracted to the outside light and will fly out.
Of course, ya gotta be careful, lest more moths fly in when you leave your door open too long.
*sigh
Step aside, you amateurs, wannabes, novices and nerds. Let a professional hired killer through.
First, you have to determine if these are clothes moths or meal moths. Are they mostly in the kitchen? Or in the clothes closets?
If they are clothes moths, you need to empty the closet and have every article of clothing that contains natural fibers dry cleaned. Yes, that’s expensive, but it’s the only way. While the closet is empty, use an aerosol containing pyrethrin to 1) spray into the corners and all (and I mean all) the cracks and crevices in and around the closet. Then 2) do a fogging with the aerosol, filling the closet with mist. Shut the door and walk away.
If they are meal moths, the activity will be mostly in the kitchen and they will be infesting your grain products. Look carefully at all foods that contain grain, such as oatmeal, breakfast cereal, pancake mix, etc. Bags/boxes of rice or uncooked dried beans and especially pet food are likely culprits, too. If you see little worms in these products, or sawdust-like debris in the bags, or teeny holes in the bags, toss them out. Yeah, I know, that’s expensive, too, but if you continue to store infested food your problem is not going to go away. Plus, you’ll likely be eating little mealworms. Keep your cereal and other grain products in sealable plastic or glass containers. Never keep open boxes of cereal or pancake mix on the shelf.
Look also for egg cases. They are likely to be in the corners where the wall meets the ceiling, in the corners of cabinets or even in the spines of cookbooks and around other boxes in the shelves. Wipe them off or spray them with pyrethrin or both.
Empty cabinets of everything and fog the kitchen and inside the cabinets. You may have to stay out of the kitchen for a couple hours, and you might want to wipe everything down before you start using your kitchen again.
The important thing in both cases is to look for web-like egg sacs and worm-like larvae. The flying critters are annoying, but the larvae are the real bad guys. Cut off the infestation at the source. Then do what you can to make sure it doesn’t recur.
Moth balls. duh 
Actually, get a bright light put it outside. Make sure its the only one on at night. All you moths run out to it. easy. No need for some professional, yet.
handy, your brilliant suggestion is only going to attract the moths that are near enough to the light to perceive it. Any that are in the closet are probably not even going to be able to get out. And meal moths, AFAIK, are not attracted to light. Don’t confuse the 80 bizillion other species of moths out there with clothes moths or meal moths. They are not the same.
Also, even if that did work, which I highly doubt, the eggs and larvae are still going to be in the clothes/food/closet/cabinets. Then this whole jolly scenario will be repeating itself when they turn into adults. The flying insects are annoying, I know, but it’s the larvae that damage the clothing and infest the food. And they ain’t going to be attracted to no porch light.
Don’t treat the symptoms, treat the source!!
You may be able to handle it without paying a professional (although since this has been going on for six months, that may be tough and require more than one application), but if that’s your aim, then treat it like a professional would.
Inspect. Treat. Take corrective action. This is not a case of occasional invaders. It’s an infestation that’s been half a year in the making. The problem cannot be solved by “shooing them out the door.”
One word:
BATS
No…
CATS
Mine love to catch the buggers. Of course sometimes i feel it rather inhumane and am forced to finish the kill before they eat it.
DAVEW0071 comes through again!
His suggestion is the only one that has a significant chance of being effective.
You hang a print of “After the Hunt” over the fireplace and when the left handed moths try to steal it you whack 'em with the flashlight. I dunno about right handed moths.
JB “o"o====”
Dept. of Marxian Allusions.
JBENZ said:
Do you mean the flash, the flesh, the flutes, the Flitz, the flask, or the fish?
Ten points for originality, my fellow Marxist.
Wood Thrush said:
I hope so, since that’s what I was trained for and how I earn my money!
I don’t mind, though. All the other suggestions on this thread are what keep me in business.
Well, it’s simple: just go out on your lawn and make a noise like an angora sweater…
If it’s clothes moths, DAVEW0071 is right on the money: remove the clothes, spray into every possible crevice, etc.
There is a cheaper alternative to the mass dry-cleaning, if you can get access to a couple of empty deep freezes: put the clothes items from the infested closets in a freezer for 4-6 days.
Well you could make some moth sexual scent & put some on the
bulb outside on the porch. If that light doesn’t attract them that scent sure would.
Or how about coffee? I was sitting down having coffee this morning & all of sudden drank one of the moths & chewed on it [kinda nutty flavor] but spit it out. Never though they were attracted to coffee.
Does the coffee contain chickory?
“Does the coffee contain chickory”
Nope…dunno how it got in there either.
moths are one more problem that can be solved effectively by heavy drinking. The steps are three: Drink some. If you still find yourself caring about moths, drink some more.
The Professional Hired Killer sez:
Personally, I keep most of that stuff in the freezer. I might still have egg cases in them…but at least the eggs are dead. Right?
Got any tips on fleas? We had a nice warm wet winter here in Fort Worth. It never got cold enough to kill most of the fleas. We’ve had the cats dipped (and, in one case, clipped short)(and let me tell you, NEITHER cat appreciated our efforts), and fumigated the house. Since I have privacy issues, I prefer not to let ANYONE in the house. So what else can an amateur do?