Clothes moths eradication – sticky traps and a vacuum

I’ve previously written about my attempts to get rid of clothes moths, and also did a follow on post with further clothes moth eradication advice. Since then I’ve moved, but still have clothes moths. Seems they are everywhere in London, eating clothes, eating carpets, or just being annoying by flying around and landing on your walls.

I have a few new strategies for tackling them which I’ll detail in this post.

Moth traps

Clothes moths traps are sticky traps containing a pheromone that attracts the male moth. If they land on the trap they’ll be stuck. These traps are useful for both capturing clothes moths, and also monitoring how severe the infestation is.

I’ve been deploying the moth traps in a contained way so that it is harder for other objects to get stuck on them, and harder for anyone to put their hand on one. You really don’t want to put your hand on one of these, they are really sticky, and if there are already moths on the trap having your hand stuck to it is quite unpleasant!

There are two ways I’ve used to contain the pheromone trap. You can buy plastic covers for the traps*. These allow the moths to find the trap, but prevent something else from getting stuck to them. Some of them are for placing on the floor or on wardrobes. But the trap covers pictured below are particularly useful if you want to hang the traps up in your wardrobes between the clothes.

clothes moths sticky trap
Sticky clothes moths trap for handing in-between clothes

The other method I’ve used is to tape two traps together, with both traps folded in the middle to make a diamond shaped trap. This allow you to easily place these traps onto of cupboards, under beds etc. The photo should tell you all you need to know on how to make this kind of trap.

The photo shows two separate diamond shaped traps that I’ve made.

clothes moths sticky trap
Sticky traps can capture some of your unwanted moths

You can buy these sticky traps in packs of 10* from various places on the internet, the ones I’ve been using most often are from Kritterkill. I’ve used them for over two years now replacing them either after a certain amount of time (for me every 6 months), or when they have a lot of moths stuck on them.

I’ve found it helpful to write the date on them before deploying them so you know how old the traps are.

Moths on walls

If you have clothing / carpet moths then you’ll probably see them on your walls – especially if you have white walls! So how do you get rid of them from the walls.

Whacking them with a newspaper is one option, but I don’t recommend it as you’ll get a splat on the wall.

Trying to capture them using the glass cup / cardboard trick (as used for spiders) is another option, but they might just fly back into your home.

I’ve found using a handheld vacuum to be very effective. You can simply suck the moths off the wall. With a bit of practice you can even suck them out of the air if they fly off the wall.

I’ve been using a rechargeable handheld Vax* for this purpose and it works very well. I leave a small plastic bag in the end when not in use so that the moths can’t fly back out.

handheld vacuum cleaner
A handheld vacuum cleaner can suck the moths cleanly off the wall

Good luck with your moth battles – let me know in the comments how you get on!

Items I mentioned

Affiliate disclosure: Links with a * are affiliate links. As a member of a number of affiliate programmes I earn from qualifying purchases.

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