Fuck!

[frualeydis]

Like in all block of flats in Sweden we have a storage locker in the basement (some have it in the attic). And today we found out that the whole place is infested with moths. This far I have only been able to check two boxes where I keep my winter clothes (you have to have somwhere to put the stuff and you don't want it in the flat until it's free from moths so you won't get it inside too) and both had moths or moth damage in them; my rather new dress in glencheck has a hole right in the middle of the skirt for instance.

I'm so sad about this. I'm really too ill to have to take care of this now and our flat will be almost unfit to live in if I have to move all the stuff up here and where and how am I going to actually get rid of the moths - it's not like you can put everything in the freezer for a week - it's just too much.

I pray that they haven't attacked the pavillion, I wouldn't be able to afford a new one. I've got over a 100 metres of fabric down there too (mostly polycotton and some poly).

You know, I thought I've had enough bad things happen to me for a lifetime.

Comments

[sneprinsesse.livejournal.com]

I am sorry to hear that. After all the hard work you have put into making clothes just to have it all ruined :(

I found that moths had eaten one wool skirt in a plastic bag in my bedroom, but not the wool bodice in the same bag, that was very strange. I wanted to take the skirt apart anyway so it wasn't a disaster. My bunad was ok.

What can one do? I really don't want to use mothballs because the smell gives me a headache (so I can't use my grandparents old clothing so much, because it smells).

[noxcat.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should grt better storage containers for yyour wool items?They might cost more initislly, but you should save money in tge long run.

And wgt put all the wool in the reezer at once? Put a couple pieces in at a time. then when you take them out they go right into the new moth proof containers.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

We will get plastic containers, whebn we get hold of a car. The freezer isn't very big and contains food and the pieces of clothing ideally shouldn't be folded,at least not much and it takes at elast a week in the freezer to be sure so with that method I would be doing this next year too.
Even if the moths didn't eat other materials than wool, which they sometimes do, everythign will have to be treated to clear it from eggs.

We took care of two boxes yesterday by putting the clothes in the drying cabinet frop three hours on 90 degrees, but even that will take a lot of time and it's not our drying cabinet, it's shared with hundreds of people.

/Eva

[m-nivalis.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathies. I hope you can find a good way to sort this out.

[therru.livejournal.com]

I really sympathise. I've had moths (and carpet beetles), in my flat no less, so I know exactly how upset you are.

And whatever you do, do not bring the stuff into your flat. The larvae can live for months in the cracks between walls and floors and you'd have to live in airtight plastic bags for half a year if your flat got infested.

If it's moths you have and not carpet beetles they are hard to get rid of, but they shouldn't eat anything that isn't wool or fur or feathers. Carpet beetles can munch on other stuff too, even synthetics.

This is a good info page: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05599.html