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Tuesday, November 4, 2014

How many battles make a war?

I know you were all dying to hear an update on the moth situation, right? Or maybe just assuming there was no update because I killed all the buggers?

There is, sadly, an update.

First of all, the downstairs freezer still looks like this.




So it's a really good thing we have an extra freezer downstairs. There are also shawls and sweaters shoved into the freezer upstairs, not to mention all the sweaters that went into my mother's chest freezer.


Last month I laundered EVERYTHING in our closet, took all the coats and suits to the drycleaners, scrubbed the HECK out of our closet with Pinesol, and moved the bookshelf that had my yarn and scrubbed the heck out of that whole area. I vacuumed our rugs every day for a few weeks. And I felt okay, because I'd done everything that I could reasonably do.

And then I found a wool cardigan in the bottom of another closet, complete with holes and moth poop.

Deep breaths. It looked like old damage. No larvae or moths or pupae to be seen. Scrub the closet. Wash all the things. Okay. Deep breaths.

Well, I had the vacuum out, so let's clear the dust bunny out of the twins' closet. Which has no wool. Just some shoes, some bins of baby clothes, some duffel bags on the floor.

Except look ... an old forgotten glove on the floor next to the duffel bags.

Freak out. Throw away the glove. Pull out the duffel bags. Find a LIVING MOTH running away from me! VACUUM IT TO DEATH. Scrub! Wash! PANIC! And while we're at it let's throw ALL THE TOWELS AND SHEETS from the linen closet in the washing machine and dump the rest of the Pinesol in there and banish the baby-towel basket to the deck for two weeks!

Because the last time I talked myself out of overreacting apparently I missed the moths.

That was two weeks ago.

Today, I found this.





A fingerless glove that was waiting for its missing mate in a bucket of odds and ends. The little white sandy stuff is either eggs or poop, and the whitish cylinder is either an old pupae or casing. There was a moth living at the bottom of the bucket.

Blargh.

Whenever enough time passes that I feel safe, perhaps up to tackling the yarn in the freezer, I find another place the moths have landed. The hard part is not knowing whether it's new or was simply there all along.

7 comments:

  1. Ugh. What a shame, especially with all your beautiful hand-knit things. I sympathize especially because we had an episode of bedbugs last summer. When given the right motivation, I CAN be a clean freak. But man was that stressful. I hope you've got them this time!

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    1. The horrible thing is I have been a clean freak for the past month. It just feels like it doesn't make a difference at this point, and that's a very powerless feeling. I'm going to start rechecking closets tomorrow. And make sure they're not coming back. Blah.

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  2. Oh, so sorry Rosemary... This sounds so awful :(

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  3. gosh, this is terrible. I hope it's the same moth problem and you're discovering them as you go about.

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  4. oh dear, I am SO Sorry!!! Can you get a professional in to deal with this? sounds so very stressful! Lord have mercy!!!

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    1. I think if I find one in a place I've already cleaned ... or maybe just another one period ... I am going to put my foot down about the professionals coming in. Normally I guess you don't call them in for clothes moths unless you have a HUGE problem, which I can't say this is ... and my husband is reluctant to use chemicals which I understand. We'll see.

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  5. Oh! You really weren't kidding that ALL your yarn is in the freezer! I hope you find a solution soon. I really like the "yarn storage cupboard' I saw in a more recent post. I hope you get to use it :)

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