Spring and summer are clothes moth season in our house. For us, this is war. Living in an old house means that there are lots of voids in the walls and tucked away corners for moths to hide. And it’s a cold old house so we wear lots of woolly jerseys in the winter. On really cold days, I up the winter glamour by donning my grandmother’s cosy old fur coat in the office. Sadly for us all these natural fabrics are a feast for the greedy larvae of the clothes moth.
What’s is the problem with moths?
Clothes moths get everywhere, into fabrics stored in the loft; into my daughter’s beloved Parisian beret, into boxes of old fishing flies and clouds of them in the dressing up box. Our war involves piles of vacuum bags for woollen clothing, flea sprays on the carpet (and the dog), and newest in our arsenal – pheromone traps. Developed in consultation with the Museum of London, these handy little sticky pads exude tempting wafts of female moth drawing male moths down to a gummy end. They work by removing males from the equation so that the females can’t breed. This technique (coupled with furiously bashing any moths we see flying around) has had at least some impact on our moth problem. When I was a child in another chilly Victorian house, naptha moth balls were a regular part of the family arsenal and visiting old ladies regularly marked the change of season by trailing a distinctive mothball whiff. The banning of strong chemicals has apparently led to a surge in moth populations. Rentokil reported a 110% increase in the number of moth related calls in April and May 2018. English Heritage’s 2018 survey found that numbers had doubled, particularly in the South and they report regular problems with moth infestations. At Brodsworth Hall in Yorkshire, moth damage in the curtains, carpets and chair coverings caught them out and, with a terrible irony, at textile magnate, Stephen Courtauld’s house at Eltham Palace, English Heritage found moths eating away at the upholstery in Virginia Courtauld’s Boudoir.
Where did clothes moths come from?
So what is the history of our relationship with these little pests? They probably arrived with the Romans along with carrots and cats and a whole bunch of other imports. Romans certainly wore wool and there is evidence of moth infestation from Roman archaeological sites in Britain. The British economy in medieval times was built on the quality of its wool, so it’s impossible to imagine that moth infestation wasn’t a problem in the Middle Ages. Apparently keeping your clothes in the garderobe – the loo set above a shaft in the castle wall – so that any noxious smells might keep away the pests, was one approach but since the word ‘garderobe’ could be applied to any sort of small storage room in the castle wall, this theory doesn’t quite hold together. However, in medieval times, herbs, particularly lavender or wormwood were strewn among stored textiles while the use of cedar chests, which secret an oil which discourages pests, was widespread. According to EH’s Pest Manager, Dee Lauder, Elizabeth I employed eight men to beat her furs all day to make sure they didn’t get chomped. More specifically, in 1598 it took six men four days to air all the royal robes stored in Whitehall Palace and the Tower of London to keep the moths out.
In the days before fast fashion, clothes were expensive and precious. It was unusual to own more clothes that you could wear in a week and, though you changed your linen frequently, you rarely changed your outer garments. Add in today's central heating, low temperature washing and the banning of carcinogenic chemicals and it's not surprising there is plague of moths in my house (and maybe yours too). The old remedies still help too, so I also keep a bottle of lavender oil handy at all times. At least when I go into battle armed only with pheromones and essential flower oils, I have the comfort that this is a battle that we’ve been fighting for centuries.
