Why I’ve stuffed my entire designer wardrobe in a freezer in my front room
LINDA KELSEY says it’s the only way to beat the worst moth invasion for years
FIre and fury will be unleashed. The battle is about to begin. I’m calling in the big guns. There can be only one winner — I’m determined it’ll be me. My weapon? A giant chest freezer. My enemy? An invisible army of malevolent, marauding moths hellbent on destroying my precious clothes.
So bitter has my fight become that I’ve taken the drastic measure of installing the unsightly freezer into my stylish living-cum-dining room in order to chill the entire contents of my beloved wardrobe and the moth larvae that lurk within.
I’ve also appointed a commander-in-chief, Tino — pest controller, slayer of rats, exterminator of wasps’ nests — who is assembling his killer sprays.
I have instructed that my longterm foes be shown no mercy. Knowing your enemy, say military experts, is the key to defeating them. The problem is, my enemy seems to know me as well as I know myself.
Despite our being sworn adversaries, I have discovered I have much in common with the battalions of moths currently invading my home and destroying my clothes, furniture and carpets.
Like me, they have expensive taste. Like me, when it comes to quality they are unapologetic snobs. Judging by what they choose to attack, moths are definitely more Prada than Primark and appear quite undeterred by the recession. It all sounds worryingly familiar.
At least I have an excuse. As a former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, schooled on a whole raft of glossy magazines, it’s not surprising that I have a somewhat uppity attitude when it comes to fashion and style.
In the case of sweaters, for example, I’m a 100 per cent cashmere sort of woman, two-ply at the very least, who regards the wool culled from the Kashmir or Mongolian goat as infinitely superior to any other. What excuse do the moths have?
Burrowing into my winter woollies, demonstrating a taste for upmarket merino and angora, too, they have caused absolute havoc while turning their nasty metaphorical noses up at anything containing man-made fibres.
When I moved to my current home nine years ago, after sadly separating from my husband in my mid-50s, I converted a spare room into a dressing room. It was as much a gesture of defiance, proof that I could survive as a single woman, as a reward for having worked hard all my life and having made a success of what I do.
But I soon discovered I wasn’t single or alone. The moths saw my dressing room, with its exposed shelves and hanging rails, as an open invitation to invade my space and move in, dropping their eggs like over-excited children in a sports day race.
If only they hadn’t decided to colonise the rest of my house as well.
For after working at my computer all day, I like nothing more than laying back on my velvet sofa and snuggling up under a soft, White Company woollen throw while watching TV. So, it turns out, do the moth larvae.
And they are damn smart. Designers Guild velvet? It may contain a whiff of viscose, but there’s cotton in there, too, which moths can easily detect and latch onto.
This whole business has so upset me that one night, after watching Game Of Thrones, I actually dreamt I was assassin Arya Stark, brandishing my sword against a swarm of locusts.
Downstairs in my house I have wooden floors, which moths aren’t interested in.
Upstairs in my carpeted office, however, it’s a different story. There I have a sofa-bed that’s too heavy to move without help. Hoovering goes on around rather than underneath it, creating a perfect breeding ground for the little blighters.
The larvae just love feeding in the dark, undisturbed, as I discovered during a spring clean when I got my partner to help shift the sofa and found literally hundreds of dead moths beneath it.
Frayed, too, was an expensive woollen carpet I had laid just a few years back.
THIS year has been a particularly bad year for infestations, the result of an especially warm spring and mild winter. Few households escape completely unscathed, but I am a victim of my love of expensive fabrics and natural fibres.
There is much advice available on dealing with moths, some of it rather accusatory; the suggestion on many forums is that with regular vacuuming and general good housekeeping, you can go a long way towards keeping pests at bay. So does that make me a slattern, a household slut? Is this moth infestation my own fault? I pride myself on cleanliness, but I’ve been made to wonder if I’m more of a sloven than I think.
I’ve even begun to wonder if I’m being punished for the sins of my past. As the Old Testament prophet Isaiah put it, when referring to those who did not follow God’s will: ‘For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool.’ This moth business is beginning to feel like destruction of biblical proportions.
Over the years I’ve tried everything to rid myself of my foes. Keeping clothes (as well as floors and cupboards) clean is apparently essential as moths love to feast on human sweat and particles of food. But no woman I know has the time — or energy — to wash every sweater every time she wears it.
Unless it’s smelly or stained, how many of us truly, honestly, wear a garment, even a knit, just once before washing?
Two years ago, after a spate of infestations, I did wash load after load of jumpers and T-shirts. I also froze what I could, nestling garments in my small freezer between the chicken thighs and after-dinner Magnums.
But there were items I didn’t get round to tackling, so the job was less than 100 per cent effective.
Then there was a set-back when my partner’s grown-up daughter moved in with us for a year, and brought with her all her vintage and charity shop clothing.
Apparently second-hand clothing,
unless it’s dry-cleaned before being installed, is a prime source of infestation. And so unfortunately, my visitor came with extra, unwanted guests.
I’ve followed some pieces of advice, but ignored others.
Storing knitwear in garment bags, I’ll admit, does make sense, but for me, the joy of the dressing room, with its open shelves, has been being able to see an item of clothing instantly and access it right away.
Keeping clothes in zip-locked bags may help prevent infestations, but it’s an inconvenience you’re unlikely to keep up for long.
After all, what woman has the time to unzip the contents of several bags each morning before deciding on what to wear?
Cedar wood hangers are also recommended as it’s said the sap acts as a natural moth repellent, but I’m wedded to the fabric ones I’ve collected over the years.
One effective thing I have done over the years is to invest in a plethora of anti-moth products, costing hundreds of pounds.
I’ve sprayed, shut the door and run, leaving the insecticide to do its work. I’ve tucked moth-killer papers between sweaters, draped Rentokil strips around doors and rails, installed a moth monitoring trap, which releases female pheromones to attract male moths, and hung lavender sachets between dresses, suits and coats. My tactics have worked to a degree, but just when I’d begin to feel things were back under control I’d find a moth or two stuck on my monitoring trap and realise I was back to square one.
AfORtnIght ago, when the monitors in all three rooms in which I’d hung them had amassed at least 20 moths apiece, I rang tino, the take-noprisoners pest controller.
Over 20 years, he has cleared my home of garden rats, kitchen mice and wasps’ nests. he told me that washing and/or freezing were the only answers, after which he’d come and spray the rooms and the carpets.
But it would only work, he said, if I did exactly as instructed.
So that’s when I went into full battle mode and logged on to the internet in search of a chest freezer I could hire. I settled on a 10 cubicfoot model which cost £120 a month and, most importantly, could be delivered the next day.
the only place I could fit it was a slightly raised area at the end of my dining room.
Perched on its plinth-like base, it looks like a place to store the entire contents of an abattoir rather than designer clothes. nevertheless, I have bin-bagged every piece of fabric I own — from clothing to bed linen — and frozen them in batches for four days at a time.
tino left clear instructions that nothing was to be returned to the infested areas until his return today, when his dark arts will come into their own.
It will come as an enormous relief to be able to rehouse the items currently not languishing in the freezer, which have been clogging up my dining table and car boot for the past few weeks!
But there is one good thing that has emerged from my battle with my unwelcome intruders. the exercise of bagging up all my clothes has taught me just how many I have — and more importantly, how many I never wear.
And although I couldn’t face a clothes cull at the time, I’ve promised myself a massive clearout — and more than a few charity shop runs — before I put things back in my dressing room.
the final Push has begun. My plan, like my discarded sweaters, dresses and jackets, might be full of holes, but I’m hopeful.
the alternative is too awful to contemplate. for if the moths don’t move out, I may have to . . .