Article 2PTXD Clothes moths are driving me mad. How can I be free of these insidious pests? | Suzanne Moore

Clothes moths are driving me mad. How can I be free of these insidious pests? | Suzanne Moore

by
Suzanne Moore
from on (#2PTXD)

I know there are much bigger and more terrible things in the world, but these tiny creatures have come to represent a sense of doom and decay

Here they are again, always in my peripheral vision, the tiny papery things that make me feel neither strong nor stable. Indeed, I would probably vote for anyone who vowed to get rid of the clothes moths that I always think have gone, until they come fluttering back. Everything may feel manageable but they are here to undermine that - by the time you see them, the damage is done. They serve only to remind you of that, for moths don't eat anything at all - the larvae do. Once you see them, you have lost and they have won.

They acquire all the nutrition they will ever need as caterpillars. They live on nothing. Their mouth parts have atrophied, their only goal is to reproduce. Every year I think I have stopped their life cycle, that I am in control - and every year it turns out that I haven't. They are eating their way through clothes that are loved and unloved. The world appears infested and the world is warming, so they appear more and more.

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