Lunch Anyone? Or, Decorating With Cedar
We all have those days when our list of things to do goes awry. The vacuum breaks, a child is sick. Or, as in the case of my day today, a small project turns into a large one. I thought I’d spend an hour or so moving my winter clothes out of the cedar closet and into my bedroom closet.
Ick! It seems moths decided to make a meal out of some (thankfully not all) of my sweaters.
See?
There went my plans to write up a Design Dilemma. So, with the limited time I have left today, I thought I’d zip upstairs to write a quick post about cedar closets. My clothes were in one! Whence came thine moths?
I called my trusty exterminators, Rose Pest Control, to get the low down on moth prevention. I spoke with Jim. He told me some interesting things, which I’m passing along to you lest such a fate be in store for your woolens.
Cedar Closets and Moth Prevention
- Cedar needs to be refreshed. That means either painting it with cedar oil every couple of years, or sanding the cedar so that you get a strong scent.
- The cedar kills both the moths and the larva. It’s the latter that actually dines on your cashmere. The larva looks like a fine, white web.
- Moths like to breed in pockets and rolled up things. Or things in boxes. They especially like so feast on soiled wool. So make sure you take your clothes to the cleaners before you pack them away for the winter.
- To get rid of the pests, take everything out of the closet and either have them drycleaned or washed. If they don’t look infested, and weren’t expensive, you can hang them out in the sun. Moths are like vampires – they like the dark.
Avoid Moths! To do so, you can use moth balls. But they take a long airing to get rid of the odor. As I said, cedar works really well as long as you refresh it. Which I didn’t do. You can make your own cedar closet out of an existing closet. Avoid the attic. The basement is better. You can buy cedar planks at a lumber yard or some hardware stores. Just line the closet with the planks.
So, that’s how I spent my day. Now I’m off to the dry cleaners.
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[...] me. I was born to live at the equator. What with moths eating my sweaters and folks talking about putting an end to global warming, it’s enough to make a grown woman [...]