How to reliably protect a mink coat from moths

Clothes moth and fur coat moth (although they are different species, but for a housewife they all look the same) are universal pests of natural textile products. Moth caterpillars feed on wool in any form, and for them it doesn’t matter if they beat up an old worn sweater, a precious mink coat or someone’s wig.

But it is a moth in a fur coat that usually causes maximum irritation - after all, after a mole has eaten a mink coat, the thing becomes absolutely unpresentable. And therefore, every keeper of a good wardrobe should know how to protect a mink coat from moths.

On a note

Fur coats and woolen things can be attractive not only for moths. They are also spoiled by leather beetles, less common, but also much less noticeable indoors. The task of fighting for an expensive fur coat is facilitated by the fact that the means effective against moths also protect clothes well from skin-eaters.

 

How to protect a fur coat from moths

The best protection of a fur coat from moths is a reliable prevention of infection of the wardrobe by a pest.Moreover, in terms of labor intensity, such prevention usually significantly exceeds the fight against moth itself, but in most cases it is a reliable guarantee that moths in a fur coat will never start.

So, in order to protect your fur coat from moths, you should:

• Store fur coats and fur products in a wardrobe separate from other things. In this case, the wool moth is less likely to be able to move onto the fur coat.
• Use a special cover for a moth fur coat - such thin cases are usually quite inexpensive, and are impregnated from the inside with substances that repel both moth butterflies and larvae. And the hermetic closure of the cover will prevent insects from getting into it, even during long-term storage. The cover for moth fur coats Raptor is very famous and well-proven - it is made taking into account all the achievements of this manufacturer in the fight against insects and effectively repels moth butterflies even with a large number of them in the room. However, it will be good to keep a mink coat from moths at least in the case in which it was sold.

On a note

In no case should you store a natural fur coat in a synthetic case! It is believed that an expensive product will simply suffocate in it.

• The next way to protect is to use an effective moth remedy for a fur coat. There are a lot of such products today, and some of them are designed specifically to protect fur products - Raptor Moth Protection, Armol, Antimol, Mosquitall's line of anti-moth products. They are either odorless or smell like lavender, and in order to protect the fur coat from moths, they should process the entire wardrobe along with the walls of the cabinet from the inside at the frequency indicated by the manufacturer.

• An important point is to comply with quarantine measures.It is known that even expensive shops and boutiques can be infected with a pest, not to mention Turkish sales and, especially, second-hand ones. Therefore, a bought new fur coat or any clothes that will hang in a closet with a mink coat must be kept for several days in direct sun or severe frost. Such preventive measures will allow the destruction of moth larvae, if any.

On a note

Fur moth larvae are resistant to negative temperatures down to minus 10 ° C, therefore it is advisable to freeze them out only in very hard frost.

• Another way to protect against fur coat moths is to use fumigators and repellents. The former require connection to a power outlet, but even in the event of accidental contact with moths, the fur coat will be reliably protected - insects will die within a few days. Repellents such as dried lavender flowers, laundry soap and essential oils repel adult butterflies, but if they get into the wardrobe with larvae, they will not work and will not help keep the fur coat from moths. In addition, it is better to use special moth sections instead of the indicated repellents, which are more convenient to use.

The most reliable way to protect a mink coat from moths is with the help of strong insecticidal preparations in the form of aerosols: the use of such means usually gives excellent results. It is also important that modern aerosol products do not affect the condition and appearance of the fur coat itself.

 

How to identify a pest: is it really a moth?

In most cases, it is the moth that damages the mink coat and other fur products. It can be either a wool moth or a fur coat moth. Photos of butterflies of both species are presented below:

And here is the larva of the fur coat moth:

Woolly moth larva - in the photo below:

Moth larvae in a fur coat live very secretly and almost never come across the eye. They are quite inactive and are always located at the base of the hair of the fur. Here they make a small case out of silk, which is replaced after each molt.

The moth eats almost exclusively fur hairs, without touching the skin itself. In this, it differs well from skin beetles - the larvae of the latter actively eat the leather base of the fur itself.

Review

“Once a moth ate my fur coat. It was terribly unpleasant, it was back in Soviet times, a fur coat was worth its weight in gold. After that, my husband brought me a can from the flight, which I constantly sprayed in the closet, and he helped. Today there are many such balloons. I now use Raptor and give it to my daughter, it helps a lot. But I still regularly inspect fur coats to be sure.

Inna, Murmansk

The moth eats a fur coat quite “neatly”, so to speak, - it moves a little along it and creates small bald spots. The photo below shows the fur coat that the mole ate:

Only individual spots without fur are visible - it is immediately clear that the moth has just begun to eat a fur coat. In general, if a moth started up in a mink coat, it can be clearly seen almost immediately:

1. The fur becomes unkempt, with tufts and bumps where the larva has just begun to feed.
2. Fur hairs constantly accumulate in the case and under the fur coat itself - when a moth eats a fur coat, it loses a large number of gnawed hairs.
3. Obvious "folds" of fur appearing where the larva crawls.

The larva spoils the fur very much when it moves: it does not just crawl between the hairs, but cuts its own path. The photo shows how the fur deteriorates after the moth eats it out:

It is interesting

In nature, moths feed on hairs and feathers in the nests of rodents and birds. There are species of moths, the larvae of which settle in the horns of antelopes and gnaw them out from the inside. Not surprisingly, moths also eat wool in human homes - its digestive system is ideally adapted to digest the keratin-containing integuments of animals.

But the most obvious sign of moth damage to a fur coat is the butterflies themselves and caterpillars on the fur, and in the wardrobe in general. If a pest and a fur coat are together in the same wardrobe, you can only save a fur coat from moths by quick and decisive actions.

It is interesting

Skin beetle larvae, unlike moth caterpillars, do not build covers around their body, and they look somewhat different - these worm-like creatures are quite mobile, and their body is covered with bristles of hard hairs. In general, in closets and apartments, they are less common than moths.

 

If a moth wound up in a mink coat: quick destruction

If a moth is wound up in a fur coat, the best option for its destruction would be the use of powerful modern insecticidal agents. Such preparations, when used correctly, make it possible to destroy all insects in the closet and in the fur coat itself in a few hours, without damaging the fur product.

On a note

Folk remedies and moth repellent sections will not help to remove moths from a fur coat, they are more suitable for preventing infection. If the pest is wound up in clothes, you need to take on more radical drugs.

The most effective for the destruction of the pest are aerosol insecticidal preparations Armol, Antimol, Raptor Moth Protection, Extramit and Clean House. It is enough to treat a fur coat once in a spacious room with any of these moth remedies, spraying it from all sides and on all folds.After that, the fur coat is placed in a cover or for several days - in a plastic bag, into which an aerosol is additionally sprayed.

If these products cannot be found on sale, some aerosols and sprays against other insects can be used in a similar way - many of them also effectively destroy moths. It is only important to check before use that the product is odorless and does not leave marks on the fabric, otherwise the treated fur coat will be unsuitable for wearing.

Fumigators for the rapid destruction of moths should not be used - they are designed for gradual destruction and long-term pest control.

It will be quite effective to hand over a fur coat to dry cleaning or treat it with heat. With the latter, they can help in the sanitary and epidemiological station. Also, putting a fur coat on a hot summer day in the salon of a car left in the sun, or taking clothes out in severe frost to the street will also give a result. But such steps should be repeated several times - practice shows that some moth larvae and pupae can survive after such executions.

 

Is it possible to save a moth-beaten fur coat?

If a moth ate a fur coat, then the possibility of saving an expensive product primarily depends on the degree of damage. For example, in the photo below you can see what a fur coat eaten by a moth looks like - if the moth ate a fur coat so much, the clothes will either have to be thrown away or given to the homeless:

Review

“A moth ate my mink coat. It's so insulting - we went to Greece for the whole summer, returned - and only rags hang in the wardrobe. I beat my husband's fur hat and gloves. I don't even know what to do. There were always records hanging in the closet, but they were of no use.I threw out my fur coat, my husband gave the hat to the watchman at work, and now I'm afraid to buy new fur so that nothing like this happens.

Alena, Novosibirsk

If the moth ate a fur coat quite a bit, having managed to cut out only a small area, then the damage site can be painted over with a marker to match the color of the fur. Sometimes it turns out to be effective to repaint the entire fur coat to match the color of the skin itself. It is only important not to make "sudden movements" and not to try to radically change the color of the entire product.

If a small bald spot appears in one place, but the moth is safely destroyed, you can carefully cut out the damaged area and stitch the skin from the inside. With a slight damage after that, there will be no traces of the operation on the surface of the fur coat. With a more serious scale, the bald patch will have to be sealed with a brooch or pattern.

Finally, in some cases, even with serious damage, the beaten area can simply be cut out: make a sleeveless jacket out of a fur coat, for example, or cut off long floors by simply shortening the product. However, for this it is better to use the services of a studio.

Have you checked your mink coat in the closet for a long time?

 

Useful video: how to protect a fur coat and other things from moths

 

How to store a mink coat in the summer to protect it from moths