Ruud Kleinpaste: Home invading destructive so-and-sos

Guess what – last week I found my first gorgeous Tineola bisselliella moths of the season. 

A pretty yellow-brown, tiny moth with an orange hairdo. I remember this critter from the Netherlands all those years ago, and it has reached New Zealand not terribly long ago, as far as I can see.  

This cosmopolitan moth is becoming more and more common in the Christchurch region. Although it’s spreading to a few New Zealand Centres: Wellington, Napier and who knows where else. 

This attractive moth has a very descriptive vernacular name: Webbing Clothes Moth.  

Its larvae (also known as caterpillars) chew on woollen materials, as well as taxidermied skins and feathers.  

From now on they’ll be on the wing at my place, laying eggs in our woollen rugs and woollen carpets, chewing holes in all those natural products that keep us warm.  

It really hacks me off if I find them in my taxidermied pheasant or kiwi. They also destroy feathers!  

But when Julie finds evidence in her fancy clothes cupboard, I will be severely questioned “when is the last time you sprayed their favourite habitat?”  

“Do something!”  

And off I go to my mates at Safeworx, a company that stocks the most effective Pyrethroid insecticide aerosols on the planet – I should know, because in the days when I was a real entomologist (and working for the Ministry of Agriculture) we developed these insecticides for aircraft quarantine reasons, so that no nasty interlopers would enter Aotearoa: creatures such as Mosquitoes that transmit human diseases, Malaria, Dengue, Ross River Virus etc, etc.  

This was a long time ago: the nineteen eighties!  

Spraying the walls, ceiling and floor of Aircraft holds to measure the efficacy of the Synthetic pyrethroid on flies, mosquitoes, moths, and beetles…  

Those were the fun days!  

Ask the folks at Safeworx for a few aerosol cans of the residual aircraft hold spray – I’m sure they’ll find the right one.  

Spray the surfaces where the damage is found; aim at a distance of around 60 centimetres and move over the woollen materials in a brisk tempo. The spray dries relatively fast and will be killing insects for at least 8 weeks (and much longer if the treated areas are out of direct sunlight).   

This spray formulation works very well on most insect species and its residual activity is suitably long.  

If you have trouble with house borer (another cosmopolitan pest that causes damage in New Zealand), a quick spray over the timber, furniture and wooden antiques will knock the borer beetles out as they emerge from their timber “homes” where they developed over the past year or so.  

Timing is everything! The beetles usually emerge early December to mate and lay eggs, if you spray the infested timber in the last week of November the beetles will not survive this part of their life cycle.  

It’s worth a try. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Aw Man in the Garden. There's rude climb past these
with us this morning, Yoder Road.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Jack. Have you have you seen that? Have you seen
those little moths recently?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Because I have the little what are they called the
Tiniola bisilella.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Yeah, Biella biselli ella, which is ella. Yeah, you've got
espanolre so, yeah, that's the one. It's also known as
the webbing clothes waft. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
That's a least sort of glamorous name, really, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, yeah, but it tells you exactly what it does.
The caterpillars make little webs in your carpets and in
your clothes and all this sort of stuff. And the
moss that comes out there's a tiny, very beautiful yellowish
moth with a gorgeous orange head too, which is extremely true.
And I used to see them in the Midlands because

(01:05):
they were there too, mucking around in clothes and things
like that. But when you think about it, why does
a moss start specializing starting to eat your clothes? Yeah?
Well it's very simple. If you have you ever eaten keratin.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
H I mean not that I know of. I mean,
keraten's in here, right.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
That's right, Yeah, it's it's and it's in wool, and
it's in say sheets things, you know what I mean. Yeah,
So when when an animal dies in the forest, there's
always something there that will clean the corpse, right, and
that you know what I mean. And this is the
specialist that does all the kerat and type stuff. So
they came into our houses a long long time ago said, looked,

(01:49):
there's a dead sheep on the floor, and you don't
worry about the thing. I'll clean this up for you.
I'll clean this up for you real quick. And that's
exactly what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
The problem is that you hit don't have well, actually
I don't want to speak for you, Rode, but most
of us don't have did sheep lying around in our
lande rooms. We instead might have some wool top it.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, that's the point. So it is an absolute great
adaptation from those little moths. And Julie usually finds them
when she finds at this time of the evidence in
a fancy clothes cupboard. You know, I immediately get the
question out, where's the last time you sprayed? Their favorite
habitat do something. So so what I do? Then zygo

(02:29):
to Safe Works, which is a company that is a
safety company in Auckland. Cristis in Wellington and they have
a wonderful aerosol can which contains of pro retroy, which
I actually worked on when I was younger at the
Ministry of Anger and fish Heads. Oh sorry, math and yeah,
we were working on fans of spraying aircraft with a

(02:51):
wonderful long lasting material that kills a lot of different insects,
including this one. And so if you have this particular
both then you see them especially in christ. He go
to Safe Works. Safe works with an ex so that's
on the on the mix suit.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, we're going to put up a good photo of
you in the plane as well doing the same thing.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Man, I was only twenty five or so like that.
I can't reemb how long. Yeah, no, bit older maybe,
but yeah, that's what I used to do. Spray that
stuff to stop mosquitoes and things like that coming into
the country. That was a real quarantine job. So there
you are, okay, very good. And while we're edit, this
same particular material can be used to control house borer.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Oh can It isn't the same spray from space safework.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
It's exactly the same active ingredient. Yeah, and so this
is the sort of questions you get at this down
of the year as well. And house borer are starting
usually late in November, so sprayed roughly late November if
you've got any any housebor in your house, and then
in December when they mate and they aches, you'll eb
them down before they think of anything else.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Fantastic. Okay, thank you so much. You're very good. Yeah,
you can get to get rid of two unwanted house
at once, I suppose.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, for the for the price of one aerosolt. There,
you are very very good.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Thanks. That is Rude climbhouse down man in the garden.
I'm going to make sure we put those photos up
on the news talks. He'd be website as well, alongside
all of Rude's tips for getting rid of them at
your place and safe works. It's safe. Wr X is
the one that he has that really reckons has that
really effective product. I was saying earlier in the show

(04:35):
how amazing it is to be broadcasting from New York
and enjoying all of the various culinary delights that New
York has on offer. The one thing I am perhaps
not enjoying is the exchange rate, oh sixty cents for
a US dollar. So when I got on the other night,
went out, had dinner, and then we went to a
bakery that was opened until midnight, because of course it's

(04:56):
New York. Two pieces of cake. Two pieces of cake
cost me forty New Zealand dollars. So yeah, you kind
of want to pick and choose when you're going out
to the fancy restaurant. To say the least, After eleven
o'clock this morning, we're going to catch up with our
sustainability expert. Given the weather is getting warm, she's got
her top tips on sustainable sun block options. It is

(05:17):
almost eleven o'clock though. I am Jack Tame broadcasting to
you live this morning, a special show out of New
York City, the greatest city on Earth. This is Newstalks ZEDB.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, Listen live
to Newstalks EDB from nine am Saturday, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.