{"id":17267,"date":"2024-11-26T09:03:04","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T10:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17267"},"modified":"2024-11-26T10:23:59","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T10:23:59","slug":"moths-were-destroying-my-clothes-tiny-parasitic-wasps-saved-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=17267","title":{"rendered":"Moths Were Destroying My Clothes. Tiny Parasitic Wasps Saved Them."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

A \u201cweird city version\u201d of common countryside wisdom saved my favorite outfits.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Everything in life is a trade-off between money and time; when it comes to collecting vintage fashion, I put in the time. Catalogs from brands like Dries van Noten, Narciso Rodriguez and Prada, heavy as bibles, guide my search for cheap grails. I\u2019ve often had the feeling that I\u2019m rescuing these items from living with someone who wouldn\u2019t appreciate them. Do they even care that Rodriguez finished his seams so elegantly that you can wear his dresses inside out? This level of care makes me feel calm in a careless world. During the pandemic, the brightly clashing florals of Van Noten\u2019s 2008 Spring-Summer collection captured my heart \u2014 and bit by bit, via eBay and Etsy, my closet became a lush and jumbled garden. I\u2019m not much of a nature person, but these were the sorts of pandemic plants I could tend to.<\/p>\n

Fashion collectors have an enemy greater than competitors, credit-card limits and small closets: the common clothes moth. The dreaded Tineola bisselliella is golden-brown, about the size of your fingernail and hates the sun. Adult moths don\u2019t actually eat fabric. Rather, they lay eggs in cozy seams, and the larvae hatch and eat their way out. The more tender and luxurious the fabric, the nicer the nest. One evening, a fiend fluttered across my vision, and I tracked it until it landed in my garden of printed daisies. I panicked. Eventually I found small larval meals taken out of a thin black knit dress, a white T-shirt and my roommate\u2019s cashmere sweater. I scrubbed my drawers and wept. I hate bugs and feel threatened by nature\u2019s disorder. I was influenced by my father, a New York City native who, whenever we moved to a new house, suggested paving our lawn and turning it into a basketball court. My mother and two younger sisters were always trying to garden instead, but I ignored their efforts.<\/p>\n

After finding the holes, I doubled down on keeping nature where I thought it belonged \u2014 outside my apartment. When I turned to Reddit and Wirecutter for help, I found that I wasn\u2019t alone. Other people were warring against the invisible enemy, too, resorting to toxic mothballs that seem as likely to exterminate humans as insects. Some people even gave up and left their homes! I researched \u201cscreen repair,\u201d put hormone traps in the backs of closets, sweaters in plastic tubs. One night I read an article about British ancestral homes whose priceless tapestries were being munched to bits. Their guardians had turned to tiny parasitic wasps called Trichogramma, which lay their eggs inside moth eggs, destroying the larvae. Wasps were arguably grosser than moths, but at least they didn\u2019t eat my clothes. Were more bugs the answer?<\/p>\n

I found a family business specializing in \u201cbeneficial insects\u201d for the pesticide-averse home gardener. Their online shop sold me a card covered in minuscule wasp eggs. They arrived at my doorstep in a small cardboard box \u2014 all I had to do was cut open a plastic envelope and stick the cards, which looked like pieces of sandpaper, in my drawers. When I wrote to the company to confirm that I should be releasing microscopic parasites into my modest New York City apartment, they assured me that I had nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

The first step in my new project was getting over the ick factor. You know the packet of eggs is good if you see some tiny dots moving around. Then you have to learn what conditions they like (moderate temperatures, proximity to target) in order to put them where they\u2019ll thrive. Trichogramma wasps search out the moth eggs themselves. If you can make peace with your new roommates, they\u2019ll shoulder the work of a human exterminator and a housecleaning crew. It was a relief to imagine the Trichogramma wasps invisibly doing this work, happily parasitizing their hosts. I began receiving the packets every two weeks.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A \u201cweird city version\u201d of common countryside wisdom saved my favorite outfits.Everything in life is a trade-off between money and time; when it comes to collecting vintage fashion, I put in the time. Catalogs from brands like Dries van Noten, Narciso Rodriguez and Prada, heavy as bibles, guide my search for cheap grails. I\u2019ve often had the feeling that I\u2019m rescuing these items from living with someone who wouldn\u2019t appreciate them. Do they even care that Rodriguez finished his seams so elegantly that you can wear his dresses inside out? This level of care makes me feel calm in a careless world. During the pandemic, the brightly clashing florals of Van Noten\u2019s 2008 Spring-Summer collection captured my heart \u2014 and bit by bit, via eBay and Etsy, my closet became a lush and jumbled garden. I\u2019m not much of a nature person, but these were the sorts of pandemic plants I could tend to.Fashion collectors have an enemy greater than competitors, credit-card limits and small closets: the common clothes moth. The dreaded Tineola bisselliella is golden-brown, about the size of your fingernail and hates the sun. Adult moths don\u2019t actually eat fabric. Rather, they lay eggs in cozy seams, and the larvae hatch and eat their way out. The more tender and luxurious the fabric, the nicer the nest. One evening, a fiend fluttered across my vision, and I tracked it until it landed in my garden of printed daisies. I panicked. Eventually I found small larval meals taken out of a thin black knit dress, a white T-shirt and my roommate\u2019s cashmere sweater. I scrubbed my drawers and wept. I hate bugs and feel threatened by nature\u2019s disorder. I was influenced by my father, a New York City native who, whenever we moved to a new house, suggested paving our lawn and turning it into a basketball court. My mother and two younger sisters were always trying to garden instead, but I ignored their efforts.After finding the holes, I doubled down on keeping nature where I thought it belonged \u2014 outside my apartment. When I turned to Reddit and Wirecutter for help, I found that I wasn\u2019t alone. Other people were warring against the invisible enemy, too, resorting to toxic mothballs that seem as likely to exterminate humans as insects. Some people even gave up and left their homes! I researched \u201cscreen repair,\u201d put hormone traps in the backs of closets, sweaters in plastic tubs. One night I read an article about British ancestral homes whose priceless tapestries were being munched to bits. Their guardians had turned to tiny parasitic wasps called Trichogramma, which lay their eggs inside moth eggs, destroying the larvae. Wasps were arguably grosser than moths, but at least they didn\u2019t eat my clothes. Were more bugs the answer?I found a family business specializing in \u201cbeneficial insects\u201d for the pesticide-averse home gardener. Their online shop sold me a card covered in minuscule wasp eggs. They arrived at my doorstep in a small cardboard box \u2014 all I had to do was cut open a plastic envelope and stick the cards, which looked like pieces of sandpaper, in my drawers. When I wrote to the company to confirm that I should be releasing microscopic parasites into my modest New York City apartment, they assured me that I had nothing to worry about.The first step in my new project was getting over the ick factor. You know the packet of eggs is good if you see some tiny dots moving around. Then you have to learn what conditions they like (moderate temperatures, proximity to target) in order to put them where they\u2019ll thrive. Trichogramma wasps search out the moth eggs themselves. If you can make peace with your new roommates, they\u2019ll shoulder the work of a human exterminator and a housecleaning crew. It was a relief to imagine the Trichogramma wasps invisibly doing this work, happily parasitizing their hosts. I began receiving the packets every two weeks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17269,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17267"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17270,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17267\/revisions\/17270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}