Moth Madness 2023: How I got the flying pests out of my house — and you can too | Opinion
Living in Kansas, you get used to a lot of strange phenomena: flying spiders, parking lots carpeted with crows, mountain lions in neighborhood yards, Kris Kobach as attorney general, etc.
But I have to admit I didn’t have “moth plague” on my May 2023 Bingo card — a quarter of a century here and this is a first for me.
I found a way to beat these little pests — more on that in a minute.
For the past couple of weeks, it seems like the moths have gotten into everything.
Even Wichita police have been affected; they had to move a public stay-out-of-jail event because of too many moths at the Minisa Community Center. How often do you see that happen?
While they’re annoying (the moths, not the police), the current crop are more or less harmless.
They’re not of the variety that’s going to lay eggs in your house or destroy that wool coat that’s been hanging in your closet forever, so that’s good.
The scientific explanation for the Great Moth Invasion appears to be that a particularly dry winter resulted in low levels of a caterpillar-killing fungus that usually keeps the moth population somewhat under control this time of year. Others theorize that drought altered their migration pattern.
But I think the true explanation is, “It’s Kansas.”
The moths are apparently just passing through on their way to Colorado.
It’s what pretty much everybody else does. Maybe they’ll stop for a snack in Colby, which in Kansas, we call “tourism.”
Anyway, I promised you some helpful advice on how to get these little buggers out of your house.
They don’t move very fast, so mashing them is easy. But it’s too messy on a popcorn ceiling.
You have to outthink them. Which shouldn’t be too hard because, well, they’re moths.
So here’s what I came up with.
A couple nights ago, we had a pretty good-sized swarm get inside the house.
I don’t know whether it was because we left doors open while moving our stuff inside after returning from a trip, or possibly they crawled through holes in the screen door.
In any case, there was a bunch of them.
So here’s what I did: I turned off all the lights in the house and turned on the outside light on the back deck.
Then, I went through the house and stirred them up by flicking at the ones that were resting on the walls and ceiling with a broom.
Once they were airborne, they saw the light streaming in from outside and gravitated to the glass door. I opened the door, stirred them up again, and watched them fly outside.
It felt kind of silly doing it, and I had to repeat the process a couple of times. But eventually, I’d estimate I sent about 30 or so into the night and the house was, as far as I could tell, moth-free.
I left the porch light on overnight just in case there were any stragglers, because I’d rather have moths hanging around the back door than in the bedroom.
It was a simple, humane solution to the problem.
I wish them well in Colorado.
This story was originally published May 25, 2023 at 6:53 AM.
