I will never forget the day I pulled out my favorite $400 cashmere sweater—my armor for board meetings, the fabric equivalent of a warm hug—and discovered it looked like a family of tiny chainsaw artists had declared war on it. Holes everywhere. Linty little craters that made my garment resemble Swiss cheese. I shrieked so loudly my neighbor texted to ask if I was being murdered. No, just Tinea bisselliella in full attack mode. My closet had been secretly transformed into a moth megalopolis, and I was the oblivious landlord.

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I immediately did what any reasonable person in 2026 would do: I binged six hours of pest control TikToks, then called three separate entomologists while hyperventilating into a paper bag. It turns out my situation was a classic case of Closetus Disastericus. Clothes moths—those half-inch golden menaces with slender wings—had been quietly munching through my wool, cashmere, and silk like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. Their larvae, the real criminals, had been partying in the dark while I slept, blissfully unaware.

Enter mothballs: the tiny white orbs of doom that promised to evict my fabric-destroying roommates. I had vague childhood memories of grandma’s mothball-scented attic, but I had no idea I was holding a chemical weapon of mass moth destruction. According to James Agardy, an associate certified entomologist at Viking Pest Control, these little death spheres contain either naphthalene or paradichlorobenzene in concentrations that would make a chemist’s eyebrows disappear. “Both work in a vapor state,” he told me, his voice calm while I was pacing like a caged tiger. “The fumes build up and kill moths and their larvae—but only in enclosed spaces.” Enclosed spaces? I was ready to turn my entire apartment into a sealed gas chamber if needed. (Spoiler: that is a terrible idea, and I’m legally required to tell you I did not actually do that.)

Here’s the thing no influencer will tell you as they hawk “natural” cedar blocks: mothballs are laser-focused assassins. They target casemaking clothes moths and webbing clothes moths, period. I learned this the hard way when I tried to use them against a silverfish that casually strolled across my bathroom floor. I may have flung a mothball at it like a grenade. The silverfish paused, gave me a look of pure disdain, and continued its journey unscathed. Trent Frazer, the lead entomologist at Aptive Pest Control, confirmed my failure with devastating precision: “Mothballs are not approved for all pests, and their efficacy with insects like silverfish and carpet beetles is varied at best.” Varied at best! Translation: you might as well throw a peppermint at them.

My descent into madness didn’t stop there. After losing several silk ties to the moth apocalypse, I became convinced that mothballs were the universal repellent. A squirrel in my attic? Mothball barrage. A neighbor’s curious snake slithering into my garden? Time to scatter chemical pellets like confetti! Jeremy Logsdon, co-owner of Preventative Pest Control, practically performed an intervention over the phone. “Mothballs are not effective against larger pests like squirrels and snakes,” he said, in the tone of a man who has explained this one hundred million times. “The vapors must build in concentration to be lethal. That only happens in sealed, airtight containers.” My attic was the opposite of sealed—more open than my heart at a kitten shelter. The squirrel, I’m pretty sure, snorted the fumes and started doing parkour.

  • ❌ Mice? Nope. They’ll use mothballs as tiny soccer balls.

  • ❌ Skunks? They literally do not care.

  • ❌ Carpenter bees? As one expert said, mothballs don’t even make them yawn.

  • ✅ Clothes moths? Finally, something dies.

The science behind this pickiness is actually spectacular. Mothballs kill through sublimation—they transition directly from solid to toxic gas at room temperature, like a tiny chemical phantom, releasing vapors that, when concentrated, fumigate the area and destroy moth larvae. But if you leave them scattered around your living room like potpourri from hell, all you’re doing is slowly poisoning yourself and your pets. In 2026, we have enough problems; I don't need my cat becoming a casualty because I thought mothballs could deter the raccoon that raids my trash cans.

After my squirrel shame, I decided to use mothballs the correct way: desperately, meticulously, and with full protective gear. I bought a stack of airtight plastic bins, shoved every wool sweater I owned inside, and then—wearing gloves thick enough to handle radioactive waste—placed the precisely measured dose of mothballs on top. I sealed those bins as if containing a biohazard. The instructions on the package, which I studied with the intensity of a bomb disposal manual, were clear: correct dosage, no open spaces, always seal, always air out garments before wearing.

“Because the vapors must build in concentration to be lethal to pests, they only are really effective in sealed, airtight containers,” Agardy had stressed. So I became a storage dictator. My closet looked like a hazmat zone, but you know what? The holes stopped appearing.

Here’s the safety sermon I now preach to everyone, even strangers in grocery store lines:

  1. Glove up. Your skin should never touch mothballs unless you enjoy absorbing carcinogens.

  2. Seal it or forget it. Open bins or drawers? That’s just an invitation for your family to inhale nerve damage.

  3. Store high, locked, and away. Kids and pets see mothballs and think “forbidden candy.” Do not test this.

  4. Ventilate like a wind tunnel. When you finally open that bin after months, do it outside and let your clothes air out until they no longer smell like a 1950s attic from a horror movie.

I won’t lie: there’s a dark satisfaction in knowing that inside those sealed containers, an invisible war is raging. Mothball fumes are silently, methodically smothering any larva that dared to dream of my cashmere. Outside the bin, however, the world remains unprotected. My attempts to expand mothball jurisdiction to the entire home were, in the words of Ed Dolshun, VP at Catchmaster, “almost always ineffective.” He added, with the exhaustion of a man who battles myths daily, “There are some pretty big myths that these can also be used to deter other pests. This is almost always ineffective.” Almost always. That’s entomologist code for “You’re wasting your time, and possibly a lung.”

As I sit here in 2026, my wardrobe has been rescued from the jaws of tineola bisselliella. My sanity, less so. I now understand that mothballs are not magical, all-purpose death pebbles; they are a surgical instrument with one job. Use them right—sealed, safe, and specific—and you stop the holes. Try to make them your home’s bouncer, and you’ll end up with a laughing squirrel, a chaotic snake, and a house that smells like your great-grandmother’s worst nightmare.

So here’s my heartfelt advice: if your clothes are being devoured, by all means, wage chemical warfare responsibly. But if a raccoon is on your porch, maybe just clap loudly. Mothballs won’t do a darn thing except embarrass you in front of the entomologists.