When I first saw the tiny tan moths flitting around my closet, I did what most people do. I ordered every sticky trap Amazon would ship in a hurry. I imagined a clean sweep of dead moths and safe sweaters. That is not how traps work.

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Photo: Trap placement inside a closet near wool items, showing low and mid-height positioning

Here is the simple version in plain English. Clothes moth pheromone traps are male‑only. They are great at detection and at telling you where the activity is coming from. They do not remove the larvae that eat your clothes, and they will not clear an established infestation by themselves. English Heritage says this outright, and museum IPM guidance treats traps as monitoring tools first. (English Heritage)

Placement matters more than I expected. Rutgers notes that male clothes moths can be drawn to a pheromone trap from roughly 16 to 24 feet away. That distance is enough to pull in males from the next closet or a carpeted hallway if you put traps at a doorway or near a vent. I get better signal from traps tucked near likely sources inside the closet, not at windows or open airflow. (NJAES)

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A few other lessons I paid to learn

- Traps are a dashboard, not a cure. My rule now is clean or treat textiles first, then deploy a small number of traps to verify that activity drops. UC IPM frames traps as a detection tool and reminds you to pair trapping with laundering, dry cleaning, or other control. - Too many traps in one small space is not "more power." In my apartment it created a cloud of scent that pulled males in, but a portion circled and never landed. One or two traps per closet zone worked better than five. That is my observation, not a lab result. - Not all lures are equal. I tried a "museum grade" lure and it was worse in my space than one consumer trap I already had. I will publish my capture data by brand as I gather more weeks of testing. For now I use traps to locate hotspots and to confirm when the count returns to zero after treatment.

Bottom line. Traps tell you if you still have a moth problem and roughly where it is. They do not deal with the hungry stage. The larvae are the ones eating your clothes while adults mostly fly and reproduce—adult moths do not feed on textiles.

How I place traps now

Treat the textiles first. Hot wash, dry clean, freeze, or heat as appropriate. Then vacuum storage areas.
Put one trap low and one mid‑height inside the closet near wool, cashmere, and felt. Do not put them at the door.
Check weekly. If one trap is heavy and the other is light, the heavier one is closer to the source. Move the lighter one to bracket the source. Museums use this bracketing method to pinpoint origin zones. (Squarespace)

Further reading UC IPM on traps and control. English Heritage on traps as detection only. Rutgers on attraction distance.

What moth traps actually do in an apartment like mine