Todd, Getting rid of bait stations is a common challenge. If you can move away from those, it would be best for all of the reasons you mention. For our situation, we ended up hiring a plumber who had a scoping camera that we could drop into the wall from a small hole. That sort of equipment might be helpful for under your stairs.
To locate our culprit, we put out a grid of pheromone traps and tracked the numbers daily using Excel. We were able to create a graph showing the activity was focused around one particular wall. Seeing no other options, we dropped the camera down through a hole in the wall from above the ceiling tiles (this kept us from making several random holes in the gallery wall). The monitoring ended up being so precise that we dropped the camera directly on the dead bird. We were then able to extricate it and the moths vanished almost immediately. The other thing is to eliminate whatever might be drawing mice indoors. Examples include moving the dumpster far from the door, cleaning, taking out the trash daily, ensuring no food or drink is left in the space, ensuring no sinks or other plumbing are leaking, etc. Hope this helps. Best, Christina Christina Cain Anthropology Collections Manager University of Colorado Museum of Natural History 303-492-2198 From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Todd Holmberg Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 2:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PestList] Webbing Moth Question Christina- Interesting... We do use mouse poison bait stations. Moving away from them has been one of those "back burnered" topics for a long time. They are not only problematic because of the potential moth issue if they die in the building, but also a bad situation if the mice do make it out and the poison can find its way into owls/hawks etc. The baiting is done by an outside pest contractor, and that contract is managed by a different department than mine within our museum structure. I feel like elaborating on the nature of that situation may take us "deep into the weeds" and derail the specific question at hand, so I'll keep that topic for another thread. The general area is by a pretty porous location in the building envelope where mice and insects can get in (loading dock/contractor entrance type space). There are door sweeps in place, but they aren't super tight. Most of the walls are cinder block/poured concrete, floors are concrete, and the ceiling is exposed metal. There aren't really spots where larger creatures could die and be hidden behind sheetrock. The pheromone lure isn't too close to the exterior doors in this area to avoid accidentally drawing in moths from outside. There is a void under a staircase in this area that is basically impossible to access and clean. I'm sure it never has been cleaned. I am certain there are dead insects around in this space, and possibly dead mice. The smell from the dumpster may be enough to hide a dead mouse aroma. I'll see if I can get a selfie-stick or something and lower my phone down into this void and see if I can possibly spot a dead mouse/bird. Thanks for your info, Todd On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 3:21 PM Christina M. Cain <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Todd, You are giving me flashbacks. I was once at a museum with unexplained clothes moths. Turns out they were feasting on a dead bird inside of a wall (new construction building). They were find their way out of the recesses of the wall by the dozens and it took months to figure out where the source was. Is there any way you could have a dead rodent in the walls, does your building pest management use mouse poison, etc? That’s my best guess, Christina Christina Cain Anthropology Collections Manager University of Colorado Museum of Natural History 303-492-2198 From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Todd Holmberg Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 1:34 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [PestList] Webbing Moth Question Hello Group- I am wondering if anyone here can confirm if webbing clothes moth larvae feed on dead insects. I have seen dermestid larvae first hand feeding on other dead insects (stuck in a trap), and am looking into the possibility of that being true for WCM as well. "Other dead insects" doesn't seem to be high on the list for materials associated with WCM based on what I seen/hear online, but it seems like they might be able to be food for them, so I thought I would check with the group to see if anyone had any thoughts. There is an area where moths seem to be a somewhat ongoing issue that doesn't really have any classic examples of "moth material" (wool, feathers, fur etc). I did see 3 ground beetles in the trap the other day though, so I thought I would check to see if dead ground beetles (or insects in general) might be desirable to WCM larvae. If anyone has any experience with this, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Thanks! Todd -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MuseumPests" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. 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