Emily - Never put ANY insecticide in cabinetry with or near collections! Especially not a fogging material or you'll introduce oil droplets on everything.
If a steel cabinet has been infested and may have some cocoons stuck in out of the way places, you can empty the cabinet and then hang a pest strip inside the cabinet and tape the door seams and any random holes w/ tape. Leave it like this for at least three weeks. You can then remove the strip and air out the cabinet. I would not do this for a wooden cabinet. Most infestations remain active in the 4" space beneath the cabinetry. This area is called the toe kick. Lots of detritus collects in this dark void and acts as a reservoir for infestations. To eliminate this problem, you can drill some holes in the toe kick and use Drione dust to dust the void. This material is a combination of pyrethrins and fine silica gel. The pyrethrins will dissipate in time leaving behind the silica gel, which will be effective for years and years. It's a dessicant dust and murder on crawling insects of all types. Tom Parker -----Original Message----- From: Kaplan, Emily <kapl...@si.edu> To: pestlist@museumpests.net Cc: Heald, Susan <hea...@si.edu>; Kaminitz, Marian <kamini...@si.edu>; Greatorex, Linda <greator...@si.edu>; Raphael, Toby <rapha...@si.edu>; Nietfeld, Patricia <nietfe...@si.edu> Sent: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 9:42 am Subject: inquiry re insecticides applied to storage cabinets Hi everyone, We’re currently dealing with an active webbing clothes moth infestation in compactor storage cabinets. We are going though the usual steps of bagging and freezing infested or potentially infested items and isolating items nearby, vacuum cleaning storage components, and increasing monitoring with blunder traps and pheromone traps. It has been suggested that we direct an insecticide containing active ingredients such as pyrethrum, allethrin, and permethrin into the structural elements of the storage cabinets – there are a lot of interior spaces inside these structural elements that cannot reasonably be accessed by vacuuming. We are hesitant to introduce an insecticide (even one classified as “low-risk”) so close to collections materials but are concerned that we will not be able to thoroughly clean the storage furniture. I would very much appreciate any experiences and thoughts on this. Many thanks, Emily Emily Kaplan Conservator Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resources Center Suitland, MD 20746 tel 301-238-1418 fax 301-238-3201 kapl...@si.edu
