Moth larvae in my indoor plant soil

5 years ago

I recently started seeing a large number of moths in my home. They are grayish brown in color. At first I thought they were either pantry or cloth moths, But I have yet to find any evidence of moths in the pantry or in our clothes. We bought those pheromone traps and they didn’t catch a single moth. I was at my wits end trying to figure out where they were coming from when I finally decided to look at my house plants. I discovered what looks like larvae shells in the soil of every single house plant I have in my home. As I was dragging a large potted plant across the floor to take it outside moths were flying up out of it like crazy. I took a picture of the larvae in the soil but unfortunately the minute I try and find a moth to take a picture of it I can’t find one. Since moving all my indoor plants outdoors I have seen very few to no moths. Previous to that I was killing around 12 to 15 a day. I have been unable to find anything on the Internet about moths laying eggs in soil so I don’t know how to get rid of them and save my plants. Does anyone have any advice? Thank you so much for your help.

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Comments (3)

floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I can say those aren’t clothes moth larvae. And they wouldn’t be in plant soil anyway, they'd be in a material the larvae could eat.
nicolefromaz thanked floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK
Colleen Paz
2 years ago
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Colleen Paz
2 years ago
Same problem here. I have been battling casemaking wool moths living in 5 houseplants that all came from the same location where a wool rug that had moths was removed. I think they moved into the soil then.

I’ve had the best luck by removing the topsoil as much as I can. In some plants that’s not very much at all because of the way the roots grow. Then I add a layer of diatomaceous earth to the top. It acts as a barrier that the moths cannot pass through , it’s also OK for the plant! later when it seems there’s no moths left in that pot, I add a little bit more topsoil over the diatomaceous earth to hide the layer of white stuff. I’ve also heard that pouring hydrogen peroxide over the plant is fine for the roots, but will kill the larvae. That’s my next step.

As far as identifying them goes, I’ve been battling wool moths at home for a while, and I am almost 100% certain that that is what they are. They look identical, some are light gold, some dark brown. Strange that they adapted to not use wool.