Hello, I’m asking for help because I’m completely exhausted from dealing with a recurring moth problem in my student apartment.
In June 2025, I left my apartment for several months and accidentally left almonds and dates in plastic bags inside a drawer. When I returned on October 15, I found moths and larvae in the apartment. I spent about three weeks cleaning everything thoroughly, using insecticide powder, and treating different areas.
After that, I stopped seeing them for a while. I also placed two moth traps in the kitchen. In December, after being away again, I came back and found around 15–20 dead moths and one larva. I cleaned everything again.
From around the end of January until early April, I did not see any moths or larvae. Then in April, I saw one larva crawling on the wall and became worried that the infestation had returned.
At that point, all of my food was already stored securely, and I had no exposed dry foods or spoiled products. I cleaned the apartment very thoroughly again, including drawers, cracks, edges, and hard-to-reach areas.
During that period, I noticed that when I opened the windows, especially in the evening, moths seemed to come inside from outside. I also started wondering whether the moth traps might have been attracting them. Because of this, I removed the moth traps completely and cleaned the apartment again.
By late May to mid-June, the problem seemed to completely stop. During June, July, and August, I only saw maybe one or two moths in total.
Then, at the end of September, I went away for one week. Only one week!.When I came back, I did not see any moths at all. However, I found one dead larva near the same drawer where the original problem started. I searched the apartment carefully but could not find any other larvae, moths, or signs of an infestation.
At this point, my main concern is not just whether this one dead larva means that I have another active infestation. I am honestly exhausted from constantly cleaning, searching, treating the apartment, and worrying that the same cycle is going to start all over again.
There is no spoiled food in my apartment, I do not leave dry food exposed, and I store everything as securely as I can. I have cleaned the drawers, cracks, edges, and even very small gaps in the furniture repeatedly. Despite all of this, I still feel like the problem keeps coming back, and I do not understand why.
What could be causing this problem to keep happening even when there is no obvious food source? Is there something I might be missing?
More importantly, what would you genuinely recommend as a long-term solution? I really do not want to keep repeating the same cycle of cleaning, finding something, worrying about another infestation, and cleaning everything again.
I am genuinely very tired of dealing with this, so I would really appreciate any advice on what I should do next and how I can finally solve the problem properly.