I spent hundreds killing moths that destroyed my dear Vogue wardrobe, reveals ALEXANDRA SHULMAN. It left me traumatised when I discovered the one factor that basically works

It starts like this, a little flickering movement in front of the eye. You’re not quite sure if you have imagined it or not, but it leaves you with a growing dread that it might be — oh, please not! — a wretched moth.

Small but devastating, the damage these nocturnal beasts inflict on clothes, curtains and carpets is horrendous.

Which is why I have a sneaking sympathy for the couple who, this week, decided to sue the person who sold them their £32.5m home in Notting Hill, west London. From the day they moved in, Iya Patarkatsishvili and her husband Yevhen Hunyak have been plagued by an infestation which they say has destroyed clothing, ruined their wine, and even resulted in moths settling on their toothbrushes.

I have never experienced moths falling into my wine glass or swatted 100 moths a day, as they claim they did, but I have experienced the misery and deep financial hit of a serious invasion. Even after a radical culling of the uninvited guests and their lethal little eggs, the awful truth is, they always return.

My first experience of the ghastly toll taken by moths was in 2003, when I had been editor-in-chief of Vogue for a decade. Along with a fabulous wardrobe of evening dresses, coats and handbags, I had gathered an enviable collection of cashmere scarves and jumpers.

Despite the fact this bounty was worth tens of thousands of pounds, I took a cavalier approach and never subscribed to any moth-proof bags, lavender sachets or cedar balls. Moths were not something that took up any bandwidth in my brain . . . until I spotted holes in some of my knitwear. Even so, I took the view that life is too short to stress about moth holes.

During my childhood I remember visiting houses in the country where, when you opened the chest of drawers in the bedroom or the heavy doors of a dark wood wardrobe, there would always be a powerful smell of moth-repelling camphor.

But we didn’t have them in our London flat and, during my 20s, I never had a problem with them in rented accommodation. Perhaps my clothes weren’t expensive enough to attract them, or perhaps – and there is some credence to this theory – there just weren’t as many moths in Britain back then as there are now.

But after discovering those first jumper holes, I noticed more and more – especially in the most pricey cashmeres, fine cottons and silks of my Vogue wardrobe (moths are seriously attuned to luxury).

I concluded it was time to do something about it, and called in the big guns. The man from Rentokil arrived to survey the house, which resulted in the gloomy diagnoses that moth larvae were everywhere. This was not, he said, a case for lavender bags. I would need the whole place fumigated.

At first, the inconvenience and cost deterred me from taking up his suggestion. Surely it was in Rentokil’s interest, I thought, to paint the worst possible scenario.

I’d do it my way instead, and on my next trip to Paris to watch the couture shows, I snapped up cans of a very toxic spray to deal with the blighters.

The French spray wasn’t allowed to be sold in this country and I admit I was slightly nervous as I put my luggage through the Eurostar scanners; ‘Vogue Editor imports poisonous substance’ was not a headline I was keen to see.

Safely home, I put away any foodstuffs and sprayed all the clothing cupboards and linen storage – then fled the house with my eight-year-old son for the day while the poison did its thing.

Alas, the British blighters were not put off by the French infantry. Within a week or so I spotted a couple more cruising around my bedroom. It was time to admit defeat and go all in.

Dealing with a moth infestation is not for the faint-hearted. Every possible object moths might enjoy has to be detoxed, including cushions, carpets, children’s soft toys, furs, feathers, even animal bristles in brushes. In my case, while I took my clothes to a dry cleaner – and, yes, the cost was upwards of a thousand pounds – the majority of infected items were put in a sealed tent in our upstairs converted attic and zapped in a job lot.

As the fumigators went to work in their hazmat suits, the scene felt unnervingly like a TV thriller – my home now a contagion zone.

I don’t remember how long the toxic bubble was left to do its work, but the whole house had to be industrially cleaned as well: cornices and crevices had to be vacuumed; any unwelcome visitors in the floorboards were suctioned out; clothes were washed on high temperatures; and furniture moved away from walls so expert cleaners could get to the skirting boards that might house larvae.

The thing about a dramatic infestation is that you suffer a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. Getting rid of them is such a difficult, expensive and thoroughly unpleasant business that any possibility of having to do it again becomes one of life’s dreads.

This year the mild weather is thought to have led to an increase in the pests. Tineola bisselliella, the common clothes moth, only lives for a month or so but it is capable of laying up to 50 eggs during that time. The insects are most active between May and October, although looking at the number of them currently stuck to sticky pheromone traps in my current house, they clearly don’t adhere to a rigid timetable.

One of the reasons they like cupboards and drawers is that they thrive in the dark, so leaving wardrobes open should offer a slight deterrent. But the truth is that moths are tenacious and the increasingly large and lucrative industry that has grown up to deal with them is relatively toothless.

I have to confess that after our traumatic experience – and our tireless effort to remove them – we moved house.

I understand the Notting Hill couple’s court case is centred around whether the previous owners should have owned up to a moth problem when the sale was going through and the solicitor’s report asked if there had been any previous vermin infestation.

I’m pretty sure that when I sold my house I didn’t tick that box either. I would have assumed that I’d done as much as possible to get rid of them, but also wouldn’t have considered them vermin.

Now, though, I’m wondering what I should do when I think of selling this house. The moths are as under control as they could possibly be, but the mice droppings I have discovered? Now that’s another story . . .

Found a hole? Here’s how to fight back…

Stuart Hine, former head of the Natural History Museum’s Insect Identification Service, tells Rachel Halliwell how to deal with moths.

• Freeze out the interlopers: Washing clothes at high temperatures will kill off moths, eggs and larvae – but freezing is an alternative. Pop items in a sealed bag in the freezer; after three days they’ll all be dead. Dry cleaning works, too.

• Bag, seal and always put away clean: Storing woollens in vacuum-sealed bags will avoid them being attacked afresh.

• Sweet smelling deterrents: Hanging cedar wood balls and lavender bags in your wardrobe doesn’t kill moths – but it is effective in keeping them out.

• Get the vacuum cleaner out: A thorough clean is key to breaking the breeding and feeding cycle. Empty the bag or wash out the cylinder afterwards, vacuum wardrobe floor and shake out your un-bagged clothes each month.

• Take the males out of circulation: Pheromone traps entice male moths onto a sticky board, hopefully before mating with the females.

•  Use chemical sprays: Fly spray also kills moths, but, if all else fails, call in pest control who have chemical products to deal with infestations.

• Use chemical sprays: Fly spray also kills moths, but, if all else fails, call in pest control who have chemical products to deal with infestations.