The mystery of the musical moths

[ladyofastolat]

Some 15 years ago, we bought a piano. Very soon after we bought it, an blanket of caterpillars appeared on its surface, followed by battalions of moths. We reported this to the piano vendor, who denied ever having seen a caterpillar or moth in his entire life. There was no possibility that the infestation could have originated in his warehouse, and the piano was definitely caterpillar-free when we bought it. To be honest, we doubted this, but what can you do? I hate killing things just because they're inconvenient, but we really didn't want armies of moths in our house, possibly eating clothes, carpet, curtains and cat. We put moth balls inside the piano, and the armies slowly dwindled. No caterpillars or moths were seen for years, and the whole affair was almost forgotten.

But nothing is forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten. A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were a lot of small dead moths on the carpet underneath the piano. I hoovered them up, but by the next day, they were back again. They are all concentrated in a square foot of visible carpet, next to one end of the piano. A few small moths have been spotted flapping around the house, but most of them are evident only by their corpses.

Are they the same colony? 15 years ago, when we thought we'd beaten them, had we just driven them deep within the piano, where they have spent 15 years digging a vast underground metropolis and perfecting their revenge? Are there whole moth generations reared on tales of the cruelties of the two-legged masters of the plinky-plonk keys? Admittedly, it's not a particularly impressive revenge thus far, since it appears to consist of emerging from beneath the piano and keeling over within a few inches, but it's early days yet. Will their masterminds learn from the failures of the first wave, and tweak their tactics accordingly? What dread fate is being prepared for us?

I know we ought to move the piano and look beneath it, but I'm scared to.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

You need to get to the source, I'm afraid. We started getting the more than occasional housefly buzzing around, but after ineffectually chasing them down individually, I didn't solve the problem until I discovered that the ones I saw were just outliers from an appallingly large colony descended from someone who'd gotten in through the patio door and were now living along the baseboards there. I stomped those all out and that solved the problem.

I presume from the description that your piano is an upright. We once acquired an old school piano and fortunately had no problems; when we inherited B's mother's piano and passed along the old one to a FoaF, she didn't ask whether it was infected either, though from your story it sounds like a good thing to check for, even if the answer is, as it was in your case, an incorrect "no".

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

malaheed and I would just like to know more about how you drove them underground for 15 years. We'd settle for that.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

This definitely sounds like the sequel to a movie, in which the last scene in the first film was that lingering shot of one secret and hidden egg...

:-ooooo

[leesa_perrie]

What bunn says *nods head*

[learnsslowly.livejournal.com]

My cousin's small daughter believed for several years that all pianos arrived equipped with a mouse, to her great delight. We seem to have a plague of moths this year too though. They're all over the house, not particularly hanging about the piano, and seem in fine fettle mostly.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

As a suggestion - throw in a few more mothballs and let them work for a week and THEN investigate.