OT: mysterious holes in cotton clothes

For the 2nd time in a couple weeks, I find lots of mysterious holes in my kids' clothes. In both of these cases, most of the holes are both up front close to the necklines.. but there some on the sleeves, etc. These are definitely not from wear & tear or thinning fabric. This has happened before, even with a brand new school t-shirt that I bought after one wash. On other clothes as well. They look like moth holes on wool, but these are all 100% cotton. Except one incident involves a nice thick all acrylic sweater but that's like 10 years ago (maybe that one was actually wool and mislabelled.. haha).

I did search online a bit, it seems this actually is quite common, but can't find a definitive answer... varies from crickets/insects to acids, or vegan moth (hehe). Some even suggest detergent since they usually mysterious appear after a wash in the wash machine/dryer. At first i thought maybe snags from zippers or something, but these are highly concentrated cluster of holes. I ruled out detergent as I've used various brands over the years, but the more I think about it maybe the detergent is a catalyst?

Have any of you experienced this? Any one know of the root cause? I'm baffled.. Is my house being invaded by some little known bugs, maybe this will be the next big headline since bed bugs...???

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15 years ago

Barbara

Veteran

That's very strange! Because of the neatness of the edges, those holes appear to be cuts. I can't think of any insect that chows down on cotton, though.

Sparky

I agree with Barbara; those don't look like holes created by bugs or moths. Is there any chance these clothes get caught on something in the dryer? On occasion I have had a piece of clothing get caught on the dryer door interior latch, causing a small hole.

Oh, and how old are your kids? And chance they are creating edgier clothes by using scissors? Something I could see my kids doing.

LOL Sparky, when my son was a little rascal, mysterious holes would appear in his shirts and jeans quite often He had the most creative ways of destroying stuff.

Anonymous

Do you have a puppy, kitten, or ferret or other small creature with sharp teeth or nails?
Actually I've had a similar problem and concluded that it was adding laundry detergent to the washer with clothing as it was filling rather than to the water to dillute it first, if that makes sense. The newer detergents are super concentrated, too much so for fabrics at full strength. Diluting or dissolving the detergent first seems to have solved the problem for me.

Kate

I know my boyfriend has some cotton clothes that have been attacked by the kitties, and after a couple rounds through the wash they look like the picture. Do you have any pets, or have the kids been playing at the house of friends who have pets?

(website)

Zippers! Zip up all pants and sweatshirts before putting them in the wash. They eat cotton like nobody's business.

cloud9

no, they don't quite look as evenly cut up close. They really do look like moth holes on wool items. And no, kids are not cutting them. No kittens, dogs, animals (except goldfish). Zippers is my first suspect, but I'm pretty sure I tried a load without pants and still had holey shirts. Too heavy detergent may be, but I always dissolve detergent first then add in clothes. But DH does laundry sometimes, I have to pay attention to see there is a correlation there.

Speaking of kids destroying stuff, my son (when he was 5-6ish), was very capable of putting holes in the knee within a month (like 4-5 wears), and wear a hole in ONE shoe at where front toe meets the sole in a month as well. Sigh.

Steph

Carpet beetles, firebrats and silverfish are known to eat cotton, so it could be one of those insects. (OT, but I would take holes in my clothes any day over bed bugs, of which I am terrified.)

mumtojessandluke

Active Member

I read this today on a similar topic and thought you might like to read it too. It was contributed to the cheapskates web site by Georgina Richard. Hope it helps.

It's time to think about changing to summer mode with clothing, bed linen and soft furnishings. My great aunt worked for a member of the royal family and cared for her clothes, and taught me many tricks. One of the most important is - never, ever store anything unless it's perfectly clean. Moths adore used wool and the holes appear very quickly, and they also attack cotton and other fibres. Also, a garment might look clean but if you store it without proper treatment, any stains will be visible and permanent after a few months. I always wash every blanket and quilt before storing in vacuum bags or plastic containers. I put heaps of bay leaves and peppercorns in with them but you can use mothballs. Then the most important thing is to seal the edges so insects can't get in. A few rows of parcel tape around the lids of the box will potentially save hundreds of dollars. It can take a while to wash, dry and store everything but i! t's always worth it the following winter. I have a pure wool Fletcher Jones skirt that was made in 1967, and I wear it every year. It's dry cleaned at the end of winter and stored in a sealed box and never lets me down. If you change your loose covers, cushion covers and curtains too, dry clean or wash them and they will come out as good as new next year. I stored my baby's christening shawl, used only at her baptism, without washing. The next year it came out again but the moths had feasted on it. It's the only thing I've ever stored badly and the only thing that's ever been nibbled.

yublocka

I had this happen to a quite thick cotton jumper (aka sweatshirt/sweater/whatever you guys call it). I don't have any pets, and I never found out what the culprit was. Just glad it didn't seem to happen again! Good luck tracking down the cause!!!

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