The larva is a little grub-like caterpillar and lives on dry plant and animal debris, where it spins itself a small silken hideout.

In addition to this case of mistaken identity, the white-shouldered house moth as discussed by Hübner had actually been named Tinea lactella by J. N. C. M. Denis and Ignaz Schiffermüller in 1775.

Earlier still, Carl Linnaeus had described the white-shouldered house moth as Phalaena (Tinea) sarcitrella in 1758, but neither Denis and Schiffermüller nor Hübner did remember it.

Thus, the taxon T. lactella (though not the white-shouldered house moth species as a whole) was not included in Endrosis at the genus' inception, and such a change of type species can only be made by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature – it is not permitted in the rules of zoological nomenclature to prevent the confusion and misinterpretations of scientific names that was frequent before the early 20th century.

With reports of the species accumulating from all over the world, it was eventually realized that this moth must have tagged along Homo sapiens and spread with human habitation since prehistoric times.