[Academic]

We've got pantry moths - everywhere. Mostly in the pantry, but actually all over the house. I can see little egg clumps in the cornices, and weevils crawling around the ceiling .

This afternoon I threw out half of our food - some unopened, but they got in there somehow. I washed every inch of the cupboards like a mad person, and rubbed eucalyptus oil on everything. Cleaned every single can and bottle before putting it back. Sterilised all of the big glass jars I store food in for this very reason (they got into some of those, even).

What do I do now? Are there any foolproof ways of getting rid of them for good? Should I get insect bombs to clear them out of the rest of the house, or is there a better way? I hate using poisons, but I don't want them to get straight back in all the food!

[namie]

You've done everything right. As long as you've removed all you can see you're on the right track.
To help prevent them you can put dry ingredients, like bags of flour, in the fridge for 24 hours and this is supposed to kill of any eggs that may be inside.

Now is the time to invest in some airtight containers to store all your dry ingredients. All of them.
I went with Tupperware after we had a rather awful infestation of them, but any containers will do as long as they're airtight.
Mine came back again a year later, but I'd relaxed the storage of some flours and also bought in a large bag of bread flour which is potentially how they came back. I bought more containers for all the extra items I'd started keeping. You really need to keep things airtight.

One of the essential oils is good for helping keep pantry moths at bay and you can just wipe it over shelves but I can't remember which one. Google pantry moths and you should be able to find out easily enough.

This post has been edited by namie: 05/02/2013, 11:15 PM

[Paddlepop]

We had an infestation once. Had to throw out practically everything in those cupboards and clean really thoroughly. It turned out that our local supermarket was infested with them and we very carefully checked anything that we bought from there. Also, get some pantry moth traps from the supermarket. They seem to work well.

These past threads on EB should help:
Pantry Moth Invasion
It's War: Death to all pantry moths

[jakelab]

Yuck, we have had these in our pantry on a few occasions and have found that the best thing to use are the moth traps. You can buy them at the supermarket and you just set them up and place them on the shelves in the pantry. The moths are attracted to them and they get trapped in the sticky stuff inside the trap. Very effective.

This post has been edited by jakelab: 05/02/2013, 11:23 PM

[buttercup-bob]

Omg we had them the other week as well. Found them the night before we went on holidays... Aggh. Few traps from the shop to start controlling them while we were away then when we got home DH and I went through every single packet and container and wiped out everything. Not fun.
Looks like they are gone now but still was a nasty experience. I think mine came in from something on a supermarket I don't normally shop at.

Good luck!

[SeaPrincess]

Pantry Moth traps.

Airtight containers for everything.

The main thing I've noticed them in is bread crumbs, but I've seen them in unopened rice and pasta, and they absolutely LOVE breakfast cereals.

[wenchwitch]

We had the problem for a few months and tried everything. I caved and tried a weird solution but it worked.

Elastic bands. Lots of them. I sealers all of the bags with them and left lots lying around in the cupboard. No idea why as the little frickers could get in jars and completely sealed containers. For some reason they hate elastic and they all died never to be seen again. That was about seven years ago and I still don't jar of close flour bags I loselt put an elastic NAND around. Twice since I have opened flour or oats and found a couple of dead ones within but these are new ones and the bands kill them. Old wives tale but man bands did what moth traps etc totally failed at.

It's ok you can thank me later

[sweetcookies]

The larvae is already in the flour well before we get it given the right conditions they change into weevils.

When weevils appear in flour after only a few weeks after purchase means it was milled at least half a year ago and is old stock.

After a few invasions I keep my flour, rice and some dry goods in the freezer and use pantry moth traps and this has worked well.

Leaving flour in the pantry too long will encourage pest infestation. The faster it is used, the fresher it is, and the fewer the chances for infestation. Purchase only the amounts of flour that you'll use within a month or two.

Bay leaves are another good item to sprinkle round your shelves

Don't throw contaminated food away in the kitchen. Throw it outside, or else your problem may come back.

Also try not to store dry pet food in the same cupboard/place as human food as dry pet food carries a huge amount of weevils.

Goodluck

[Kitty Fantastico]

We had the problem for a few months and tried everything. I caved and tried a weird solution but it worked.

Elastic bands. Lots of them. I sealers all of the bags with them and left lots lying around in the cupboard. No idea why as the little frickers could get in jars and completely sealed containers. For some reason they hate elastic and they all died never to be seen again. That was about seven years ago and I still don't jar of close flour bags I loselt put an elastic NAND around. Twice since I have opened flour or oats and found a couple of dead ones within but these are new ones and the bands kill them. Old wives tale but man bands did what moth traps etc totally failed at.

It's ok you can thank me later

Elastic bands like rubber bands? That's interesting because I seal most of my packets with rubber bands and haven't really had any bug problems. Maybe there is some truth to it?

[hell kitty]

Moths/weevils etc are often in the food you buy from the supermarket. I once had a pack of unopened baby rusks (bought them but DD didn't like them), just left them in the cupboard, a few months later noticed there were things crawling inside the sealed packages.