I have pantry moths.

[wildeyed]

Will I need to nuke the kitchen to get rid of them? x(

[hippywife]

1. You have

my condolences. I had them very bad one year and it drove me nuts! I saw one the other day and killed it immediately. I'm hoping, probably against hope, that there aren't anymore.

[likesmountains 52]

2. what are they?

[Tab]

10. These little white/grey moths that are nearly invisible until they fly around

They like to tuck themselves into little crevices (in my experience) and it's hard to find them, but if you've got one you've got a bunch.



I'm lucky at this house, but at my old brick house (I think it was) the damned things were constant.

[housewolf]

3. There's a trap that you can buy at Home Depot or feed stores

it's just a small, odorless rectangular box that you hide in whatever cabinets have the moths, then replace it periodically. It takes several months, but you can eventually get rid of them.

Other people say to toss all of your grain-based items, clean the cabinets thoroughlly, then store all new grain-based products in the freezer. To keep from getting them in the first place, it's recommended that you store all new grain-stuff in the freezer for 6 weeks (kills any larvae) before putting it in the cabinet.

I've fought with them for a long time and found that culling the cabinets of anything that's kind of old and using the traps to be effective, but it takes a while. It kinda depends on how bad an infestation you have and how long you've had it. Look for anything in your cabinet with sort of a webby-film in it, that's a sure sign of something that should be tossed. They are a pain, take it from me, but I've cleared 2 places of them.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Indian Meal Moths - they're ***awful***. We had them maybe eight or ten years ago.

Took us a year to get completely rid of them. We have a monthly pest service, and even with that, they were very hard to get rid of.

Yeah, we hadda nuke the kitchen.

[grasswire]

5. the pheremone moth traps work...

...but you have to be diligent about replacing them and you have to start out with clean cupboards -- spices must go, too. I think there's an old thread here somewhere about them.

[mtnester]

6. All of my pantry goods that are grain based go into different containers that are glass

plastic just does not work the same. I do not work with large volumes of flour (like 25# bags) so I can see that being an issue.

One thing, I have never had them get in the rice. Only grind, and that includes spices like ground red pepper.

You can sift and use bleach to clean, but you have to stay at it.

[hippywife]

7. I found some

live rice in my bag of Riceland brown rice last week. The bag had a twist tie on it and was in a Rubbermaid screw top container, and it hadn't been in the house long at all. Eeek! So far I haven't found anything else affected by them yet. Still watching. :eyes:

[Warpy]

8. You do need to cull your pantry

and eliminate any dry stuff in bags or boxes. The moths make small holes in bags and use the cracks in boxes to lay their eggs. The larvae then migrate into the food. You won't want to eat that food, trust me, because it will be filled with larvae, pupae and webs.

Keep the dry stuff somewhere else for the duration because they also lay eggs in cracks in the cabinet. A microscopic crack is an open barn door to them.

Keeping dry stuff in jars with screw tops isn't a total fix because they manage to get through the threads, but it can help. Canning jars with rubber seals are preferable. Nothing gets through those.

This is a serious infestation and it might take some time to get rid of it completely.

Been there, done it, didn't have access to pheromone traps and refused to use bug spray but managed to get rid of the little monsters over about 6 months.

[ginnyinWI]

9. clean out all your food storage areas.

Take everything out of the cupboards and wipe down the shelves with some kind of cleaner. Seal everything in plastic or glass containers, especially grain products. They don't seem to like sugar, but love flour and rice or an opened box of cornstarch. Everything needs to be ziplocked somehow. Or you can put a bag of flour in the freezer.

Then try to figure out where they are coming from. They usually come in with a bag of flour or something like that. Even look at any bags of cat or dog food you might have. But the #1 source of meal moths is birdseed. That's where our last infestation came from. It stays in the garage from now on in a plastic bin with a lid!

[Warpy]

11. Birdseed gave me a wool moth infestation

I lost six handwoven rugs including one rya rug that had taken me months to weave plus a ton of woolen yarn.

It was a very expensive lesson on not keeping birdseed anywhere in the house.

[kestrel91316]

13. Several years ago a friend gave me an opened bag of bird seed, and I

naively stored it in the kitchen. It took a year to clear up the resulting pantry moth infestation. And yes, they got into some spices and some ziploc bags of grains/flours. The larvae can chew through plastic.

I finally had to spray some kitchen-safe pest spray one time in the cupboards (emptied of foods, of course) to get the remnants killed - they hung on and hung on in spite of my extremely aggressive cleaning.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. Pantry Pest brand pheromone traps, and plenty of cleaning.

Just as all of the other posters said, this is the best way to get rid of them. Check all boxed pasta and grains too -- I've had them introduced via boxed pasta.
Anything with a spider-webbing sort of thing in it is a goner --just toss it.