Moths in the kitchen?

[kdabbler]

The last two weeks, we've been seeing quite a few moths. Mostly hanging out in the kitchen. What could they be and why are so many in the kitchen?

I caught around 4 or 5 last night when I left out my wine glass (had some wine still in it) overnight.

Should I be concerned? They seem to want to hang out in my food pantry area.

[Picturesque]

: I have the same thing. Don't know anything about it, though.

[4evermom]

Yeah, they probably hatched out of a bag of something (grains). Get everything into sealed containers (preferably clear glass so you can see what they are hanging out in and you might not have to throw out everything) and vacuum up any onion skins and the like. I think they are fond of unpopped pop corn, but will eat pasta and rice sorts of things as well.

[Abarat]

I know you may not want to hear this, but we had this problem a couple years ago. I found most of them hanging around in the pantry, we'd kill a couple in there everyday.

What we had to do was take everything out of the pantry and wipe it down and inspect all of the food, and I mean all of it. Anything in plastic bags or flimsy wrapping usually had to be trashed because they ate straight through. Even glass jars.....they could somehow get up in the threading for the lid fitting and lay eggs in there too.

After we got rid of the 'infected' food and cleaned out the pantry I hung some sachets in there with herbs to help repel moths....can't remember exactly what but I'm sure you can google herbs good for that.

It always helps to stick grains and beans in the freezer for a week or two to help kill anything that may be hitching a ride to your home. I've been doing that too after a grain bug invasion.

Good luck!

[Ideesmom]

This has just happend to me in the past few weeks. I had to remove everything from the pantry. and scrubed it down. It was out of control. I had to trash about 2 garbage bags of stuff. All the pasta and the like. It was a blessing in disguise. My pantry looks a lot better now.I still find about 1 or 2 a day. I would love to know what sort of herbs I could hang in the pantry to deter this. If anyone finds out PLEASE let me know.

[WildIris]

Ditto what the PPs said. Clean everything, go through everything, especially pasta, grains, flours, rice. It's good to keep flour in the freezer to prevent this problem down the road. Also, certain moths love chocolate and nuts, so check any of those you may have in the pantry. Especially combinations of chocolates and nuts, they love that and will eat it and lay eggs and reproduce. Ick.

[kdabbler]

Thanks ladies.

We live in an old house. The pantry is one of the falling-apart-unfinished-areas of the house. We just don't have the energy or funds at the moment to rip what's left of the cabinets out and replaster the walls

So here is my plan:

• Remove everything and clean, clean, clean
• Carefully inspect and package in ziplocs all suspected food stuffs.
• Place all these items into the freezer for a 3 weeks in, 1 week out rotation 2 x
• Swing by Marshalls during lunch to see if they have any storage containers that would be cheaper than what Target has
• Put on upper shelves a mix of corn meal and boric acid as bait
• Find source for bay leaves, penny royal or maybe give rosemary and lemon verbena a try as the last two are what I have in my garden
• Pray I don't need to throw away everything :

[Sara Badger]

Do you have quaker oats in your kitchen? Last year we had this and it was from a batch that was recalled. We had no idea till we looked it up on the internet!! We were told that it happens often and that since they sit for so long at different places it's hard to know when they get contamiated. We use to buy the big bags from costco we now get our oats through a co-op without a problem.

[mamallama]

Just so you know, pantry moths will eat through zip-lock bags. I found out the hard way :

We cleaned, threw out food, started storing grains & pasta in the deep freezer, and we still have moths. Now we're using a pheromone baited sticky trap. Dh bought it at Worm's Way.

[Abarat]

Originally Posted by Ideesmom

I would love to know what sort of herbs I could hang in the pantry to deter this. If anyone finds out PLEASE let me know.

I looked it up, here are a few to repel moths, and more info here: http://www.homegrowntexas.com/issues...c03/index.html

Lavender, mugwort, sage I think are the ones that we used.

[Ideesmom]

Lavender, mugwort, sage I think are the ones that we used.[/QUOTE]

Is it best to find these herbs fresh and hang the "to dry" in the top of the pantry?

[mamadelbosque]

Thats what happend to me last year with ALL of my grains and beans and such... it was all in ziploc bags and they ALL had holes where the bugs had chewed through them! Twas gross. I ended up having to chuck tons of stuff... Now they're all in mason jars, and so far, so good.

[PapayaMom]

they really can get into everything and chew through everything. You will most likely have to throw away a lot when their favorite foods are gone they will go to cocoa, flour crevices in the cabinets. We bought some hormone traps at Lowes that they are attracted to when they are adults and it is really disgusting to see how many it has caught. Good luck, pantry moths are really terrible little buggers.

[poppyseed]

I have had terrible problems with moths in the pantry, they seem to lay eggs in the dried food (flour, couscous, rice, even in the nuts) and putting these things in plastic sealed bags did not seem to help, as the moths just chewed right through the bags. I now keep everything in big glass jars with rubber seals, and that has finally helped the situation.

[Taryn237]

I was just coming to post this.... I spent the last hour throwing away 75% of the stuff in my pantry due to a major infestation. We had this problem at our last apt. and I checked all the food that moved with us but wonder if something was infected and I didn't realize it. I think I'm going to have a lifetime grain aversion after all this.

YUCK!

I threw away everything that even had the little buggers on the outside. I kept a few boxes of pasta but will tupperware them I think and check often. I think I'm also going to Loew's to buy those traps a PP mentioned.

Also check around your ceiling...... I found a small insect nest looking thing which could be the moths or something else.

[EFmom]

These are most likely Indian meal moths.

I've had them a few times. I've had zero luck using herbal remedies or repellants. I found cocoons laid on bay leaves.

The only thing that did it for me was to throw out just about everything, scrub the pantry within an inch of it's life, including removing all the shelves, because they lay eggs in the cracks, wait a few weeks, lather, rinse and repeat a couple of times, while storing no food that can't go into the fridge.

These little visitors can even lay eggs under the paper labels of cans. While they won't chew their way into cans, they will hatch out and reinfest your pantry. Once I thought I'd gotten rid of them only to find they'd laid eggs on some dried flowers in an upstairs room.

[Abarat]

Originally Posted by Ideesmom

Lavender, mugwort, sage I think are the ones that we used.

Is it best to find these herbs fresh and hang the "to dry" in the top of the pantry?[/QUOTE]

What I did was use the herbs already dried, piled them in the middle of a cloth square and tied the corners together to make a sachet and just hung them from the shelves in the pantry with some yarn. Just used what we had around.

Of course you want to be sure you've gone through everything and pitched infested foods. And any dried beans, grains, flours, etc. should probably be frozen for a week or two just in case, then returned to the pantry. Everyone's had great advice about cleaning the pantry out. You never can be too careful.

[SusannahM]

We had them too and just had to throw out everything they were into and scrub the pantry. We also vacuumed them up anywhere else we found them then emptied and scrubbed the vacuum canister. We think they came in with some pecans we gathered. We are *so* freezing any future pecans we gather before putting them up for storage.

[Katie Bugs Mama]

Ugg. We have the same problem every couple of years. I agree with the PP's that you are going to have to bite the bullet and get rid of everything that could possible be infested. It sucks, but there isn't much of an alternative. After that heart-wrenching process, I use these traps to kill any remaining ones that I missed. The traps are non-toxic, easy to use, and waaaaaaaay more efficient than my previous method of running wildly around the kitchen chasing the little buggers.