Getting rid of kitchen moths

[DawnM]

We have never been able to successfully get rid of them! We have used traps, put various things in the cupboards (mint, etc...) and they just keep coming back.

We even cleared out all the shelves once and sprayed them with indoor pest spray.

We now keep our cereals and grains in the fridge or freezer, which takes up a lot of room but I really don't know what else to do.

Suggestions?

Dawn

 

[TaraPA]

If they're the meal moths (might be called Indian Mealy Worm/moth) then you'l have to get an exterminator. If it's just a common indoor/outdoor household moth I'm not sure.

We had the mealy moths one year - they started to make nests in our clothing & fabrics, as well as invade our grains, flours, etc. You could see the webbing in the closets & on the furniture. We tried everything before calling & paying the exterminator & he said they lay thousands of eggs a time & are almost impossible to "keep up with."

Ours came from a ristra (I think that's the word) - a string of dried out red peppers that I brought home from New Mexico & hung as a decoration in my kitchen.

Good luck!

 

[Leader of the Club]

I've had great luck using Pantry Pest traps. Ace Hardware-type stores usually have them. I've coupled those with the very, very ugly gross old fashioned stickey fly strips that hang from the ceiling with great success.

 

[DawnM]

Yeah, we use those. They don't eliminate the problem, they just seem to lessen it a bit.

dawn

I've had great luck using Pantry Pest traps. Ace Hardware-type stores usually have them. I've coupled those with the very, very ugly gross old fashioned stickey fly strips that hang from the ceiling with great success.

 

[DawnM]

Yes, they are the moths you are descibing.


Can you tell me how much you had to pay for them to come out? Do you know what kind of poison they used? Did you have to put away all your food in order to do it? Did it leave a film in your kitchen?

Thanks,

Dawn

If they're the meal moths (might be called Indian Mealy Worm/moth) then you'l have to get an exterminator. If it's just a common indoor/outdoor household moth I'm not sure.

We had the mealy moths one year - they started to make nests in our clothing & fabrics, as well as invade our grains, flours, etc. You could see the webbing in the closets & on the furniture. We tried everything before calling & paying the exterminator & he said they lay thousands of eggs a time & are almost impossible to "keep up with."

Ours came from a ristra (I think that's the word) - a string of dried out red peppers that I brought home from New Mexico & hung as a decoration in my kitchen.

Good luck!

 

[sherry7]

I had these about 10 years ago, and they're nearly impossible to get rid of.

First of all, make sure that your food storage area is not humid. Repackage boxed stuff (cereal, pasta, rice, cake mix, crackers, etc) in plastic containers (Lock & Lock containers are the absolute best...available on Amazon, QVC, etc). Don't stock up on boxed stuff...you'll just worsen the problem. Buy it weekly, and only what you can use up in a week.

Sadly, I had to end up throwing out about $400 dollars of boxed food. All of it was infested, with webs, eggs, and/or bugs in the boxes. I had about 200 cans of various things...and there were eggs under the paper labels. I kept those, but stripped off the labels (mark them with permanent marker instead), and washed them all in hot soapy water.

I even had eggs under the lids of jars in the pantry, and under the lids of my spices. All of that had to be thrown out as well.

It took me over a year to get rid of them, and my problem didn't truly end until I ended up throwing out nearly all of my boxed foods.

Oh...and I still won't buy or eat Rice-a-Roni to this day. Let's just say that the rice is not supposed to crawl. Ewww!!!!

 

[Mickey527]

those moths are wo9rse than any other bug I have ever had in my house: (ants and spiders). I have seen an ocassional little pest in the flour even with it being in a tupperware container but they have never gotten out, I think they came with the flour.
My son bought a 50 lb bag of sunflower seeds for his parakeet and the moths hatched from the seed bag. I had them everywhere. they even made little nests on the basement ceiling which is stucco.
Mine finally went away during the winter last year. I don't have the heat up higher than 65 so I guess they couldn't take the cold. So far (knock on wood) I haven't seen any.
I think you may have to call an exterminator if they are that bad.

 

[tkitty]

I also had a pantry infestation. I had to throw pretty much every thing out that was in the pantry. I had tried various things, even stinky moth balls. But still had to get everything out, cleaned the pantry out with bleach solution, and start new. Anytime I see one of those small moths, I panic!

 

[TaraPA]

Yes, they are the moths you are descibing.


Can you tell me how much you had to pay for them to come out? Do you know what kind of poison they used? Did you have to put away all your food in order to do it? Did it leave a film in your kitchen?

Thanks,

Dawn

I don't rememebr what they used, but I don't remember having to clean up a mess. We did have to get rid of most of our pantry items though. They told us they could tell they were from the dried peppers from New Mexico, however they are most often brought into the home in dry pet food, rice & flour products. It was around $125 for the extermination, that was 15 years ago. They said they are nearly impossible to get rid of on your own, because the over-the-counter traps & pesticides kill the moth, but they have already laid hundreds of thousands of eggs all over the house, which are not killed by the poison. It's really gross when you think about it!

I think it might be time to call the exterminator, before they get into your clothing & furniture fabrics like ours did. We lost a lot of clothing & had holes eaten through the sofas from them.

 

[cvjw]

We had them, and were able to get rid of them ourselves. I just had to work very hard and keep a constant watch on the pantry for the little webs and immediately throw out any container which had them. If you are diligent, and keep a watch for signs of any new moths, and throw out things that are contaminated, you will eventually get rid of them. It took a long time before mine were gone. I still check every bag of rice that I buy for little holes. If you see the little holes in the plastic, there are probably webs in the rice. I just took a bag back to Kroger not too long ago because I saw the webs in the bag===YUCK!

 

[taitai]

We had them one year and it was awful. I heard they are very common in bulk food. So, I stopped buying any bulk grains or candy or anything from the bulk food bins at Whole Foods. We still buy huge bags of rice (30lbs) but I keep that in the garage in a huge plastic bin from Target. I only bring into the house what we need for a week and keep that in a tightly sealed storage container.

The only way we were able to rid our lives of them was to throw pretty much every single thing away and then bleach wash the cabinets and start fresh.

Nasty.

 

[decaff38]

I had them one year. I threw out all the grain things. Ialso found them in my spices. That was expensive! I found a tip to put bay leaves on the shelves in the pantry and cupboards and they went away. They must not like bay leaves.
They have not come back in 3 years.

 

[momxx5]

I "despise" those stupid moths!!!

I think we've had them twice in this house and the are near impossible to get rid of. One thing to keep in mind is that they lay eggs and the larvae(sp?) can live up to 180 days. So while you think you may be done with then almost 6 months later a whole new round start. The eggs/larvae are hard to find....hinding in between the shelves, under cabinets, etc.

The most effective way that I have found is to throw away almost all the current food in the house. They often enter the home via rice, flour, cereal or most commonly via dry pet food bags.
So I get a huge garbage bag and dup it all. (sad I know). Then wait a few days before bringing any new foods into the house. Once you feel that they are no longer a threat....remember to check every cabinet where food, spices, dishes, tupperware, glassware, under sink, laundry area, and area around lighting, then PAINT the pantry. The new paint sealed the walls and the fumes didn't allow the eggs to survive. Wiping down the cupboards with Lysol cleaner also helped. But the painting is what finally stopped the cycle here.

I am sorry and I would not wish this on my worst enemy.
Good luck.

 

[yakkin' yeti]

We had cupboard moths last summer. Had to go through the ritual of throwing out all the grains and cereals (even the unopened ones), washed the all the shelves with warm water and bleach, and used a pesticide spray when the bleach didn't take care of everything. (Obviously, you want to be sure there's no food in the pantry before you spray.) It was a pain, but we eventually got on top of it. Hang in there! This too shall pass.

 

[buzz2400]

We have those too. I never knew what they were called. We thought they came from my parrot's food. They would get into the dry cat food and I would be feeding it to the cats and not knowing there were worms in them. I know only keep a few bags around in the closet and the parrot's food goes into a tupperware case. I go around all the time killing the moths and I think we have it under some kind of control. My cats think I am crazy because I will go around trying to kill them with my hands by clapping. I hate these moths.

 

[DawnM]

Thanks. This is a royal pain.

They love the glue on the boxes (like the zip lock boxes) and live in there if I don't have food in the pantry.

We will bug bomb when we leave July 1st and then I will do some major cleaning when we get back. Winter seems to be the worst.

Dawn

 

[michellejed]

Ours came in the birds food and invaded the aviary! Little worms every place you looked but we never had them in our pantry!

We would find little cocoons all over the house and fought for almost 2 years to get rid of them(we didn't realize they came in the bird food at first.)

Now I repackage the food when I buy it to make sure the darn things are not in it!!

We also went around with fly swatters to kill them and eventually had to throw out the huge aviary we had because they infested the wood (they were pretty much contained in the aviary instead of a pantry like most of you had.)

Sorry you got these darn things, some one should send a bill to the stores who sell the infested food!!!!